The Ghost Pirates - William Hope Hodgson
He paused. After a moment, he went on again.
"That was honly three or four nights ago!"
"Well," said Plummer. "What are yer drivin' at?"
"Nothin'," answered Stubbins. "Honly it's damned queer. Looks as though
ther ship might be unlucky, after all."
"Well," agreed Plummer. "Things 'as been a bit funny lately; and then
there's what's 'appened ter-night. I shall 'ang on pretty tight ther
next time I go aloft."
Old Jaskett took his pipe from his mouth, and sighed.
"Things is going wrong 'most every night," he said, almost pathetically.
"It's as diff'rent as chalk 'n' cheese ter what it were w'en we started
this 'ere trip. I thought it were all 'ellish rot about 'er bein'
'aunted; but it's not, seem'ly."
He stopped and expectorated.
"She hain't haunted," said Stubbins. "Leastways, not like you mean--"
He paused, as though trying to grasp some elusive thought.
"Eh?" said Jaskett, in the interval.
Stubbins continued, without noticing the query. He appeared to be
answering some half-formed thought in his own brain, rather than
Jaskett:
"Things is queer--an' it's been a bad job tonight. I don't savvy one bit
what Williams was sayin' of hup aloft. I've thought sometimes he'd
somethin' on 'is mind--"
Then, after a pause of about half a minute, he said this:
"_Who_ was he sayin' that to?"
"Eh?" said Jaskett, again, with a puzzled expression.
"I was thinkin'," said Stubbins, knocking out his pipe on the edge of
the chest. "P'raps you're right, hafter all."
VI
_Another Man to the Wheel_
The conversation had slacked off. We were all moody and shaken, and I
know I, for one, was thinking some rather troublesome thoughts.
Suddenly, I heard the sound of the Second's whistle. Then his voice came
along the deck:
"Another man to the wheel!"
"'e's singin' out for some one to go aft an' relieve ther wheel," said
Quoin, who had gone to the door to listen. "Yer'd better 'urry up,
Plummer."
"What's ther time?" asked Plummer, standing up and knocking out his
pipe. "Must be close on ter four bells, 'oo's next wheel is it?"
"It's all right, Plummer," I said, getting up from the chest on which I
had been sitting. "I'll go along. It's my wheel, and it only wants a
couple of minutes to four bells."
Plummer sat down again, and I went out of the fo'cas'le. Reaching the
poop, I met Tammy on the lee side, pacing up and down.
"Who's at the wheel?" I asked him, in astonishment.
"The Second Mate," he said, in a shaky sort of voice. "He's waiting to
be relieved. I'll tell you all about it as soon as I get a chance."
I went on aft to the wheel.
"Who's that?" the Second inquired.
"It's Jessop, Sir," I answered.
He gave me the course, and then, without another word, went forrard
along the poop. On the break, I heard him call Tammy's name, and then
for some minutes he was talking to him; though what he was saying, I
could not possibly hear. For my part, I was tremendously curious to know
why the Second Mate had taken the wheel. I knew that if it were just a
matter of bad steering on Tammy's part, he would not have dreamt of
doing such a thing. There had been something queer happening, about
which I had yet to learn; of this, I felt sure.
Presently, the Second Mate left Tammy, and commenced to walk the weather
side of the deck. Once he came right aft, and, stooping down, peered
under the wheel-box; but never addressed a word to me. Sometime later,
he went down the weather ladder on to the main-deck. Directly
afterwards, Tammy came running up to the lee side of the wheel-box.
"I've seen it again!" he said, gasping with sheer nervousness.
"What?" I said.
"That _thing_," he answered. Then he leant across the wheel-box, and
lowered his voice.
"It came over the lee rail--_up out of the sea_," he added, with an air
of telling something unbelievable.
I turned more towards him; but it was too dark to see his face with any
distinctness. I felt suddenly husky. "My God!" I thought. And then I
made a silly effort to protest; but he cut me short with a certain
impatient hopelessness.
"For God's sake, Jessop," he said, "do stow all that! It's no good. I
must have someone to talk to, or I shall go dotty."
I saw how useless it was to pretend any sort of ignorance. Indeed,
really, I had known it all along, and avoided the youngster on that very
account, as you know.
"Go on," I said. "I'll listen; but you'd better keep an eye for the
Second Mate; he may pop up any minute."
For a moment, he said nothing, and I saw him peering stealthily about
the poop.
"Go on," I said. "You'd better make haste, or he'll be up before you're
half-way through. What was he doing at the wheel when I came up to
relieve it? Why did he send you away from it?"
