XIII
“Not one of the seamen could be got to go below, or to approach the corpses on the deck; and even the mate, who did touch these last, had a reluctance to descend. It was, however, necessary to get another hawser attached to the Lucca, and this occupied some little time; and by then the men became more accustomed to the ship, and at last, led by the mate, they went down.
“At the foot of the staircase a terrible sight met their gaze. A heap of people—seamen, passengers, all classes—lay huddled up together—dead. They were piled one over the other in ghastly profusion, having been probably flung about by the rolling of the ship when she got broadside on. So great was the heap that they could not advance without either stepping upon the bodies, or removing them; and in this emergency they signalled to the yacht, which sent another boat, and in it came Mr. Theodore.
“He at once gave orders to make a passage and to explore the steamer thoroughly, which was done, and done speedily, for the sailors, having now conquered their superstitious fears, worked with a will. From that heap thirty-five bodies were carried up on deck, and laid upon one side in an awful row. They exhibited no traces of violence whatever. Their faces were quite calm; though one or two had the eyeballs staring from the head, as if they had struggled to escape suffocation.
“A search through the steamer revealed a cargo of the dead. Passengers lay at the doors of their berths, some half-dressed; and five or six were discovered in their berths, having evidently died while asleep. The engineer lay on the floor of the engine-room with three assistants—stiff, and with features grimly distorted. They had apparently suffered more than the rest.
“The crew were found in various places. The captain lay near the engine-room, as if he had been on his way to consult with the engineer when death overtook him. Bodies were found all over the ship, and exclamations constantly arose as the men discovered fresh corpses. The air between decks was close and confined, and there was a fetid odour which they supposed to arise from the bodies, and which forced them sometimes to run on deck to breathe. This odour caused many of the sailors to vomit, and one or two were really ill for a time.
“It appeared that the whole ship’s crew and all the passengers had perished; but one of the sailors searching about found a man in the wheelhouse on deck, who on being lifted up showed some slight trace of life. The sailors crowded round, and the excitement was intense. Mr. Theodore, who is a physician by profession, lent the aid of his skill, and after a while the man began to come round, though unable to speak.
“The captain of the yacht had now come on board, and a consultation was held, at which it was decided to run back to New York. But as the wind was strong and the sea high, and the hawsers strained a good deal, it was arranged to put a part of the crew of the yacht on board the Lucca, to get up steam in her boilers, and shape a course for the States. To this the crew of the yacht strongly objected—they came aft in a body and respectfully begged not to be asked to stay on board the Lucca. They dreaded a similar fate to that which befell the crew and passengers of that unfortunate steamer.
“The end of it was that Mr. Theodore ordered the hawsers to be kept attached, and the yacht was to partly tow the steamer and she was to partly steam ahead herself—the steam was to be got up, and the engines driven at half speed. This would ease the hawsers and the yacht, and at the same time the crew on board the Lucca would be in communication with the yacht, and able to convey their wishes at once.
“All agreed to this. Steam was easily got up, and the Lucca’s boilers and her engines were soon working, for the machinery was found to be in perfect order. By the time that this arrangement was perfected, and the ships were got well underway, the short day was nearly over, and with the night came anew the superstitions of the sailors. They murmured, and demurred to working a ship with a whole cargo of dead bodies. They would not move even across the deck alone, and as to going below it required them at once to face the mystery.
“After an hour or so a clamour arose to pitch the dead overboard. What on earth was the use of keeping them? An abominable stench came up from between decks, and many of them could barely stand it. Mr. Theodore and the captain begged them to be calm, but it was in vain. They rose en masse, and in a short space of time every one of these dead bodies had been heaved overboard.
“The gale had moderated, and the splash of each corpse as it fell into the water could be distinctly heard on board the yacht ahead. Such conduct cannot be too much deplored, and there was a talk of prosecuting the men for mutiny; but, on the other hand, there appears to be some excuse in the extraordinary and unprecedented horrors of the situation.
