“This is a Godless vessel!”
Mr Summers made no reply so I made a further remark.
“It is the influence of a certain person!”
At this I heard Mr Summers change his position outside the door as if he had suddenly looked round him. Then he whispered to me.
“Do not, I beg you, Mr Colley, entertain such thoughts! A small gathering, sir—a hymn or two, a reading and a benediction—”
I took the opportunity to point out that a morning service in the waist would be far more appropriate; but Lieutenant Summers replied with what I believe to be a degree of embarrassment that it could not be. He then withdrew. However, it is a small victory for religion. Nay—who knows when that heart of awful flint may be brought to yield as yield at last it must?
I have discovered the name of my Young Hero. He is one Billy Rogers, a sad scamp, I fear, whose boyish heart has not yet been touched with Grace. I shall try to make an opportunity of speaking with him.
I have passed the last hour in shaving! It was indeed painful and I cannot say that the result justifies the labour. However, it is done.
I heard an unwonted noise and went into the lobby. As I did so, I felt the deck tilt under me—though very slightly—but alas! The few days of almost total calm have unfitted me for the motion and I have lost the “sea legs” I thought I had acquired! I was forced to retire precipitately to my cabin and bunk. There I was better placed and could feel that we have some wind, favourable, light and easy. We are moving on our way again; and though I did not at once care to trust to my legs I felt that elevation of the spirits which must come to any traveller when after some let or hindrance he discovers himself to be on the move towards his destination.
A day’s rest lies in that line I have drawn above these words! I have been out and about, though keeping as much as possible away from the passengers and the people. I must re-introduce myself to them, as it were, by degrees until they see not a bare-headed clown but a man of God. The people work about the ship, some hauling on this rope, others casting off or slackening that one with a more cheerful readiness than is their wont. The sound of our progress through the water is much more clearly audible! Even I, landsman that I am and must remain, am sensible of a kind of lightness in the vessel as if she too were not inanimate but a partaker in the general gaiety! The people earlier were everywhere to be seen climbing among her limbs and branches. I mean, of course, that vast paraphernalia which allows all the winds of heaven to advance us towards the desired haven. We steer south, ever south, with the continent of Africa on our left hand but hugely distant. Our people have added even more area to the sails by attaching small yards (poles, you would call them) from which is suspended lighter material beyond the outer edge of our usual suit! (You will detect the degree to which by a careful attention to the conversations going on round me I have become imbued with the language of navigation!) This new area of sail increases our speed, and, indeed, I have just heard one young gentleman cry to another—I omit an unfortunate expletive—“How the old lady lifts up her p-tt-c-ts and makes a run for it!” Perhaps these additional areas are to be called “p-tt-c-ts” in nautical parlance; for you cannot imagine with what impropriety the people and even the officers name the various pieces of equipment about the vessel! This continues even in the presence of a clergyman and the ladies, as if the seamen concerned were wholly unconscious of what they have said.
*
Once again a day has passed between two paragraphs! The wind has dropped and my trifling indisposition with it. I have dressed, nay, even shaved once more and moved for a while into the waist. I should endeavour, I think, to define for you the position in which I find myself vis-à-vis the other gentlemen, not to say ladies. Since the captain inflicted a public humiliation on me I have been only too aware that of all the passengers I am in the most peculiar position. I do not know how to describe it, for my opinion of how I am regarded alters from day to day and from hour to hour! Were it not for my servant Phillips and the first lieutenant Mr Summers, I believe I should speak to no one; for poor Mr Talbot has been either indisposed or restlessly moving towards what I can only suppose to be a crisis of faith, in which it would be my duty and profound pleasure to help him, but he avoids me. He will not inflict his troubles on any one! Now as for the rest of the passengers and officers, I do sometimes suspect that, influenced by the attitude of Captain Anderson, they disregard me and my sacred office with a frivolous indifference. Then in the next moment I suppose it to be a kind of delicacy of feeling not always to be found among our countrymen that prevents them forcing any attention on me. Perhaps—and I only say perhaps—there is an inclination among them to let me be and make belief that no one has noticed anything! The ladies, of course, I cannot expect to approach me and I should think the less of any one who did so. But this (since I have still limited my movements to the area that I called, jestingly, my kingdom) has by now resulted in a degree of isolation which I have suffered in more than I should have supposed. Yet all this must change! I am determined! If either indifference or delicacy prevents them from addressing me, then I must be bold and address them!
I have been again into the waist. The ladies and gentlemen, or those who were not in their cabins, were parading on the quarterdeck where I must not go. I did bow to them from far off to show how much I desire some familiar intercourse but the distance was too great and they did not notice me. It must have been the poor light and the distance. It could have been nothing else. The ship is motionless, her sails hanging vertically down and creased like aged cheeks. As I turned from surveying the strange parade on the quarterdeck—for here, in this field of water everything is strange—and faced the forward part of the ship I saw something strange and new. The people are fastening what I at first took to be an awning before the fo’castle—before, I mean, from where I stood below the stairs leading up to the quarterdeck—and at first I thought this must be a shelter to keep off the sun. But the sun is dropping low and, as we have eaten our animals, the pens had been broken up, so the shelter would protect nothing. Then again, the material of which the “awning” is composed seems unnecessarily heavy for such a purpose. It is stretched across the deck at the height of the bulwarks from which it is suspended, or stretched, rather, by ropes. The seamen call the material “tarpaulin” if I am not mistaken; so the phrase “Honest Tar” here finds its original.