"He didn't," Tammy replied, turning his face towards me. "I bunked away
from it."
"What for?" I asked.
"Wait a minute," he answered, "and I'll tell you the whole business. You
know the Second Mate sent me to the wheel, after _that_--" He nodded his
head forrard.
"Yes," I said.
"Well, I'd been here about ten minutes, or a quarter of an hour, and I
was feeling rotten about Williams, and trying to forget it all and keep
the ship on her course, and all that; when, all at once, I happened to
glance to loo'ard, and there I saw it climbing over the rail. My God! I
didn't know what to do. The Second Mate was standing forrard on the
break of the poop, and I was here all by myself. I felt as if I were
frozen stiff. When it came towards me, I let go of the wheel, and yelled
and bunked forrard to the Second Mate. He caught hold of me and shook
me; but I was so jolly frightened, I couldn't say a word. I could only
keep on pointing. The Second kept asking me 'Where?' And then, all at
once, I found I couldn't see the thing. I don't know whether he saw it.
I'm not at all certain he did. He just told me to damn well get back to
the wheel, and stop making a damned fool of myself. I said out straight
I wouldn't go. So he blew his whistle, and sung out for someone to come
aft and take it. Then he ran and got hold of the wheel himself. You know
the rest."
"You're quite sure it wasn't thinking about Williams made you imagine
you saw something?" I said, more to gain a moment to think, than because
I believed that it was the case.
"I thought you were going to listen to me, seriously!" he said,
bitterly. "If you won't believe me; what about the chap the Second Mate
saw? What about Tom? What about Williams? For goodness sake! don't try
to put me off like you did last time. I nearly went cracked with wanting
to tell someone who would listen to me, and wouldn't laugh. I could
stand anything, but this being alone. There's a good chap, don't pretend
you don't understand. Tell me what it all means. What is this horrible
man that I've twice seen? You know you know something, and I believe
you're afraid to tell anyone, for fear of being laughed at. Why don't
you tell me? You needn't be afraid of my laughing."
He stopped, suddenly. For the moment, I said nothing in reply.
"Don't treat me like a kid, Jessop!" he exclaimed, quite passionately.
"I won't," I said, with a sudden resolve to tell him everything. "I need
someone to talk to, just as badly as you do."
"What does it all mean, then?" he burst out. "Are they real? I always
used to think it was all a yarn about such things."
"I'm sure I don't know what it all means, Tammy," I answered. "I'm just
as much in the dark, there, as you are. And I don't know whether they're
real--that is, not as we consider things real. You don't know that I saw
a queer figure down on the maindeck, several nights before you saw that
thing up here."
"Didn't you see this one?" he cut in, quickly.
"Yes," I answered.
"Then, why did you pretend not to have?" he said, in a reproachful
voice. "You don't know what a state you put me into, what with my being
certain that I had seen it and then you being so jolly positive that
there had been nothing. At one time I thought I was going clean off my
dot--until the Second Mate saw that man go up the main. Then, I knew
that there must be something in the thing I was certain I'd seen."
"I thought, perhaps, that if I told you I hadn't seen it, you would
think you'd been mistaken," I said. "I wanted you to think it was
imagination, or a dream, or something of that sort."
"And all the time, you knew about that other thing you'd seen?" he
asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"It was thundering decent of you," he said. "But it wasn't any good."
He paused a moment. Then he went on:
"It's terrible about Williams. Do you think he saw something, up aloft?"
"I don't know, Tammy," I said. "It's impossible to say. It _may_ have
been only an accident." I hesitated to tell him what I really thought.
"What was he saying about his pay-day? Who was he saying it to?"
"I don't know," I said, again. "He was always cracked about taking a
pay-day out of her. You know, he stayed in her, on purpose, when all the
others left. He told me that he wasn't going to be done out of it, for
anyone."
"What did the other lot leave for?" he asked. Then, as the idea seemed
to strike him--"Jove! do you think they saw something, and got scared?
It's quite possible. You know, we only joined her in 'Frisco. She had no
'prentices on the passage out. Our ship was sold; so they sent us aboard
here to come home."
"They may have," I said. "Indeed, from things I've heard Williams say,
I'm pretty certain, he for one, guessed or knew a jolly sight more than
we've any idea of."
"And now he's dead!" said Tammy, solemnly. "We'll never be able to find
out from him now."
For a few moments, he was silent. Then he went off on another track.
"Doesn't anything ever happen in the Mate's watch?"
