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Updated: May 11, 2025
The two mates, the seamen, and the passengers arrived with their reports. They had nothing to tell. The steward and the stewardess had searched with the two mates in the saloon or cuddy. Every cabin had been ransacked, with the willing consent of its occupants. The forecastle, and 'tween-decks, and steerage, and lazarette had been minutely overhauled.
"Phew! it is like walking into a Turkish bath to come in here," exclaimed Rex, as he passed through the saloon doors; "and what a peculiar smell!" "Yes," assented Lance. "Smells like oil or grease of some kind. I expect the steward has spilled some lamp-oil down in the lazarette, and the heat is causing the odour to rise.
"Pianeys," he shouted. "Hell!" exclaimed the men on deck, in voices of disgust. The skipper returned to the deck, after about ten minutes in the hold. "The cargo bain't o' no use to us, lads," he said. "Pianeys, engines, an' fancy-goods." They broke open the lazarette and found several cases of wines and brandy, and a quantity of provisions of superior quality.
Raft in his hurried look round saw a lot of things including a rack containing six rifles and two heavy revolvers resting on an ammunition box filled with hundreds of cartridges. He opened the lazarette beneath the cabin flooring; it seemed well-stored, and on a shelf in the main cabin there were some provisions including a tin of biscuits.
It was evident that there were no living persons on board this fine but ruthlessly despoiled ship, or if there were, they must be in hiding; and with the view of testing this latter point I now swung myself down through the open hatchway leading to the lazarette, believing that that would be the part of the ship wherein a person might most successfully hide and evade capture.
As we passed through the cabin I whispered Wilkinson that I meant to show my relative the lading below, and bade him keep the Deal men about him. I had the keys of the chests in my pocket: lifting the after-hatch, we entered the lazarette, and Mason gazed about him with astonishment. But I was in too great a hurry to return to suffer him to idly stand and stare.
We made our way over the casks, bales, and the like, till we were right aft, and here there was a small clear space of deck in which lay a hatch. This he lifted by its ring, and down through the aperture did he drop, I following. The lazarette deck came so low that we had to squat when still or move upon our knees.
And now the bo'sun came to the break of the poop, and called down to the men to muster aft, the which they did, and I with them; for I had come to regard them as my very good comrades; and rum was served out to each of them, and to me along with the rest, and it was Mistress Madison herself who dipped it out to us from the wooden bucket; though it was the buxom woman who had brought it up from the lazarette.
This signified that I had ten or eleven hours of darkness before me! I took down the lamp, trimmed it, and went to the lazarette hatch at the after end of the cabin. Here were kept the stores for the crew.
Down in the lazarette Jacka had scarcely finished prising the cork out of his bottle of Hollands when he heard the bang of a gun. This was the lugger's command to round-to and surrender; and the old boy, who had been vexing himself with fear that some cruiser might drop in and spoil sport, put the bottle to his mouth and drank Mr. Job's very good health.
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