After I had written those words I resumed my wig and coat (they shall never see me other than properly dressed again) and went back to the waist. Of all the strangeness of this place at the world’s end surely the change in our ship at this moment is the strangest! There is silence, broken only by bursts of laughter. The people, with every indication of enjoyment, are lowering buckets over the side on ropes that run through pulleys or blocks, as we call them here. They heave up sea water—which must, I fear, be most impure since we have been stationary for some hours—and spill it into the tarpaulin, which is now bellied down by the weight. There seems no way in which this can help our progress; the more so as certain of the people (my Young Hero among them, I am afraid) have, so to say, relieved nature into what is none other than a container rather than awning. This, in a ship, where by the propinquity of the ocean, such arrangements are made as might well be thought preferable to those our fallen state makes necessary on land! I was disgusted by the sight and was returning to my cabin when I was involved in a strange occurrence! Phillips came towards me hastily and was about to speak when a voice spoke or rather shouted at him from a dim part of the lobby.
“Silence, Phillips, you dog!”
The man looked from me into the shadows from which none other than Mr Cumbershum emerged and stared him down. Phillips retired and Cumbershum stood looking at me. I did not and do not like the man. He is another Anderson I think, or will be should he ever attain to captaincy! I went hastily into my cabin. I took off my coat, wig and bands and composed myself to prayer. Hardly had I begun when there came a timid knocking at the doo
r. I opened it to find Phillips there again. He began to whisper.
“Mr Colley, sir, I beg you—”
“Phillips, you dog! Get below or I’ll have you at the grating!”
I stared round in astonishment. It was Cumbershum again and Deverel with him. Yet at first I only recognized them by Cumbershum’s voice and Deverel’s air of unquestioned elegance, for they too were without hat or coat. They saw me, who had promised myself never to be seen so, and they burst out laughing. Indeed, their laughter had something maniacal about it. I saw they were both to some degree in drink. They concealed from me objects which they held in their hands and they bowed to me as I entered my cabin with a ceremony I could not think sincere. Deverel is a gentleman! He cannot, sure, intend to harm me!
The ship is extraordinarily quiet. A few minutes ago I heard the rustling steps of the remainder of our passengers go through the lobby, mount the stairs and pass over my head. There is no doubt about it. The people at this end of the ship are gathered on the quarterdeck. Only I am excluded from them!
I have been out again, stole out into the strange light for all my resolutions about dress. The lobby was silent. Only a confused murmur came from Mr Talbot’s cabin. I had a great mind to go to him and beg his protection; but knew that he was at private prayer. I stole out of the lobby into the waist. What I saw as I stood, petrified as it were, will be stamped on my mind till my dying day. Our end of the ship—the two raised portions at the back—was crowded with passengers and officers, all silent and all staring forward over my head. Well might they stare! There never was such a sight. No pen, no pencil, not that of the greatest artist in history could give any idea of it. Our huge ship was motionless and her sails still hung down. On her right hand the red sun was setting and on her left the full moon was rising, the one directly across from the other. The two vast luminaries seemed to stare at each other and each to modify the other’s light. On land this spectacle could never be so evident because of the interposition of hills or trees or houses, but here we see down from our motionless vessel on all sides to the very edge of the world. Here plainly to be seen were the very scales of GOD.
The scales tilted, the double light faded and we were wrought of ivory and ebony by the moon. The people moved about forward and hung lanterns by the dozen from the rigging, so that I saw now that they had erected something like a bishop’s cathedra beyond the ungainly paunch of tarpaulin. I began to understand. I began to tremble. I was alone! Yes, in that vast ship with her numberless souls I was alone in a place where on a sudden I feared the Justice of GOD unmitigated by HIS Mercy! On a sudden I dreaded both GOD and man! I stumbled back to my cabin and have endeavoured to pray.
NEXT DAY
I can scarcely hold this pen. I must and will recover my composure. What a man does defiles him, not what is done by others—My shame, though it burn, has been inflicted on me.
I had completed my devotions, but sadly out of a state of recollection. I had divested myself of my garments, all except my shirt, when there came a thunderous knocking at the cabin door. I was already, not to refine upon it, fearful. The thunderous blows on the door completed my confusion. Though I had speculated on the horrid ceremonies of which I might be the victim, I thought then of shipwreck, fire, collision or the violence of the enemy. I cried out, I believe.
“What is it? What is it?”
To this a voice answered, loud as the knocking.
“Open this door!”
I answered in great haste, nay, panic.
“No, no, I am unclothed—but what is it?”