"Yes," I answered. "There's several things happened lately, that seem
pretty queer. Some of his side have been talking about them. But he's
too jolly pig-headed to see anything. He just curses his chaps, and puts
it all down to them."
"Still," he persisted, "things seem to happen more in our watch than in
his--I mean, bigger things. Look at tonight."
"We've no proof, you know," I said.
He shook his head, doubtfully.
"I shall always funk going aloft, now."
"Nonsense!" I told him. "It may only have been an accident."
"Don't!" he said. "You know you don't think so, really."
I answered nothing, just then; for I knew very well that he was right.
We were silent for a couple of moments.
Then he spoke again:
"Is the ship haunted?"
For an instant I hesitated.
"No," I said, at length. "I don't think she is. I mean, not in that
way."
"What way, then?"
"Well, I've formed a bit of a theory, that seems wise one minute, and
cracked the next. Of course, it's as likely to be all wrong; but it's
the only thing that seems to me to fit in with all the beastly things
we've had lately."
"Go on!" he said, with an impatient, nervous movement.
"Well, I've an idea that it's nothing _in_ the ship that's likely to
hurt us. I scarcely know how to put it; but, if I'm right in what I
think, it's the ship herself that's the cause of everything."
"What do you mean?" he asked, in a puzzled voice. "Do you mean that the
ship _is_ haunted, after all?"
"No!" I answered. "I've just told you I didn't. Wait until I've finished
what I was going to say."
"All right!" he said.
"About that thing you saw tonight," I went on. "You say it came over the
lee rail, up on to the poop?"
"Yes," he answered.
"Well, the thing I saw, _came up out of the sea, and went back into the
sea_."
"Jove!" he said; and then: "Yes, go on!"
"My idea is, that this ship is open to be boarded by those things," I
explained. "What they are, of course I don't know. They look like men--
in lots of ways. But--well, the Lord knows what's in the sea. Though we
don't want to go imagining silly things, of course. And then, again, you
know, it seems fat-headed, calling anything silly. That's how I keep
going, in a sort of blessed circle. I don't know a bit whether they're
flesh and blood, or whether they're what we should call ghosts or
spirits."
"They can't be flesh and blood," Tammy interrupted. "Where would they
live? Besides, that first one I saw, I thought I could see through it.
And this last one--the Second Mate would have seen it. And they would
drown--"
"Not necessarily," I said.
"Oh, but I'm sure they're not," he insisted. "It's impossible--"
"So are ghosts--when you're feeling sensible," I answered. "But I'm not
saying they _are_ flesh and blood; though, at the same time, I'm not
going to say straight out they're ghosts--not yet, at any rate."
"Where do they come from?" he asked, stupidly enough.
"Out of the sea," I told him. "You saw for yourself!"
"Then why don't other vessels have them coming aboard?" he said. "How do
you account for that?"
"In a way--though sometimes it seems cracky--I think I can, according to
my idea," I answered.
"How?" he inquired again.
"Why, I believe that this ship is open, as I've told you--exposed,
unprotected, or whatever you like to call it. I should say it's
reasonable to think that all the things of the material world are
barred, as it were, from the immaterial; but that in some cases the
barrier may be broken down. That's what may have happened to this ship.
And if it has, she may be naked to the attacks of beings belonging to
some other state of existence."
"What's made her like that?" he asked, in a really awed sort of tone.
"The Lord knows!" I answered. "Perhaps something to do with magnetic
stresses; but you'd not understand, and I don't, really. And, I suppose,
inside of me, I don't believe it's anything of the kind, for a minute.
I'm not built that way. And yet I don't know! Perhaps, there may have
been some rotten thing done aboard of her. Or, again, it's a heap more
likely to be something quite outside of anything I know."
"If they're immaterial then, they're spirits?" he questioned.
"I don't know," I said. "It's so hard to say what I really think, you
know. I've got a queer idea, that my head-piece likes to think good; but
I don't believe my tummy believes it."
"Go on!" he said.
"Well," I said. "Suppose the earth were inhabited by two kinds of life.
We're one, and _they're_ the other."
"Go on!" he said.
"Well," I said. "Don't you see, in a normal state we may not be capable
of appreciating the _realness_ of the other? But they may be just as
_real_ and material to _them_, as _we_ are to _us_. Do you see?"
"Yes," he said. "Go on!"
"Well," I said. "The earth may be just as _real_ to them, as to us. I
mean that it may have qualities as material to them, as it has to us;
but neither of us could appreciate the other's realness, or the quality
of realness in the earth, which was real to the other. It's so difficult
to explain. Don't you understand?"
"Yes," he said. "Go on!"