“Mr. Theodore remained on board the Lucca, doing all that science and patience could do for the sole survivor, who proved to be the third officer. Towards sunrise he rallied considerably, but Mr. Theodore never had any hopes, and advised the captain to take a note of his depositions, which was done.
“His name, he said, was William Burrows, of Maine. He could only speak a few sentences at a time, and that very faintly, but the substance of it was that all went well with the Lucca up till early that morning, when first the fog came on. Very soon after the mist settled down, and speed was reduced, there was a commotion below, and a report spread through the ship that three men were dying. In ten minutes half a dozen more were taken in this manner. They complained merely of inability to breathe, and of a deadly weakness, and prayed to be taken on deck. This was done; but then ten or twelve more were affected, and those who went below to assist them up on deck fell victims at once to the same strange disorder. Everyone throughout the ship complained of a faint, sickly odour, and no sooner was this inhaled than a deadly lethargy seized upon them, and increased till they fell down and died. He happened to be on deck in the wheelhouse at the time, and saw half a dozen sailors and three of the passengers brought up, but remembered no more, for the sickly smell invaded the deck. He heard a singing in his ears, and the blood seemed to press heavily, as if driven upwards against the roof of his skull. He remembered no more for some hours. Then he, as it were, awoke, and got up on his legs, but again felt the same lethargy, and fell. When the disorder first attacked the ship’s company, the captain talked of stopping the steamer and signalling for assistance; but it appeared to be useless, for the fog was so thick that any flag, or rocket, or light would have been unnoticed at half a cable’s distance. Preparations were made to fire a gun, and the steam blast was ordered, but the engineer was dead, and no one would go below. The captain then descended to go to the engine-room, and was seen no more. Meantime the steamer continued her way. When he got on his legs in the wheelhouse, it was just after the bow of the Lucca had carried away the boom of an unknown sailing ship, and he could feel that she was then going at a tremendous speed. The fog had cleared, and if he had had strength enough he could have made signals, but the deadly sleep came over him again, and he was unconscious till picked up by the crew of the Gloire de Dijon.
“This was all he could tell, and it threw no light upon the cause of the disaster. After he had signed this in a shaky hand—I have seen the original document—he sank rapidly, and, despite of every remedy and stimulant, died before noon. His body was the only one brought into port, and it was interred yesterday in the presence of a vast assembly. A postmortem examination failed to detect the slightest trace of poison or indication of disease; and all those who assisted in removing the dead bodies on board the Lucca, declare that they presented no known symptoms of any epidemic—for the prevailing belief in New York at first was that some epidemic had broken out—a kind of plague, which destroyed its victims almost as soon as attacked. But for this there seems no foundation whatever. None of the sailors of the yacht caught the epidemic. One or two were unwell for a day or so, but are now well and hearty.
“I think Mr. Theodore’s suggestion the best that has been made—and it gradually gains ground with educated men, though the mass cling to the fanciful notion of foul play in some unheard-of way—Mr. Theodore thinks that it was caused by the generation of coal-damp, or some similar and fatal gas, in the coal-bunkers of the Lucca; and everything seems to favour this supposition. It is well-known that in cold weather—especially in cold weather accompanied by fog—coal-damp in mines is especially active and fatal. Most of the great explosions which have destroyed hundreds at once have occurred in such a state of the atmosphere.
“Now the fog which came on that fatal morning was peculiarly thick and heavy, and it so happens that the coal in the Lucca’s bunkers came from a colliery where, only a fortnight ago, there was an explosion. The vapour, or gas, or whatever it was that was thus generated, was not the true coal-damp, or it would have been ignited by the furnaces of the boilers, or at the cook’s fires; but in all probability it was something very near akin to it. All the symptoms described by poor Burrows, are those of blood-poisoning combined with suffocation, and such would be the effects of a gas or vapour arising from coal. Fatal effects arising from damp coal in close bunkers are on record; but this is the worst ever heard of.
