As the dust cleared, I heard the swell-looking person cursing at the top of his voice; but I did not bother about this, for what was attracting my attention was the fact that there among the heavy timbers of the big case was a number of the missing bullion chests.
I seized my whistle and blew it for one of the ’prentices. When he came I told him to run up the quay for a policeman. Then I turned to the Captain and the Third Mate, who had come running ashore, and explained. They ran to the lorry on which the other cases had been placed and, with the help of some of the men, pulled them down again on to the quay. But when they came to look for the swell stranger who had been looking after the unloading of the stolen gold, he was nowhere to be found; so that after all, the policeman had nothing to do when he arrived but mount guard over the recovered bullion, of which I am glad to say not a single case was missing.
Later, a more intelligent examination into things revealed how the robbery had been effected; for when we came to take down the temporary bullion room, we found that a very cleverly concealed sliding panel had been fitted into the end opposite to the door. This gave us the idea to examine the wooden ventilator which came up through the deck nearby from the lower hold. And now we held the key to the whole mystery.
Evidently there had been quite a gang of thieves aboard the ship. They had built the cases ashore, packed them with dummy bullion chests, and sealed and banded them exactly like the originals. These had been placed in the hold at Melbourne as freight, under the name of “specimens”. In the meanwhile, some of the band must have got at our carpenter who had built the bullion room, and promised him a share of the gold if he would build the secret panel into one end. Then, when we got to sea, the thieves must have got down into the lower hold through one of the forrard hatches and, having opened one of their cases, begun to exchange the dummies for the real chests by climbing up inside the wooden ventilator-shaft, which the carpenter had managed to fit with a couple of boards that slid to one side, just opposite to the secret panel in the wooden bullion room.
It must have been very slow work, and their whispering to one another had been carried up the ventilator shaft which passed right through the Captain’s cabin, under the appearance of a large, ornamented strut or upright, supporting the arm racks. It was this unexpected carrying of the sound which brought the Captain and me down, to nearly discover them; so that they had not even time to replace the thirteenth chest with the prepared dummy.
I don’t think there is much more to explain. There is very little doubt in my mind that the Captain’s extraordinary precautions must have made things extremely difficult for the robbers, and that they could only get to work then when the carpenter happened to be the outside watchman. It is also obvious to me that some drug which threw off narcotic fumes must have been injected into the bullion room to insure the officer not waking at inconvenient moments; so that the time I did waken and felt so stupid, I must have been in a half-stupified condition, and did really see that some of the chests had gone. These were replaced as soon as I fell back asleep. The First Mate must have died from an over-prolonged inhalation of the drug.
I think that is all that has to do with this incident. Perhaps, though, you may be pleased to hear that I was both handsomely thanked and rewarded for having solved the mystery. Also, for many years after that, I sailed as Master of the very ship in which this occurred. So that, altogether, I was very well.
The Mystery of the
Water-Logged Ship
The big steam-yacht White Hart was driving along easily at half-speed through a dark, starless night in the North Atlantic. The Captain was pacing the bridge with Swanscott, the owner. At the little steam steering-wheel one of the four quartermasters stood drowsily, for the yacht almost steered herself, as the saying goes, and the man had little to do but listen for eight bells.
Abruptly the Captain stopped in his tracks, staring away over the bows; then, whipping round upon the helmsman, he roared at the top of his voice:
“Starboard your hellum! Smartly, now! Smartly, now!”
As the little wheel spun swiftly under the man’s hands the Captain turned back quickly and stared over the bow into the darkness.
“What is it, Captain? What is it?” Swanscott was saying, glancing on every side through the darkness.
“What have you seen?”
“Light just under the starboard bow, sir,” the Master answered. “It should be broad on the beam now.”
He turned to the helmsman.
“Steady!” he called.
“Steady it is, sir,” answered the man, and put the wheel over.
The Captain and the owner stood together and stared into the utter darkness to starboard; but the minutes passed, and never a sign of any light was there.
