“According to… to our man…”
“His name was Edward W. Head, and he was the cook and steward,” Fogg said. “He had his papers on him. That his name was Head is significant, I believe. He must be your chief.”
“Only a coincidence,” Nemo said. “We have abandoned that ancient, but useless, custom of using names which indicate a person’s function.”
“Perhaps,” Fogg said.
Nemo wondered what else he had found on Head.
“Is he dead?” Nemo said.
“Yes.”
“You may have noticed that the navigation book, sextant, and chronometer are missing,” Nemo said. “Evidently the captain-his name was Briggs, by the way-had time to grab these. Other articles, such as clothes, were left behind. Nor were provisions from the pantry stored on the yawl.”
“The yawl? What about the main lifeboat, the longboat?”
“That was left behind at New York. It was damaged during the loading of the barrels. Several fell out of the sling on it, and Captain Briggs did not want to delay the ship while it was being repaired. The yawl could hold ten people, but it was smaller and not as seaworthy as the longboat.”
“The last hour marked on the deck log was eight a.m., November twenty-fifth,” Fogg said. “And after that?”
“Between nine and ten o’clock, the Mary Celeste was within several miles of the Dollabarat shoals,” Nemo said. “Those are dangerous shoals about three and a quarter miles southeast of the Formigas rocks. The Formigas are, it is thought, the peaks of submerged mountains. The Mary Celeste was not close enough to be in any peril and would have passed on safely, but…”
Nemo wondered why Fogg was having him give this lengthy explanation. Was he hoping to drag out the time before their departure because he had planned some trick which required time to prepare?
Well, there was nothing he could do about it. But if things suddenly went wrong for him, he would kill Passepartout at once. And perhaps this prolonged talk might turn to his advantage, if he could think of something.
“One of those inexplicable but frequently occurring calms befell the ship. At any other place, the Mary Celeste could have ridden it out. But now, her sails sagging, the ship was borne by the currents toward the Dollabarat shoals. These have taken many a victim. And it looked as if they would soon fasten their teeth into the hull of another. Captain Briggs had the light sails furled and the mainsail lowered and the ship hove to on the starboard tack. This was to ensure that, if the wind should rise in time, it would blow against the sails and stop its headway. Then the yawl might catch up with the ship, and the crew could board it.
“After this, the captain ordered that the ship be abandoned.”
“The yawl lay across the main hatch. This was unsecured while a section of the port rail, which you no doubt saw is missing, was removed. There was no time for a leisurely departure; everything was done in a few minutes. The yawl was lowered without tackle, and the main peak-halyard was unroven. It was used as a towline for the yawl with an end still attached to the gaff.”
(The gaff was the spar upon which the head of a fore-and-aft sail was extended. The halyard was about four hundred feet long, and where it was fastened to the gaff it would be about eight feet above the deck.)
“The captain took the ship’s papers, chronometer, and sextant. A sailor tried to get a compass; that is why the binnacle is displaced and the compass was broken in the haste to extract it. There was no time to get the other compass. The ship had drifted too close to the rocks.
“At this point, Head refused to get into the yawl with the others. He believed that his only chance of survival lay in using the distorter. If he were in the yawl, he would have to leave behind both the distorter and witnesses. He could, of course, shoot the nine people in the boat, but his revolver held only six cartridges at a time, and he might be overpowered before he could reload or perhaps even before he had finished firing. He decided to take his chances on the ship itself. If he could get the attention of… of one of us who had a distorter, he could be transmitted. Still better, if he could get enough men transmitted to the Mary Celeste and the calm did not last, then he could sail it to Europe.”
Why, Fogg wondered, had Head taken passage on a brigantine as a cook and steward and not proceeded to Europe by a steam liner? Was it because he thought that the Eridaneans would be looking for him on the passenger ships? Had he hoped to slip across on this sailing ship, quit or desert at Gibraltar, and from thence go in disguise to England? What was he carrying that was so valuable? The distorter? That was certainly valuable enough, but why had he not waited in America until the Chinese agent got to England so he could transmit himself to there? Another Capellean could have brought the distorter at a later time. If it were the distorter itself that was responsible for all this secrecy and haste, he could understand Head’s actions. But he felt that there was some other reason.
Stuart, if he were aware of Head’s existence and his mission, would have set his people to look for Head. Because of the overstrict security system, he had not informed Fogg of this. Or, perhaps, all this had started after Fogg left England and Stuart had not been able to get news of this through to him.
Fogg determined to make another search of Head’s body before he left the cabin.
Nemo said, “Captain Briggs raved when Head refused to get into the yawl. He called him a coward and a mutineer and threatened him with all the consequences of mutiny. But there was little he could do and no time to do it in if he could do it. The yawl departed and presently was at the end of the towline. Briggs was waiting to see what would happen. If a breeze arose in time, the ship would sail away from the shoals. The yawl would be rowed up to it while the line was taken in, and the Mary Celeste could be boarded. He must also have thought that Head, to regain favor and get any charges dropped, would steer the ship and give any other assistance he could.
“But a wind did arise, filling the square sails, and the ship moved away from the shoals. It was however, going westward in a direction opposite to its original course. The towline became taut and was pulled at an angle away from the ship. It broke. The yawl, though rowed desperately toward the ship, could not catch up.”
“And why didn’t Head bring the ship about?” Fogg said.
“Because he was afraid that he could not depend on Brigg’s gratitude. Briggs was a stern New England skipper who would probably arrest him and charge him with mutiny even if Head had saved the whole company.”
Was Nemo telling the whole truth? Had the sudden strain really snapped the towline? Or had Head severed it to make sure that Briggs would not get back aboard? By the time the yawl made land or its passengers were picked up by another ship-if they did not perish before this at sea-Head would be long gone.
As for the story of the panicky and premature abandonment; that could be true enough. About two hundred and thirty-two derelicts were found every year. Sometimes, the crews were picked up by other ships. Sometimes, they were never seen again. Sometimes, the reasons for the hasty desertions were unknown. A fire, an explosion, too much water in the hold. Sometimes, no reasons could be found by the investigators.
The case of the Mary Celeste was only one of many-if it were ever found. Many ships were just swallowed up by the ocean.
“The ship went through several squalls, hence the damage to the sails and the wetness of the floors and garments in some of the cabins,” Nemo said. “There was little that Head could do about them, and they were not serious. He was mainly concerned with making contact with our people who had distorters. He did not even bother shutting the doors or the fore and lazaret hatches though he did wash the dishes.