"Well, if we were in what I might call a healthy atmosphere, they would
be quite beyond our power to see or feel, or anything. And the same with
them; but the more we're like _this_, the more _real_ and actual they
could grow _to us_. See? That is, the more we should become able to
appreciate their form of materialness. That's all. I can't make it any
clearer."
"Then, after all, you _really_ think they're ghosts, or something of
that sort?" Tammy said.
"I suppose it does come to that," I answered. "I mean that, anyway, I
don't think they're our ideas of flesh and blood. But, of course, it's
silly to say much; and, after all, you must remember that I may be all
wrong."
"I think you ought to tell the Second Mate all this," he said. "If it's
really as you say, the ship ought to be put into the nearest port, and
jolly well burnt."
"The Second Mate couldn't do anything," I replied. "Even if he believed
it all; which we're not certain he would."
"Perhaps not," Tammy answered. "But if you could get him to believe it,
he might explain the whole business to the Skipper, and then something
might be done. It's not safe as it is."
"He'd only get jeered at again," I said, rather hopelessly.
"No," said Tammy. "Not after what's happened tonight."
"Perhaps not," I replied, doubtfully. And just then the Second Mate came
back on to the poop, and Tammy cleared away from the wheel-box, leaving
me with a worrying feeling that I ought to do something.
VII
_The Coming of the Mist and That Which It Ushered_
We buried Williams at midday. Poor beggar! It had been so sudden. All
day the men were awed and gloomy, and there was a lot of talk about
there being a Jonah aboard. If they'd only known what Tammy and I, and
perhaps the Second Mate, knew!
And then the next thing came--the mist. I cannot remember now, whether
it was on the day we buried Williams that we first saw it, or the day
after.
When first I noticed it, like everybody else aboard, I took it to be
some form of haze, due to the heat of the sun; for it was broad daylight
when the thing came.
The wind had died away to a light breeze, and I was working at the main
rigging, along with Plummer, putting on seizings.
"Looks as if 'twere middlin' 'ot," he remarked.
"Yes," I said; and, for the time, took no further notice.
Presently he spoke again:
"It's gettin' quite 'azy!" and his tone showed he was surprised.
I glanced up, quickly. At first, I could see nothing. Then, I saw what
he meant. The air had a wavy, strange, unnatural appearance; something
like the heated air over the top of an engine's funnel, that you can
often see when no smoke is coming out.
"Must be the heat," I said. "Though I don't remember ever seeing
anything just like it before."
"Nor me," Plummer agreed.
It could not have been a minute later when I looked up again, and was
astonished to find that the whole ship was surrounded by a thinnish haze
that quite hid the horizon.
"By Jove! Plummer," I said. "How queer!"
"Yes," he said, looking round. "I never seen anythin' like it before--
not in these parts."
"Heat wouldn't do that!" I said.
"N--no," he said, doubtfully.
We went on with our work again--occasionally exchanging an odd word or
two. Presently, after a little time of silence, I bent forward and asked
him to pass me up the spike. He stooped and picked it up from the deck,
where it had tumbled. As he held it out to me, I saw the stolid
expression on his face, change suddenly to a look of complete surprise.
He opened his mouth.
"By gum!" he said. "It's gone."
I turned quickly, and looked. And so it had--the whole sea showing clear
and bright, right away to the horizon.
I stared at Plummer, and he stared at me.
"Well, I'm blowed!" he exclaimed.
I do not think I made any reply; for I had a sudden, queer feeling that
the thing was not right. And then, in a minute, I called myself an ass;
but I could not really shake off the feeling. I had another good look at
the sea. I had a vague idea that something was different. The sea looked
brighter, somehow, and the air clearer, I thought, and I missed
something; but not much, you know. And it was not until a couple of days
later, that I knew that it was several vessels on the horizon, which had
been quite in sight before the mist, and now were gone.
During the rest of the watch, and indeed all day, there was no further
sign of anything unusual. Only, when the evening came (in the second
dog-watch it was) I saw the mist rise faintly--the setting sun shining
through it, dim and unreal.
I knew then, as a certainty, that it was not caused by heat.
And that was the beginning of it.
The next day, I kept a pretty close watch, during all my time on deck;
but the atmosphere remained clear. Yet, I heard from one of the chaps in
the Mate's watch, that it had been hazy during part of the time he was
at the wheel.
"Comin' an' goin', like," he described it to me, when I questioned him
about it. He thought it might be heat.
