Year: 1877

no one but lady would leave Mel
bourne when the very air was dry
with thirst for gold. She was under
the charge, learned, of the captain,
and was sent home in order that her
father, lawyer by profession, might
go up to Ballarat and make his fortune
in the gold fields.


The captain was a gray-headed man
of sixty-five or so, a man with face
SCARED and scored in thousand lines
IT was hard and stern face. This
was well, because he had hard, stern
work before him. The chief sfficcr, a
young fellow of five and twenty, on
the contrary, showed in his face,
which was mild and soft-eyed, that he
was not the man to command crew
of roughs and rowdies.
| say nothing against him. and in
the end he fought Ii out to the death.
There were second and third mate
too-one was a boy of sixteen, not yet
out of his articles, the other was
rough, trusty fellow, every inch a
sailor. As for the saloon passenger
she was to be my queen and mistress.
Helen Elwood was her name. Her
father brought her on board half an
hour after l embarked, and took 4
hasty leave Of her. | noticed neither
him nor her, because, i'm truth, / was
still dazed by the long dream, in
which / had walked all the way from
sydney to Melbourne-my dream of
purpose. l sat in the bows, with my
bundle beside me, hardly noted when
the anchor was weighed, and present.
~ the ship spread her white sails, and
we slipped away out to sea.
Then l began to look about me. The
first thing | noticed was that the men
were drunk; and | learned afterward
that if they had not been drunk they
would not have been got on board at
all. Then l saw the captain and
officers drive them to work with blows.
The men were like brute beasts, but l
never saw brute beasts so knocked
down and belabored; they were drunk,
but they understood enough to turn
round when the officer was past, and
swear savagely. On the quarterback,
clinging to the taff'rail, and gazing at
the receding shores, was the young
lady, all alone. At the wheel stood a
man with his legs wide apart, his eyes
screwed up, and his head Oh one side
he was an oldish man. l put him
down as the quartermaster or boat
swain, and l was right. Every now
and then he jerked his head in the di-
rection of the young lady, and knew
that he was encouraging her, but Of
course could not hear what he said,
if, indeed, he did say anything.


All that first day the captain and
the officers drove and ordered the men
about, as if they had been so many
negro slaves. When night fell things
were little ship-shape, and the men
seemed gradually coming round.
When l turned in the watch was set,
and though neither the captain nor
the chief officer left the deck, it was
manifest that some sort of order was
established, and that the captain
meant to have things his way.


His own way it was for menth or
more.


| suppose there was never got to-
gsther, since ships first began to sail
the ocean, Il crew SO utterly black
guard as the crew of the Lucy Derrick.
AS steerage passenger my place was
forward, and | sat all day close to the
forecastle, listening perforce to the
oaths with which they interlarded
their language and the stories they
told. Now, as an ex-convict return
ing from Sydney, there ought to have
been nothing in the whole scale Of
human wickedness unfamiliar to me.
Truth to say there was very little. He
who has been in a convict ship, and
has made the dismal voyage across the
ocean with her Majesty's felons, has
had every opportunity of learning
what hell might be made of this fair
| earth if men had their own wicked
way. Somehow it might have been
that my ab]ect misery at the time
blinded my eyes and stopped my ears


The voyage, with its sufferings by
night, its despair by day, and the hor-
ror of my companionship, was all for
gotten so that, as | lay upon the
deck, the imprecations and foul Ian
guage of the crew of the Lucy Derrick


as they got together on the forecastle,
awakened me from that stupor of
thought into which / was fallen, as
some unexpected noise at night falls
upon the ears Of an uneasy dreamer,
and awakens him to reality. No one
in the ship said anything to me, or
took any notice of me. ut is because
| am convict" l whispered to my
self. 1t was not. 1t was only because
no one took the trouble to ascertain
who and what only steerage passenger
was. took my meals with the
second and third mates, and we ex-
changed little conversation. 1 sup
pose they thought / WAS sulky. Be
tween meals went on deck, and staid
there, and for want of anything to do
looked about me and watched the
men.


In u few weeks after leaving land
became aware of several significant
things. The first was that the officers
never went forward alone, and that
they were always armed; then that
they were gloomy, and seemed to be
watching the men. l noticed too
being, so to speak, among the sailors
that they whispered together good
deal. Among them was a young fell
low Of five-and-twenty or So who
seemed the leader in the whisperings


He never passed another sailor with
out saying something in low voice ;
and when he passed me, he had a way,
which exasserated me, of grinning
and nodding. He was smooth-faced
man, with what seemed at first to be
an upward twist of the right lip.
H. sr u, I'll, l.. ,f g.