“It would seem that after the engineer and the crew fell into their fatal slumbers, the steam in the boilers must have reached almost a bursting pressure—the boilers being untended—and the engineer, in falling, had opened the valve to the full, which accounts for the extraordinary speed of the Lucca when pursued by the yacht. Being a very long vessel and sharp in the bows, and going at a very high speed, she would naturally keep nearly a direct course, as there was little wind or sea to interfere with her rudder. So soon as the fires burned out the engines stopped, and the sea rising, she became entirely at the mercy of the waves.
“When Burrows fell a victim he saw nine or ten men on deck lying prone in a fatal sleep—when the Gloire de Dijon sent a boat’s crew on board there were but three bodies on deck; the rest had rolled, or been washed, overboard.
“These are the principal particulars of this unprecedented catastrophe. This is a long letter, but I am sure that you will be eager for news upon the subject, and, to tell the truth, I cannot get it out of my mind, and it relieves me to write it down.
“What a narrow escape we have all had. And especially me, for I came on to New York from Imola before the rest started, and got clear through without any snow. When it was found that they could not reach New York in time, I was in doubt whether to go by the Lucca, or remain and accompany the main body in the Saskatchewan. Accident decided. I met an old friend whom I had not seen for years, and resolved to take advantage of the delay, and spend a day or two with him. So I escaped.
“But had it not been for the snowstorm, which caused so much cursing at the time, we should one and all have perished miserably. The impression made upon us was so deep that just before the Saskatchewan started the whole body of the claimants attended a special service at a church here, when thanksgivings were offered for the escape they had had, and prayers offered up for future safety.
“I look forward with much pleasure to my voyage in the Gloire de Dijon yacht, at Mr. Baskette’s invitation. A finer, more gentlemanly man does not exist; and I am greatly impressed with the learning of Mr. Theodore.”
Aymer was much struck with the contents of this letter of Anthony Baskelette’s. The whole tragedy seemed to pass before his mind; his vivid imagination called up a picture of the Lucca, steaming as fast as bursting pressure could drive her with a crew of corpses across the winter sea. He made an extract from it, and sent it to Violet. Next day they were en route for Stirmingham.
At the same moment the designer of this horrible event was steaming across the Atlantic in his splendid yacht, gulling weak-minded, simple Baskelette with highest notions of honour, and whatnot. When Marese found that the snow had blocked the line and prevented access to New York, his rage and disappointment knew no bounds; but he was sufficiently master of himself to think and decide upon the course to be pursued.
Although that part of the diabolical scheme which aimed at the wholesale destruction of the claimants had failed, all the other sections of it were in train to succeed. The bullion was shipped, the cargo a rich one, the steamer herself valuable—no better prize could ever fall to him. Therefore he telegraphed to Theodore in cipher to proceed as had been arranged.
The infernal machine, concealed in the simple aspect of an ordinary strong deal-box, was sent on board the Lucca, and everything happened just as Theodore had foreseen. If the conspirators were somewhat disturbed in their calculations by the snowstorm, on the other hand their designs were assisted by the heavy fog which had occurred at sea. Undoubtedly this fog rendered the poisonous gas escaping from the case still more effective, as it would prevent it dispersing so rapidly, and at the same time it hid any signals the Lucca might have made.
Nothing more fortunate for the conspirators than this fog could have happened, for its service did not end here—it furnished a plausible explanation of what would have otherwise been inexplicable.
Theodore easily contrived the removal of the fatal case, now empty, on board the Gloire de Dijon after the Lucca had returned to port. The case had been consigned to Liverpool, which was the port the Lucca was bound for, and the excuse for sending it by the Lucca was all cut and dried—i.e., that the Gloire de Dijon was for London.
Nothing was more natural than that, after this narrow escape, it should be wished to transfer the case to the Gloire de Dijon. This was done; and while at sea Theodore quietly removed his machine and pitched it into the water at night, and it sank in the abyss, being lined with iron inside.
The question of salvage bid fair to occupy the Courts in New York for some considerable time, and to be a boon to the lawyers; but the two conspirators were far too keen to let their prize slip from them in that way. They managed to have the matter referred to arbitration, and the final result was that £400,000 was awarded. This amount they at once transferred to London, and with it plunged at once into fresh schemes.