“Don’t see anything, Captain,” said Swanscott.
“Neither me!” replied the Master, and blew his whistle.
He gave word to the man who answered it to relieve the look-out for a few minutes and send him aft to the bridge. When the man arrived he asked him whether he had seen a light just off the starboard bow.
“Yes, sir,” replied the man. “I thought I did; but it was gone before I could be sure. Then you starboarded, sir, and I knew you’d seed it, too. But I ain’t seed it since.”
The Captain dismissed the man forrard, with a word of warning to be smarter in future. Then he readjusted his night-glasses and took another long look out into the darkness to starboard; but nowhere could he see the light.
“Most mysterious!” said the owner. “What do you think it was?”
“Well, sir, it may be one of those fool timber-boys running dhowls across home and tryin’ to save oil. I’ve known ’em do that, and just shove a lantern over the rail, if anything comes too near. They deserve hanging!”
“We ought to see her spars with the glasses,” said Swanscott, “if she were as near as you think.”
“Yes, sir,” answered the Captain. “An’ that’s what’s puzzling me. It might be someone got adrift in a boat; but they’d never hide the light till we’d got ‘em safe. What do you say, sir? Shall we turn on the searchlight and just have a look round? You’re in no hurry.”
“By all means,” said Swanscott. “This is interesting.”
The Captain rang the engines to dead slow, and then whistled for a couple of the hands to come up and unhood the big searchlight, which was mounted on a platform at the after end of the bridge. Five minutes later the great jet of the light flashed out into the darkness to starboard, and swept round in a huge semicircle as the Captain revolved the big projector.
“Ah!” said Swanscott, who had come up beside him. “There she is. You were right.”
For directly in the rays of the searchlight, apparently about a mile distant, there showed plain, with every detail of rope and broken spar standing out clear in the brilliant light, an iron, square-rigged ship.
“Derelict!” said the Captain. “Lord, we’ve had a shave! See how low she is in the water, and her fore and main topmasts gone. She’s in the carrying trade; look at the deck cargo of her. It’s shameful! Shall we take a closer look at her, sir?”
“Certainly, Captain.”
The Master rang to half-speed and motioned to the helmsman, who muttered “Aye, aye, sir,” and put the wheel over a few spokes. They steamed down for the strange vessel, and in a few minutes had passed under her stern and reversed about a hundred yards to leeward. Here they rode easy on the slow swells, with the searchlight playing full upon the derelict ship. Her condition was plain now to be seen. Her fore and main topmasts had gone, as I have said, with all their yards and gear; also the spike-boom had been carried away over the bows. Her mizzen t’gallant and royal masts also were gone; but the mizzen topmast was standing, so that she rolled there in the gloom, a derelict dripping hulk, with little more than her naked lower masts and yards above the deck to show what she had been.
“That’s a fine thing to have floating around in the dark!” said the Captain
, examining her through his glasses. “That’s the sort of thing that accounts for the missin’ packets. Just fancy hittin’ it under a full head of steam! I’ll bet that’s what’s ended the Lavinia, if the truth could be known.”
Here he referred to one of the North Atlantic boats which had been reported missing just before they left home.
“Yes,” said Swanscott thoughtfully. “It might have been us, if you hadn’t spotted the light. But where the deuce is the light?”
This neither of them could decide; for the whole length of the dripping rail was unbroken by any sign of light or life, and beyond it there rose in great mounds the timber masses of her deck cargo. After a further time of watching and keeping the searchlight going, Swanscott suggested that he would go aboard and have a look round, and whilst the boat was being lowered he hurried below to wake his friend Hay, who, he knew, would be keen to accompany him.
