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Updated: May 4, 2025
"All that may be, but I have found him once before hanging around that door to-day." At this moment Mulgrum took from his pocket a tablet of paper and a pencil, and wrote upon it, "I am a deaf mute, and I don't know what you are talking about." Christy read it, and then wrote, "What were you doing at the door?" He replied that he had been sent by Mr. Lillyworth to clean the brasses on the door.
Pink used excellent language, as the steward was capable of judging, and it was plain enough that he was not what he had appeared to be. Although Mr. Lillyworth knew very well that Pink Mulgrum was deaf and dumb, he "jawed" at him as though his hearing was as perfect as his own, doubtless forgetting for the moment his infirmity.
The moment Baskirk appeared, the deaf mute exhibited a paper, which he passed to the new lieutenant, evidently satisfied that he could get no nearer to the door. When he had delivered the paper, he hastened up the ladder to the deck. Dave came into the cabin and explained that Mulgrum had tried to force him out of the way, and he had resisted.
"I did," replied Mr. Lillyworth; "but it is all right, and the man at the wheel is Spoors, one of our number." "All right," added Mulgrum, and he descended the steps. Dave kept his place in the folds of the foresail, and hardly breathed as the scullion passed him. With the greatest caution, and after he had satisfied himself that no one was near enough to see him, he descended to the deck.
Christy had charged Dave to watch Mulgrum if he went below, and to follow him up closely; but the deaf mute had been on deck most of the time. There was nothing that he could do, and nothing that the second lieutenant could do, to embarrass the operations of the ship while she remained at rest. The captain then descended to the deck, and personally looked into the condition of everything.
Lillyworth, making a spring at the canvas as though he was disgusted with the operations of his companion on the bridge. "Only what I have just told you," replied Mulgrum. "But you were at the door when the captain and the first lieutenant were talking together in the cabin," continued the officer in a low tone.
Lillyworth and I don't seem to be very affectionate towards each other, though we get along very well together. But Mulgrum wrote out for me that he was born in Cherryfield, Maine, and obtained his education as a deaf mute in Hartford. I learned the deaf and dumb alphabet when I was a schoolmaster, as a pastime, and I had some practice with it in the house where I boarded."
He had learned from Flint that Mulgrum had been recommended to the chief steward by Lillyworth, so that it was evident enough that they had been acquainted before either of them came on board. But he could not see them behind the mast, and he desired very much to know what they were doing.
With the deaf mute's leaf in his hand Christy was thinking over this matter of the motives of officers. He was not satisfied in regard to either Lillyworth or Mulgrum, and besides the regular quota of officers and seamen permanently attached to the Bronx, there were eighteen seamen and petty officers berthed forward, who were really passengers, though they were doing duty.
Lillyworth might have found a man that could speak for his messenger," he continued, "but of course he wanted to assist his confederate to obtain more information." "I don't see what he wants to know now, for Mulgrum has told him the contents of the sealed envelope before this time, and he knows that the gates are closed against us," added Flint.
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