Long before the dance was over there were several seamen lying helplessly drugged in the side room. Just before midnight, and while the dance was still going on, Sullivan and his fellow-crimps removed the helpless men down to a boat, and took them off to the ships at the buoys. Then Sullivan pocketed his blood-money, and before daylight the vessels were at sea under all plain sail.
The following day, when the six American seamen did not turn up on board the _Jeremiah Crawford_, inquiries were quietly made, and it was soon found out what had become of them; they had been among the twelve men “shanghaied” aboard the three waiting ships. The men’s shipmates, boiling with anger, wanted to go and wreck Sullivan and his saloon, but the captain called all hands aft, and from the poop told them they must not let it be known that they knew where their shipmates were.
“I know how you feel over it,” he said, “and I know how I feel too, but I intend to pay that rascal in his own coin. Those Britishers are off to ‘Frisco, and we are bound there, too; and you can bet your bottom dollar I mean to make the ship move when we start. And what is more, I intend to take that rascal Sullivan with me!”
“All right, captain,” answered the men. “Mum’s the word. We will wait events.”
Two days afterwards Captain Monk, of the _Jeremiah Crawford_, told Sullivan to get him six men by the time the ship was loaded.
Sullivan agreed, on condition that he was paid three pounds per man. This Captain Monk agreed to, and when the ship was finished and hauled out to the buoys, Sullivan sent word to the captain that he would bring the men off about eight p.m.
Now, that day a young Irish police-constable had been transferred from Sydney to Newcastle, and promoted. He was appointed to this district with a view to watching the goings-on at Sullivan’s, rumours of which had reached police head-quarters.
The constable was married to a fine strapping Irish lass, who was a great help to her husband. She wore her hair short like a man’s, and was not a stranger to the wearing of men’s clothes. It was partly owing to her, in fact, that her husband had got his position.
The constable knew he was there to get proof of Sullivan’s shady doings, and it was accordingly arranged that his wife should disguise herself as a seaman--as she had done before--and watch the inside while her husband watched the outside of Sullivan’s saloon. The policeman’s wife was a splendidly-built woman, as straight as a reed, and muscular as well.