"It was short and terse, the warning, as I now read it to my companion:
"'The game is up. Hudson has told all. Fly for your life.'
"Victor Trevor sank his face into his shaking hands. 'It must be that,I suppose,' said he. "This is worse than death, for it means disgraceas well. But what is the meaning of these "head-keepers" and"hen-pheasants"?'
"'It means nothing to the message, but it might mean a good deal to usif we had no other means of discovering the sender. You see that he hasbegun by writing "The...game...is," and so on. Afterwards he had, tofulfill the prearranged cipher, to fill in any two words in each space.He would naturally use the first words which came to his mind, andif there were so many which referred to sport among them, you maybe tolerably sure that he is either an ardent shot or interested inbreeding. Do you know anything of this Beddoes?'
"'Why, now that you mention it,' said he, 'I remember that my poorfather used to have an invitation from him to shoot over his preservesevery autumn.'
"'Then it is undoubtedly from him that the note comes,' said I. 'It onlyremains for us to find out what this secret was which the sailor Hudsonseems to have held over the heads of these two wealthy and respectedmen.'
"'Alas, Holmes, I fear that it is one of sin and shame!' cried myfriend. 'But from you I shall have no secrets. Here is the statementwhich was drawn up by my father when he knew that the danger from Hudsonhad become imminent. I found it in the Japanese cabinet, as he told thedoctor. Take it and read it to me, for I have neither the strength northe courage to do it myself.'
"These are the very papers, Watson, which he handed to me, and I willread them to you, as I read them in the old study that night to him.They are endorsed outside, as you see, 'Some particulars of the voyageof the bark _Gloria Scott_, from her leaving Falmouth on the 8thOctober, 1855, to her destruction in N. Lat. 15 degrees 20', W. Long.25 degrees 14' on Nov. 6th.' It is in the form of a letter, and runs inthis way:
"'My dear, dear son, now that approaching disgrace begins to darken theclosing years of my life, I can write with all truth and honesty that itis not the terror of the law, it is not the loss of my position in thecounty, nor is it my fall in the eyes of all who have known me, whichcuts me to the heart; but it is the thought that you should come toblush for me--you who love me and who have seldom, I hope, had reason todo other than respect me. But if the blow falls which is forever hangingover me, then I should wish you to read this, that you may know straightfrom me how far I have been to blame. On the other hand, if all shouldgo well (which may kind God Almighty grant!), then if by any chance thispaper should be still undestroyed and should fall into your hands, Iconjure you, by all you hold sacred, by the memory of your dear mother,and by the love which had been between us, to hurl it into the fire andto never give one thought to it again.
"'If then your eye goes on to read this line, I know that I shallalready have been exposed and dragged from my home, or as is morelikely, for you know that my heart is weak, by lying with my tonguesealed forever in death. In either case the time for suppression ispast, and every word which I tell you is the naked truth, and this Iswear as I hope for mercy.
"'My name, dear lad, is not Trevor. I was James Armitage in my youngerdays, and you can understand now the shock that it was to me a few weeksago when your college friend addressed me in words which seemed to implythat he had surprised my secret. As Armitage it was that I entered aLondon banking-house, and as Armitage I was convicted of breaking mycountry's laws, and was sentenced to transportation. Do not think veryharshly of me, laddie. It was a debt of honor, so called, which I hadto pay, and I used money which was not my own to do it, in the certaintythat I could replace it before there could be any possibility of itsbeing missed. But the most dreadful ill-luck pursued me. The money whichI had reckoned upon never came to hand, and a premature examination ofaccounts
exposed my deficit. The case might have been dealt lenientlywith, but the laws were more harshly administered thirty years ago thannow, and on my twenty-third birthday I found myself chained as a felonwith thirty-seven other convicts in 'tween-decks of the bark _GloriaScott_, bound for Australia.
"'It was the year '55 when the Crimean war was at its height, and theold convict ships had been largely used as transports in the BlackSea. The government was compelled, therefore, to use smaller and lesssuitable vessels for sending out their prisoners. The Gloria Scotthad been in the Chinese tea-trade, but she was an old-fashioned,heavy-bowed, broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut herout. She was a five-hundred-ton boat; and besides her thirty-eightjail-birds, she carried twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, acaptain, three mates, a doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly ahundred souls were in her, all told, when we set sail from Falmouth.
"'The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being ofthick oak, as is usual in convict-ships, were quite thin and frail.The man next to me, upon the aft side, was one whom I had particularlynoticed when we were led down the quay. He was a young man with aclear, hairless face, a long, thin nose, and rather nut-cracker jaws.He carried his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering styleof walking, and was, above all else, remarkable for his extraordinaryheight. I don't think any of our heads would have come up to hisshoulder, and I am sure that he could not have measured less than sixand a half feet. It was strange among so many sad and weary faces to seeone which was full of energy and resolution. The sight of it was to melike a fire in a snow-storm. I was glad, then, to find that he was myneighbor, and gladder still when, in the dead of the night, I heard awhisper close to my ear, and found that he had managed to cut an openingin the board which separated us.
"'"Hullo, chummy!" said he, "what's your name, and what are you herefor?"
"'I answered him, and asked in turn who I was talking with.
"'"I'm Jack Prendergast," said he, "and by God! You'll learn to bless myname before you've done with me."
"'I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made animmense sensation throughout the country some time before my own arrest.He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of incurablyvicious habits, who had by an ingenious system of fraud obtained hugesums of money from the leading London merchants.
"'"Ha, ha! You remember my case!" said he proudly.
"'"Very well, indeed."
"'"Then maybe you remember something queer about it?"
"'"What was that, then?"
"'"I'd had nearly a quarter of a million, hadn't I?"
"'"So it was said."
"'"But none was recovered, eh?"
"'"No."
"'"Well, where d'ye suppose the balance is?" he asked.
"'"I have no idea," said I.
"'"Right between my finger and thumb," he cried. "By God! I've got morepounds to my name than you've hairs on your head. And if you've money,my son, and know how to handle it and spread it, you can do anything.Now, you don't think it likely that a man who could do anything is goingto wear his breeches out sitting in the stinking hold of a rat-gutted,beetle-ridden, mouldy old coffin of a China coaster. No, sir, sucha man will look after himself and will look after his chums. You may layto that! You hold on to him, and you may kiss the book that he'll haulyou through."
"'That was his style of talk, and at first I thought it meant nothing;but after a while, when he had tested me and sworn me in with allpossible solemnity, he let me understand that there really was a plotto gain command of the vessel. A dozen of the prisoners had hatched itbefore they came aboard, Prendergast was the leader, and his money wasthe motive power.