But though I knew otherwise, I did not contradict him. At that time, no
one, not even Plummer, seemed to think very much of the matter. And when
I mentioned it to Tammy, and asked him whether he'd noticed it, he only
remarked that it must have been heat, or else the sun drawing up water.
I let it stay at that; for there was nothing to be gained by suggesting
that the thing had more to it.
Then, on the following day, something happened that set me wondering
more than ever, and showed me how right I had been in feeling the mist
to be something unnatural. It was in this way.
Five bells, in the eight to twelve morning watch, had gone. I was at the
wheel. The sky was perfectly clear--not a cloud to be seen, even on the
horizon. It was hot, standing at the wheel; for there was scarcely any
wind, and I was feeling drowsy. The Second Mate was down on the maindeck
with the men, seeing about some job he wanted done; so that I was on the
poop alone.
Presently, with the heat, and the sun beating right down on to me, I
grew thirsty; and, for want of something better, I pulled out a bit of
plug I had on me, and bit off a chew; though, as a rule, it is not a
habit of mine. After a little, naturally enough, I glanced round for the
spittoon; but discovered that it was not there. Probably it had been
taken forrard when the decks were washed, to give it a scrub. So, as
there was no one on the poop, I left the wheel, and stepped aft to the
taffrail. It was thus that I came to see something altogether unthought
of--a full-rigged ship, close-hauled on the port tack, a few hundred
yards on our starboard quarter. Her sails were scarcely filled by the
light breeze, and flapped as she lifted to the swell of the sea. She
appeared to have very little way through the water, certainly not more
than a knot an hour. Away aft, hanging from the gaff-end, was a string
of flags. Evidently, she was signalling to us. All this, I saw in a
flash, and I just stood and stared, astonished. I was astonished because
I had not seen her earlier. In that light breeze, I knew that she must
have been in sight for at least a couple of hours. Yet I could think of
nothing rational to satisfy my wonder. There she was--of that much, I
was certain. And yet, how had she come there without my seeing her,
before?
All at once, as I stood, staring, I heard the wheel behind me, spin
rapidly. Instinctively, I jumped to get hold of the spokes; for I did
not want the steering gear jammed. Then I turned again to have another
look at the other ship; but, to my utter bewilderment, _there was no
sign of her_--nothing but the calm ocean, spreading away to the distant
horizon. I blinked my eyelids a bit, and pushed the hair off my
forehead. Then, I stared again; but there was no vestige of her--
nothing, you know; and absolutely nothing unusual, except a faint,
tremulous quiver in the air. And the blank surface of the sea reaching
everywhere to the empty horizon.
Had she foundered? I asked myself, naturally enough; and, for the
moment, I really wondered. I searched round the sea for wreckage; but
there was nothing, not even an odd hen-coop, or a piece of deck
furniture; and so I threw away that idea, as impossible.
Then, as I stood, I got another thought, or, perhaps, an intuition and I
asked myself seriously whether this disappearing ship might not be in
some way connected with the other queer things. It occurred to me then,
that the vessel I had seen was nothing real, and, perhaps, did not exist
outside of my own brain. I considered the idea, gravely. It helped to
explain the thing, and I could think of nothing else that would. Had she
been real, I felt sure that others aboard us would have been bound to
have seen her long before I had--I got a bit muddled there, with trying
to think it out; and then, abruptly, the reality of the other ship, came
back to me--every rope and sail and spar, you know. And I remembered how
she had lifted to the heave of the sea, and how the sails had flapped in
the light breeze. And the string of flags! She had been signalling. At
that last, I found it just as impossible to believe that she had not
been real.
I had reached to this point of irresolution, and was standing with my
back, partly turned to the wheel. I was holding it steady with my left
hand, while I looked over the sea, to try to find something to help me
to understand.
All at once, as I stared, I seemed to see the ship again.
She was more on the beam now, than on the quarter; but I thought little
of that, in the astonishment of seeing her once more. It was only a
glimpse, I caught of her--dim and wavering, as though I looked at her
through the convolutions of heated air. Then she grew indistinct, and
vanished again; but I was convinced now that she was real, and had been
in sight all the time, if I could have seen her. That curious, dim,
wavering appearance had suggested something to me. I remembered the
strange, wavy look of the air, a few days previously, just before the
mist had surrounded the ship. And in my mind, I connected the two. It
was nothing about the other packet that was strange. The strangeness was
with us. It was something that was about (or invested) our ship that
prevented me--or indeed, any one else aboard from seeing that other. It
was evident that she had been able to see us, as was proved by her
signalling. In an irrelevant sort of way, I wondered what the people
aboard of her thought of our apparently intentional disregard of their
signals.