The Phantom Death, etc.

by William Clark Russell

“So did I,” said Captain Gordon. “You’ll remember, Venables, I asked you if you heard it?”

“We’ll find out who was at the wheel that night when the man jumped overboard,” exclaimed the mate.

“Pray go on with your notions, Mr. Barker,” said Captain Gordon. “I fancy you’ve hit the truth.”

“Why,” I continued, “suppose the thing preconcerted, and Rolt with a confederate amongst the crew; the whistle signalled all ready for the jump; a few silent strokes would bring the convict to the end of the main-brace, and the rest signified merely a hand-over-hand climb, with the mizzen-chains as a black hiding-place till the ship was silent. I take it that the man got round into the captain’s cabin window; he found it open, entered, and strangled the commander, who probably started up on the villain entering.”

“That’ll be it certainly, gentlemen,” said Mr. Barlow, looking from one to another of the officers. “The convict,” he continued, “found the cuddy empty, and made his way into the steerage. But he would need a plan of the ship in his head to hide himself. Who’s the scoundrel amongst the crew that helped him?”

At daybreak the boatswain and I went below into the steerage. We found the after-peak hatch-cover off, whence it was clear that the man had hidden in that part of the ship. We again thoroughly examined the hold, but we could not imagine how and where the man had secreted his square powerful form so as to completely baffle our first search. We found a large cask about a quarter full of ship’s bread. The head was off and lying near. The boatswain thought that the convict might have concealed himself in that cask, heading himself up in it; and to prove that this could be done he got in, holding the head, which he put on when he was inside. If this cask had been the convict’s hiding-place it is certain in our first search none of us had meddled with it, or beyond doubt we should have discovered him.

And now to end this strange yarn. Mr. Barlow found out that a seaman named Mogg was at the wheel on the night Rolt jumped overboard. The mate and I—indeed, all of us aft—were persuaded that whoever stood at the wheel at that time was the convict’s confederate, because the main-brace must have been dropped into the sea and belayed by some one, who, standing near, could fling the rope overboard swiftly over the side without being observed. Certainly the brace had not been long overboard when the whistle sounded; Mr. Barlow or myself would have noticed it, wondered at such an unusual piece of lubberliness, and ordered the thing to be hauled in and coiled down.

However, that Mogg was Rolt’s confederate was made almost certain a little later on when some of the crew came to Mr. Barlow and me to say they had heard Mogg speak of Rolt as his cousin. He was put into irons, but was dumb for a month, then, swearing that the memory of the murders lay as heavy on his soul as though he had committed them, he confessed that he had agreed with Rolt to help him to escape and hide in the after part of the ship, of which he gave him a plan. They had twenty different schemes. One had been this of the convict’s jumping overboard when Mogg was at the wheel and the main-brace over the side. The opportunity they awaited came with several marvellous conditions for successful execution of the stratagem when the doctor on a breathless night brought the prisoners up in batches to breathe. Mogg said he had passed Rolt on his way to the wheel, and settled everything in a few whispers, and the signal was to be a long, low whistle. It was then he had given him the knife out of his sheath. The intention of the convict, as we gathered from Mogg, was to kill all the officers but myself; I was to be left to navigate the ship. He and Mogg reckoned that when the crew and the soldiers found themselves without commanders they would become demoralized, and allow the convicts to seize the ship. The seaman denied that he had tampered with the falls of the starboard quarter-boat.

We handed Mogg over to the police on our arrival, and they sent him in a ship sailing immediately to take his trial in England.