By the light of the torches, we saw the black Hulk lying out a little way from the mud of the shore, like a wicked Noah’s ark. Cribbed and barred and moored by massive rusty chains, the prison-ship seemed in my young eyes to be ironed like the prisoners. We saw the boat go alongside, and we saw him taken up the side and disappear. Then, the ends of the torches were flung hissing into the water, and went out, as if it were all over with him.
– Charles Dickens
Great Expectations, Chapter 5. Pip watches the escaped convict he helped being returned to the prison ship in the Thames estuary. The boy believes that Magwitch has disappeared from his life forever. But that will be shown not to be the case with Magwitch about to play a major role in Pip’s future as a boy and young man. The inhumane prison conditions in Victorian England are highlighted by this passage, with prisoners treated little better than animals. A simile compares prison Hulk to a “wicked Noah’s ark” and it appears to be covered in the same iron chains as the prisoners.