When they both came on deck the boat was in the water, with the First Officer in charge, and a few minutes later the two of them were standing on the water-soaked decks of the derelict, with below them the dull pounding of the imprisoned timbers as they rolled sluggishly, grinding against the deck-beams and hatch-coamings in the water-logged hold. The hatches were off, and odd whiles some heavier roll than usual would send some of the water slopping up out of the hold over the coamings of the hatches, and all the time there was the lonesome swish of water upon the dripping decks and the low groan of the great masses of timber as each roll threw new stresses upon them and the bulk of water in which they floated. So that just to look down through the open mouths of the holds was to have dank thoughts and dismalness, with the grim suggestiveness of desolation and the nearness of the ocean deeps, which came to the mind as they stared down into that gulf of gloom and water and soaked timbers.
Swanscott and Hay, with the Officer and two of the men, explored the whole of the vessel—that is, all that was still above water. Forrard they found the fo’c’sle empty and glimmering wet and dank in the light from the lamps. All the bunks had been washed out, and below them, under their feet, was the same suggestive pounding and grinding of timbers and the sullen roll of the great bulk of water imprisoned in the holds.
“Makes me feel creepy,” said Hay. “Let’s get out of here!” and he led the way out of the gloomy iron cavern, where the very decks seemed to have grown soft and mushy with the long and continual soaking. Then away aft, and here they looked down the poop skylight into the darkness of submerged cabins, and, for all they knew, into places where dead men rolled to and fro hideously in the black waters.
“Ugh!” said Hay, again expressing the general feeling. “Beastly! Let’s leave her!”
And they went aboard the yacht. Here, however, more practical things were discussed.
“Yes, sir,” said the Captain. “You ain’t in no hurry, an’ if we go jog-trot for a couple or three days, we needn’t strain ourselves or tow the blessed stern out of us. It’d be a blessing and a duty to all shipping if we was to remove her; for sink her you can’t, not without you took her to pieces or blew her to pieces. I know. I’ve tried. She’ll float as long as them timbers has any sort of framework to hold ‘em together. An’ then there’s the salvage.”
This was talked over in all its bearings, and Swanscott told his Captain that he could “take the job on”, and he’d make him and the men a present of the yacht’s “share”. The only thing he stipulated was that a crew should not be put aboard of her unless it was a certainty that she would not sink under their feet.
“Sink!” said the Captain. “She’ll not sink this side of the Judgment, not that way.”
And so it was arranged. Volunteers were called for, and out of those who stepped forward four were chosen. These were put aboard the derelict, and some food and water. One of the boats, with which she was well supplied, was sent astern at the end of its painter as a precaution, lest, as the Captain said, “the im-bloomin’-possible” happened, and the wreck did sink. The sidelights were lit, and a very long spring was shackled on to the tow-line so as to ease the “pluck” of the deadweight of the “tow” as much as possible. The Bo’sun was sent aboard with the four men to take charge, and the Captain told him to put a man on the fo’c’sle head to watch the tow-line, and that the helmsman must steer by the yacht’s stern-light. Then he went ahead with the line, and took a strain, and so began to jog forward through the night, slow and easy, with that dismal “tow” about a quarter of a mile astern.
For a while after they had “got going” again Swanscott and Hay walked the bridge with the Captain, discoursing on the danger of just such lonesome derelicts as the one they had come across that night. Presently the talk came upon the light which the Captain insisted he had seen. Both Swanscott and Hay were of the opinion that it must have been one of those strange “fancy lights” which sailors sometimes see suddenly at night through overstraining the eyes. On his part, the Captain was positively sure that he had seen a light; but more than that he would not say at first, until Hay perceived that if they ceased to “rag” him he might be got to explain what was at the back of his silence. He gave Swanscott the hint to cease “baiting”, and by showing a sympathetic attitude they coaxed the Captain finally into admitting seriously that what he had seen must have been what he called a “sailors’ light.”
“A what?” said Swanscott, half amused, half impressed by the old man’s earnestness.
