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She was in distress, for her flag was hoisted with the Union Jack down. The nature of her distress was apparent from a column of thick smoke that issued from the fore-hatch. The most terrible of all calamities had befallen her she was on fire! That she was an emigrant ship was apparent from the great number of human beings men, women, and children who crowded her decks.
Round and round the decks they went, Mugridge sick with fear, the sailors hallooing and shouting directions to one another, and the hunters bellowing encouragement and laughter. Mugridge went down on the fore-hatch under three men; but he emerged from the mass like an eel, bleeding at the mouth, the offending shirt ripped into tatters, and sprang for the main-rigging.
"Down there," said Wyllard, pointing to the black opening in the fore-hatch that led to the steerage quarters. "An acquaintance of mine who's travelling forward asked me to take a look round, and I'm rather glad I did. When I've had a word with the chief steward I'm going back again." "You have a friend down there?" "I met the man for the first time yesterday, and rather took to him.
An' after all, I don't see why a man shouldn't take in knowledge as well through the stummick as through the brain. It don't matter a roker's tail whether you ship cargo through the main-hatch or through the fore-hatch, so long as it gits inside somehow. Come, let's have a bowl of it.
I viewed them long enough to satisfy my mind that they were dead, and then with a heart of lead turned away. I crossed to the starboard side, where the deck was comparatively clear, and found the body of a seaman named Abraham Wise near the fore-hatch. This man had probably been stunned and drowned by the sea that filled the deck after I loosed the staysail.
"Ay, ay, sir," was answered in that prompt tone of voice which indicates thorough discipline and unquestioning obedience, while the men scrambled up the fore-hatch, and sprang up the ratlines hand over hand.
Directly abaft the capstan was the fore-hatch, over which lay the path of those who walked around at the bars. Ordinarily the hatch was closed when the capstan was used; but, on the present occasion, a plank had been placed across the aperture, to avoid the necessity of putting on the hatch, and thus excluding the air from the kitchen, where the cooks were baking their daily batch of bread.
"The elephant was moored to a stanchion by a short length of chain shackled around his hind leg, but it gave him a radius of action equal to his length and that of his hind leg and trunk. This precluded our using the fore-hatch to reach the hold, so we used the main-hatch; and, as there was daily use of it, this hatch was fitted with steps, and always kept open, even in bad weather.
"It was just daybreak, Patrono, before we put about," began the man in Spanish, "that I thought I saw some one gliding along towards the fore-hatch; but I lost sight of him. After we had tumbled up to go on the other tack, I heard a noise in the fore-hold. I went down and found HIM," pointing to Hurlstone, "hiding there. He had some provisions stowed away beside him, and that package.
On deck, Gunter and those who had stayed with him became curious to know what the "preachin' skipper" was saying, and drew near to the fore-hatch, up which the tones of his strong voice travelled. Gradually they bent their heads down and lay at full-length on the deck listening intently to every word.
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