Yet even these did the silence of the great ship somewhat appal. And for myself, though I was as ready for murder and rapine as any, yet was I given pause; and hearing my lord’s whisper at my elbow, I turned and looked at him. “What do you make of it, Wat?” he asked. “Do you think it is a trap?” But ere I could answer him a figure came up the stairway from the cabin. It was an old man, very tall, and in the garb of a white friar, just such another as I had left sleeping in St. Mary’s Tower. The likeness sent a thrill of terror through me. The old man saw us not. He carried a taper in his hand; he was going round doubtless to replenish the lamps if they had gone out. The light from the taper showed a face of much benignancy—an old, kind face. The cowl had fallen back, and the silver tonsure gleamed in the light. Suddenly some one stirred in our midst, and all at once he knew that we were there. He opened his lips as though to speak. Then some of those pirates were upon him. I saw him lift the great crucifix that hung by his side between them and him. Then he was down, and the knives were hewing him. I thought no more on it, though it turned me sick an instant. The ship now swarmed with our men rushing hither and thither in search of treasure. Some were seizing the silver lamps before the shrines, others were tearing down the images. A rush of men swept me from my feet and down the cabin stairs, and I grasped my sword tighter. But here was no enemy. Only rich garments flung hither and thither in the silk-hung rooms, and many signs of the ship having been deserted in haste. I would have gone further, leaving the place to those who were tearing it to pieces, dragging down the hangings, kicking open the cedar-wood lockers, and pouring the precious wine they found there down their throats; I would have gone further had not my lord prevented me. “Come up on deck, Wat,” he said; “there is a scent of death here that sickens me. I am glad I left my boy on the Bon Aventure.” He dragged me with him. We were hardly up in the pure air before there was a scream from the mad herd below that turned one cold to hear; and as though the devil pursued them they came clambering up the hatches and staircases white as death, and sobered, and began flinging themselves off the sides of the vessel into their boats. “They would leave us here, Wat, to the terror, whatever it may be,” said my lord, “if I had not had with me by good fortune a handful of mine own shipmates. Ah, Gregory Dabchick”—seizing one—“what white devil hast thou seen below-stairs?” “If you please, none, Captain,” cried Dabchick, his breath sobbing; “but a worse thing. There are half a dozen corpses below there, dead of the smallpox. ’Tis a floating pest-house, my lord, and the place reeks with death.”