eavy-bowed,
broad-beamed craft, and the new clippers had cut her out. She was a
500-ton boat, and besides her thirty-eight gaol-birds, she carried
twenty-six of a crew, eighteen soldiers, a captain, three mates, a
doctor, a chaplain, and four warders. Nearly a hundred souls were in
her, all told, when we set sail from Falmouth.

"The partitions between the cells of the convicts, instead of being of
thick 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 particularly noticed
when we were led down the quay. He was a young man with a clear,
hairless face, a long thin nose, and rather nutcracker jaws. He carried
his head very jauntily in the air, had a swaggering style of walking,
and was above all else remarkable for his extraordinary height. I don't
think any of our heads would come up to his shoulder, and I am sure that
he could not have measured less than six and a half feet. It was strange
among so many sad and weary faces to see one which was full of energy
and resolution. The sight of it was to me like a fire in a snowstorm. I
was glad then to find that he was my neighbour, and gladder still when,
in the dead of the night, I heard a whisper close to my ear, and found
that he had managed to cut an opening in the board which separated us.

"'Halloa, chummy!' said he, 'what's your name, and what are you here
for?'

"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 my
name before you've done with me!'

"I remembered hearing of his case, for it was one which had made an
immense sensation throughout the country, some time before my own
arrest. He was a man of good family and of great ability, but of
incurably vicious habits, who had, by an ingenious system of fraud,
obtained huge sums of money from the leading London merchants.

"'Ah, 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 more
pounds to my name than you have hairs on your head. And if you've money,
my son, and know how to handle it and spread