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In the dawn of the following morning some early rising fishermen of the Jersey coast saw a black ship with all canvas set resting quietly on the sands about two hundred yards from the beach, a white boat, empty of everything but oars, hauled out above high-water mark, and on boarding the ship they found and released three chilled, hungry, and angry men from the lazaret.
Her Spanish crew we soon found snugly hidden away in spacious quarters beneath the lazaret; and, as to the name on her stern, we found that the piece of wood on which it was carved and painted was reversible, having Virginia, New Orleans, carved on one side of it and Preciosa, Havana, on the other, and that it could be unbolted and reversed in a few minutes by lifting a couple of movable planks in the after cabin.
Chop-stick Charlie was the name Blood had christened the coolie who acted as steward and cabin hand. He called him now, and out of the opium-tinctured gloom of the fo'c'sle Charlie appeared, received his orders and led them to the lazaret. None of the crew had shown the slightest emotion on seeing Blood take over command of the schooner and Ginnell swabbing decks.
"As the shower of ashes increased it became dark as twilight, and though the three lights aloft burned out at about midday, I forbade a man to go forward to lower them, contenting myself with a turpentine flare lamp that I brought up from the lazaret, and filled, ready to show if the lights of a craft came in view.
The hatch to the lazaret was in the saloon floor, well aft, on the starboard side. Wong was more familiar than any man with the lazaret's interior, and he had decided the deck should be cut through from this room, rather than at any other point. The Chinaman had planned with foresight; he had even disposed stores below to convenience and shield the man who played rescuer.
The sun had given them a dull pallor, and on the West African coast nobody sleeps much. After a few minutes the sailor opened the swollen trap-door and then went down, Brown carrying the lantern. As a rule a ship's lazaret is a small, dark strong-room, used for stowing liquor and articles of value. Arcturus was wet and smelt of salt.
They told him to give orders for a watchman to walk the gangway all day long in future, which to me sounded like locking the stable door too late. After that, I learned how to make pistol cartridges until the company prepared to go ashore. The chests of the deserters were locked up in the lazaret, or store cupboard, so that if the men came aboard again they might not take away their things.
My face had the hospital pallor, and, with my long hair and beard, I know I looked "snaggy" like a potato that has been forgotten in a dark corner of the cellar. When we came out of the lazaret, the few people we met on the road to the prison-camp broke into broad grins; some even turned and looked after us. The guard took me to Camp 6, Barrack A, where I found some of the boys I knew.
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