“What’s his name?”
“He’s booked as John Howland, sir. He’s a steerage passenger. His cabin’s No. 2 on the starboard side. His meals are taken to him into his cabin, and I don’t think he’s ever been out of it since he came aboard.”
“Go and see if he’s in his cabin,” said the captain.
As the steward left the poop the chief mate, the boatswain, and carpenter returned.
“It’s as the young man states, sir,” said Mr. Morritt. “There’s a barrel of gunpowder stowed where he says it is, with a hole in the head ready to receive the end of a fuse.”
“Presently clear it out, and get it stowed away in the magazine,” said the captain, calmly. “This has been a narrow escape. Carpenter, go forward and bring a set of irons along. Is there only one barrel of gunpowder below, d’ye say, Mr. Morritt?”
“No more, sir.”
“How could such a thing find its way into the lazarette?” said the captain, addressing the second mate.
“God alone knows!” burst out the other. “It’ll have come aboard masked in some way, and it deceived me. Unless there’s the hand of a lumper in the job—does he know no more about it than what he says?” he cried, rounding upon me.
At this moment the steward came rushing from the companion way, and said to the captain, in a trembling voice, “The man lies dead in his bunk, sir, with his throat horribly cut.”