There was a very brief pause, then the voice answered me dreadfully.
“Robert James Colley, you are come into judgement!”
These words, so unexpected and terrible, threw me into utter confusion. Even though I knew that the voice was a human voice I felt a positive contraction of the heart and know how violently I must have clutched my hands together in that region, for there is a contusion over my ribs and I have bled. I cried out in answer to the awful summons.
“No, no, I am not in any way ready, I mean I am unclothed—”
To this the same unearthly voice and in even more terrible accents uttered the following reply.
“Robert James Colley, you are called to appear before the throne.”
These words—and yet part of my mind knew them for the foolery they were—nevertheless completely inhibited my breathing. I made for the door to shoot the bolt but as I did so the door burst open. Two huge figures with heads of nightmare, great eyes and mouths, black mouths full of a mess of fangs drove down at me. A cloth was thrust over my head. I was seized and hurried away by irresistible force, my feet not able to find the deck except every now and then. I am, I know, not a man of quick thought or instant apprehension. For a few moments I believe I was rendered totally insensible, only to be brought to myself again by the sound of yelling and jeering and positively demonic laughter. Some touch of presence of mind, however, as I was borne along all too securely muffled, made me cry out “Help! Help!” and briefly supplicate MY SAVIOUR.
The cloth was wrenched off and I could see clearly—all too clearly—in the light of the lanterns. The foredeck was full of the people and the edge of it lined with figures of nightmare akin to those who had hurried me away. He who sat on the throne was bearded and crowned with flame and bore a huge fork with three prongs in his right hand. Twisting my neck as the cloth came off I could see the after end of the ship, my rightful place, was thronged with spectators! But there were too few lanterns about the quarterdeck for me to see clearly, nor had I more than a moment to look for a friend, for I was absolutely at the disposal of my captors. Now I had more time to understand my situation and the cruelty of the “jest”, some of my fear was swallowed up in shame at appearing before the ladies and gentlemen, not to refine upon it, half-naked. I, who had thought never to appear but in the ornaments of the Spiritual Man! I attempted to make a smiling appeal for some covering as if I consented to and took part in the jest but all went too fast. I was made to kneel before the “throne” with much wrenching and buffeting, which took away any breath I had contrived to retain. Before I could make myself heard, a question was put to me of such grossness that I will not remember it, much less write it down. Yet as I opened my mouth to protest, it was at once filled with such nauseous stuff I gag and am like to vomit remembering it. For some time, I cannot tell how long, this operation was repeated; and when I would not open my mouth the stuff was smeared over my face. The questions, one after another, were of such a nature that I cannot write any of them down. Nor could they have been contrived by any but the most depraved of souls. Yet each was greeted with a storm of cheering and that terrible British sound which has ever daunted the foe; and then it came to me, was forced in upon my soul the awful truth—I was the foe!
It could not be so, of course. They were, it may be, hot with the devil’s brew—they were led astray—it could not be so! But in the confusion and—to me—horror of the situation the thought that froze the very blood in my veins was only this—I was the foe!
To such an excess may the common people be led by the example of those who should guide them to better things! At last the leader of their revels deigned to address me.
“You are a low, filthy fellow and must be shampoo’d.”
Here was more pain and nausea and hindrance to my breathing, so that I was in desperate fear all the time that I should die there and then, victim of their cruel sport. Just when I thought my end was come I was projected backwards with extreme violence into the paunch of filthy water. Now here was more of what was strange and terrible to me. I had not harmed them. They had had their sport, their will with me. Yet now as I struggled each time to get out of the wallowing, slippery paunch, I heard what the poor victims of the French Terror must have heard in their last moments and oh!—it is crueller than death, it must be—it must be so, nothing, nothing that men can do to each other can be compared with that snarling, lustful, storming appeti
te—
By now I had abandoned hope of life and was endeavouring blindly to fit myself for my end—as it were betwixt the saddle and the ground—when I was aware of repeated shouts from the quarterdeck and then the sound of a tremendous explosion. There was comparative silence in which a voice shouted a command. The hands that had been thrusting me down and in now lifted me up and out. I fell upon the deck and lay there. There was a pause in which I began to crawl away in a trail of filth. But there came another shouted order. Hands lifted me up and bore me to my cabin. Someone shut the door. Later—I do not know how much later—the door opened again and some Christian soul placed a bucket of hot water by me. It may have been Phillips but I do not know. I will not describe the contrivances by which I succeeded in getting myself comparatively clean. Far off I could hear that the devils—no, no, I will not call them that—the people of the forward part of the ship had resumed their sport with other victims. But the sounds of merriment were jovial rather than bestial. It was a bitter draught to swallow! I do not suppose that in any other ship they have ever had a “parson” to play with. No, no, I will not be bitter, I will forgive. They are my brothers even if they feel not so—even if I feel not so! As for the gentlemen—no, I will not be bitter; and it is true that one among them, Mr Summers perhaps, or Mr Talbot it may be, did intervene and effect an interruption to their brutal sport even if late in it!