“A sailors’ light, sir,” said the Captain. “It’s always give as a warnin’. My father, as was fifty-five year at sea, an’ died there, seen it three times, an’ if he hadn’t took notice he’d have smashed up his ship every time. He always said it was the spirits of them that’s drowned warnin’ the sailors. I half believes it, you know, and half don’t. When I’m ashore it seems just sailors’ talk; but on a night like this— Well, you know the feeling yourself. You saw she was empty, not a soul aboard. And I know I saw that light. You think I’m mistook; but if I hadn’t seen something, where’d we be now? I tell you it’s as queer one way as the other.”
“I think I understand your attitude,” said Hay. “Anyway I must admit that the sea’s a place to breed fancies, especially at night, and with old wrecks and drowned men knocking around,” and he peered away into the darkness, where the lights of the derelict showed astern in the gloom. “All the same, you know, Captain, we mustn’t get superstitious. It may have been that you saw nothing really, but you had a premonition.”
The old man snorted.
“What’s the difference, mister?” he said. “What’s the difference?”
Presently, leaving the Mate in charge, the Captain went below with the two friends, and they sat awhile in Swanscott’s cabin having a whisky before turning in. Then, just before they said good-night, the old Captain raised his head and looked round the cabin as if he were listening.
“That’s a pretty smart squall we’re into,” he remarked; “hark to it!” For outside in the night the wind was going over them with a scream, as one of those heavy squalls which wander the seas alone passed them. “That’ll wet ’em!” he said, meaning the four men and the bo’sun who were in the derelict. “Guess she’ll just be lumpin’ it aboard. Well, they’ll get dry on the salvage.”
He drained his glass, and set it down in the fiddles; then once more raised his head, with that suggestion of listening and half-expecting. Abruptly he jumped from the locker.
“I knew it!” he said, reaching for the door-handle. “She’s parted! I thought she was ridin’ different.”
He opened the door and hooked it back, then ran for his oilskin coat and sou’wester. The two friends did the same, and followed him on deck. Here, at first, they were half stunned by the storm of wind and rain which met them. They struggled to the bridge after the Captain, and heard him singing out to the Officer that the “tow” had parted from them. He did not attempt to blame the man; for he knew by experience that up there in the wind and rain the altered “scend” (motion) of the yacht would be less felt
than down in the calm of the cabin, where the senses were not bewildered by the blinding force of the rain and wind. Also, the rain made a curtain between the two vessels, so that it was no use expecting to locate her by her lights until the squall had passed, as Swanscott and Hay discovered for themselves, and by then she might have soused them out, or be slewed off before the wind, and so hiding them.
The searchlight was unhooded and turned astern; but so heavy was the rain that the light simply made a glittering tunnel amid the raindrops, and was lost in strange rainbows in the night, without showing any sign of the missing vessel.
“You think they’re all right, Captain?” asked Swanscott anxiously, for he began to fear that the wreck might have foundered, in spite of the Captain’s sureness of her powers to float beyond the Judgment.
“Certain, sir,” said the Captain. “Just wait till the squall’s eased a bit, an’ you’ll see her.”
“There she is!” he said a few minutes later, as the squall cleared away to leeward. “There she is! My goodness, she’s drifted more than I’d have thought! A power more than I’d have thought.”
She was plain now in the great jet of the light, about three miles astern, and running off before the wind.
“That’s queer, Mr. Marsh,” said the Captain to the First Officer, who was standing near, looking through his night-glasses. All that top-hamper aft ought to have brought her up into the wind, dead sure.”
The Mate agreed, and the Captain told him to run the yacht down to leeward of the wreck, which was done. Here, with the glare of the searchlight full upon the derelict, they ranged up to within thirty or forty yards of her, and hauled. Yet the most inexplicable thing greeted them—nothing! There came no answering faces to the rail, nor any answering sound across the quietness left by the departed squall; nothing, save, as it seemed to Hay, who was the most impressionable, a strange little dank echo of their hail, that seemed to beat back at them vaguely from the dripping iron side of the ship.
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places Page 44