The women came off the forecastle, and I entered the cuddy. The steward told me to turn up the lights, and Captain Barrett and Lieutenant Chimmo, descending the companion-steps at that moment, called for brandy and seltzer, which I procured for them. The steward bade me be at hand; if there was a gale of wind in the storm, I, with the rest of the ‘idlers,’ would be wanted. I hung about in the recess, and all the time I wondered whether the convicts would rise in the morning, whether their friends amongst the crew were to be depended upon; whether this storm of thunder and lightning would work a change in the prisoners’ intentions by terrifying them; and I also strove to imagine the programme that had been concerted, what part the confederate seamen were to play; whether the guard would find time to arm and turn out, and if so, whether the uprising would not be suppressed by their coolness and discipline and by the support of the loyal part of the crew.
The storm was now overhead; the ship was clothed in lightning and the thunder was deafening and frightful. The whole fabric trembled to every explosion as though the broadside of a three-decker had been fired into her. There was no wind. The men had come from aloft, and the ship stood motionless and upright under her three topsails, the courses hanging festooned in their gear. I crouched in a corner of the recess, amazed and bewildered. I had always from a child been frightened of lightning, and here now was lightning that was like one vast sheet of flame; the heavens were sheeted with its blinding blaze; it was so continuous that you saw the ship as by sunshine; the whole vessel crackled with sparks and explosions, fireballs ran down the chain-topsail sheets, played about the pumps, sparkled and snapped on the boom-irons at the yardarms, and the sea that had been silent roared back in echo to the thunder and spread out in a wide field of blue light that came and went, sometimes showing in a leap of light that was as the flash that it mirrored, then blackening for a breath or two, during which you saw nothing but the fireballs running over the ship.
It rained and hailed suddenly with incredible fury. The decks smoked; by the lightning flashes you saw the spray of the cataractal fall rising like steam to above the height of a man. Just then the ship was struck; I heard a crash and splintering on high, and a great bulb of blue fire fell down the rigging over the side into the sea, where it burst like an exploded cannon. The mate overhead shouted, and the boatswain who was forward bawled in answer.
Captain Barrett and the subaltern stood at the cabin table; they had emptied their tumblers and put down their cigars, and looked pale and glanced often up at the skylight, into which the lightning streamed in an almost continuous living dazzle. I hung in the cuddy door for shelter from the smoking wet; a head showed in the booby-hatch and cried out: ‘The doctor wants some brandy; bring down half a tumblerful at once.’ I ran to the table, took a glass from a swing tray, and half filled it with brandy. The steward at that moment coming up through the steerage-hatch called to me: ‘Hi, you there! What are you about? Liquoring up unbeknown instead of being at your prayers?’
Lieutenant Chimmo grinned dismally.
‘The doctor’s in the barracks and wants brandy,’ said I.
‘Curse it, what’s wrong?’ exclaimed Captain Barrett, and instantly ran to the booby-hatch, followed by the subaltern.
‘Get on, then, get on!’ shouted Mr. Stiles, who had been drinking.
I ran with the brandy to the hatch, and seeing nobody to hand it to, descended. The scene of this interior of bulkheaded steerage was extraordinary; a lantern burnt dimly, its light was paled by the electric fires, which sparkled all over the prison bulkhead as though the wood was alive with the phosphoric lights of decay and rot. The bulkhead was studded with mushroom-headed nails, and every nail was tipped with fire. The sight was fearful; I thought the ship was burning. The women and the children were gathered in a heap in one corner, holding to one another, as though the vessel was about to founder; no child cried; the roar of the thunder seemed to have frightened the infants into silence.
A man lay on his back against the prison door, which was a little way open; the doctor bent over him and Captain Barrett and the subaltern stood close looking down. Such of the guard as were below were grouped with the women and children; they seemed dazed. The prostrate man was a soldier; doubtless the sentry stationed at the prison door. His musket, with its fixed bayonet, lay at a little distance from him, and I saw threads of fire writhing upon the bayonet.