I drew back. The having such a face as his near me made me feel sick. Then, again, the atmosphere of his bunk was charged with a smell of spirits, and reminded me of the fumes which rose through the Childe Harold’s skylights that night we left her.
Mr. Bates, standing up, read aloud, in a solemn and emphatic manner, as follows:—
‘September 27, 1835, Samuel Rotch, mate of the barque Arab Chief, comes to me, Benjamin Nodder, carpenter of the said ship, then sitting in my berth forward, smoking a pipe, and asked me if I’d give that matter he’d talked to me afore on another thought. I says yes, and in consideration of his promises I was agreeable to help him, but he must contrive the job so artfully as to make sure I shouldn’t get into trouble. He answers that there could be no risks at all; him and me would be witnesses, and we would take some of the sailors into the lazarette to hear the water running in, and then carry them to Captain Butler’s berth, where we’d find the treenail auger, the sailors looking on. Captain Thomas Butler was master of the said barque Arab Chief. The understanding was this: If the plot answered and Rotch got command he was to use his interest and make me mate under him. He was likewise to pay me fifty pounds on our return to England. This money’s still a-owing: he was always putting off the payment with promises, and swore when we started that he’d tell down the money in Spanish dollars at Callao, to which port the Arab Chief was bound when she was burned. It was likewise agreed that I was to have the run of the spirits after we had confined Captain Butler to his cabin. Rotch told me that the punishment for scuttling a ship was light, not like the punishment for actually sinking of her. I didn’t suppose it would come to a term of transportation, or I swear by the blood of my heart I’d never have done it. It was to be a small punishment, Rotch says, that would put Butler out of the way for a spell—long enough to enable Rotch to get command and to give me a berth at good wages. I made the holes and plugged the inner skin, and Rotch hid the auger. It was all Rotch’s planning, and I helped. I’d have owned up several times when we were going home in the ship-of-war along with Captain Butler for the trial, but Rotch told me it was too late, that I’d already committed perjury before the Consul at Rio, and both him and me stood to be transported for life if I confessed. Captain Butler was nothing to me one way or the other; I never liked nor disliked him. Rotch, he hated the man; never said why. I allow he was ate up with jealousy; from his toes to his hair he was fired with it. I’ll make no excuses for myself. Drink was at bottom and not caring. I never reckoned it would have come to fourteen years’ transportation. I hope this here confession will clear Captain Butler’s character, and set him right again in the eyes of the world. And now, willing to sign this document in the presence of witnesses, I’ve got nothing more to say.’
Bates ceased to read.
‘Some one fill my pannikin,’ said Nodder. ‘Hearing that yarn over again’s taken it out of me.’
Bates pointed to a bottle; Will mixed a draught, and Nodder, sitting up, lifted the pannikin with both hands, trembling violently.
I had listened with a mad heart; recollection of what Tom had been made to suffer by that foul, drunken, hideous scoundrel rushed upon me. The villain had owned it was drink and not caring; he had done it for a promise of fifty pounds and the run of the rum casks and a mate’s berth at some hundred shillings a month! I could have torn the poisonous rat’s eyes out as he lay, and turned my back upon him to hide my face.
He threw the pannikin he had emptied on to the deck: and said: ‘Gi’ me hold of a pen whilst I’m setting up; it’ll be a bruisy queer scrawl. What music’s a-playing that these hands keep dancing?’ He looked at his fingers with a horrid grin.
Bates put the bunk-board on the fellow’s knees, and called to Will to hold the lamp close. My temper was under control again, and I looked at the man as he sat up in his bunk, fearing that even now he might cheat us by refusing to sign, though I supposed that, in any case, the confession made to Mr. Bates, and heard read aloud by us in Nodder’s presence, would be counted good evidence.
The man’s hand trembled so violently that twice or thrice he let fall the pen. ‘Hold my wrist,’ said he, with a vile oath. Helped by Mr. Bates, he scrawled his name; we then signed as witnesses, Bates leading, Collins ending with a cross; the date was added, the name of the brig, her situation at noon.