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Title: Men of the Deep Waters
Author: Hodgson, William Hope (1877-1918)
Date of first publication: 1914
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   London: Holden & Hardingham, 1921
Date first posted: 21 September 2009
Date last updated: 21 September 2009
Project Gutenberg Canada ebook #389

This ebook was produced by: David T. Jones
& the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
at http://www.pgdpcanada.net

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by the Internet Archive/American Libraries




MEN OF THE DEEP
WATERS

"DEEP WATERS OF MYSTERIOUS SEAS,
AND THE GREAT DEEP OF LIFE"

BY

WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON

Author of

"The Boats of the 'Glen Carrig,'" "The House on the
Borderland," "The Night Land," "Carnacki, the Ghost Finder,"
"The Ghost Pirates," "The Luck of the Strong,"
etc., etc.

LONDON:
HOLDEN & HARDINGHAM, LTD.


COPYRIGHTED

1906, 1907, 1907, 1907, 1908, 1910, 1911,
1912, 1912, 1913, 1913,

By WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON
In the United States of America

Copyrighted in Great Britain
All rights reserved

_First Published_      1914
_Cheap Edition_        1921



TO

JACK

(C.L.O.E.B.)

_My Chum of Many Years_




PREFACE


Directly afterwards, a shrill, yelling noise seemed to fill the whole
sky with a deafening, piercing sound. I glanced hastily over the port
quarter. _In that direction the whole surface of the ocean seemed to
be torn up into the air in monstrous clouds of spray._ The yelling
sound passed into a vast scream, and the next instant the cyclone was
upon us.

"_Through the Vortex of a Cyclone_," page 197.


    For Wa-ha! I am hale,
    And when I make sail
    My thundering bulk roars over the tides,
    Roars over the tides,
    And everything hides,
    Save the Albicore-fool! a-splitting his sides--
    A fish kangaroo a-jumping the tides.

          For he's naught but a fish and a half,
                Wa! Ha!
          A haddock far less than a young bull calf!
                With me Wa! Ha! Ha!
          He has far too much side
          For a bit of a haddock a-jump in the tide!

    Yea, I am the Great Bull Whale!
      I have shattered the moon when asleep
      On the face of the deep, by a stroke of my sweep
    I have shattered its features pale.
    Like the voice of a wandering gale
    Is the smite of my sounding tail,
    For Wa-ha! I am hale,
    And when I make sail
    My thundering bulk roars over the tide,
    Roars over the tide,
    And scatters it wide,
    And laughs at the moon afloat on its side--
    'Tis naught but a star that hath died!

          For 'tis naught but a star that hath died,
                Wa! Ha!
          A matter of cinders afloat in the Wide!
                With me Wa! Ha! Ha!
          It has far too much side
          For a bit of a cinder afloat in the tide!




ON THE BRIDGE

(_The 8 to 12 watch, and ice was in sight at nightfall_)


IN MEMORY OF
APRIL 14, 1912.
LAT. 41 deg. 16 min. N.
LONG. 50 deg. 14 min. W.


Two-bells has just gone. It is nine o'clock. You walk to wind'ard and
sniff anxiously. Yes, there it is, unmistakably, the
never-to-be-forgotten smell of ice ... a smell as indescribable as it
is unmistakable.

You stare, fiercely anxious (almost incredibly anxious), to wind'ard,
and sniff again and again. And you never cease to peer, until the very
eye-balls ache, and you curse almost insanely because some door has
been opened and lets out a shaft of futile and dangerous light across
the gloom, through which the great ship is striding across the miles.

For the least show of light about the deck, "blinds" the officer of
the watch temporarily, and makes the darkness of the night a double
curtain of gloom, threatening hatefully. You curse, and 'phone angrily
for a steward to go along and have the door shut or the window
covered, as the case may be; then once again to the dreadful strain of
watching.

Just try to take it all in. You are, perhaps, only a young man of
twenty-six or twenty-eight, and you are in sole charge of that great
bulk of life and wealth, thundering on across the miles. One hour of
your watch has gone, and there are three to come, and already you are
feeling the strain. And reason enough, too; for though the
bridge-telegraph pointer stands at HALF-SPEED, you know perfectly well
that the engine-room has its private orders, and speed is not cut down
at all.

And all around, to wind'ard and to loo'ard, you can see the gloom
pierced dimly in this place and that, everlastingly, by the bursts of
phosphorescence from breaking sea-crests. Thousands and tens of
thousands of times you see this ... ahead, and upon either beam. And
you sniff, and try to distinguish between the coldness of the
half-gale and the peculiar and what I might term the "personal,"
brutal, ugly Chill-of-Death that comes stealing down to you through
the night, as you pass some ice-hill in the darkness.

And then, those countless bursts of dull phosphorescence, that break
out eternally from the chaos of the unseen waters about you, become
suddenly things of threatening, that frighten you; for any one of them
may mean broken water about the unseen shore of some hidden island of
ice in the night ... some half-submerged, inert Insensate
Monster-of-Ice, lurking under the wash of the seas, trying to steal
unperceived athwart your hawse.

You raise your hand instinctively in the darkness, and the cry "HARD A
STARBOARD!" literally trembles on your lips; and then you are saved
from making an over-anxious spectacle of yourself; for you see now
that the particular burst of phosphorescence that had seemed so
pregnant of ICE, is nothing more than any one of the ten thousand
other bursts of sea-light, that come and go among the great moundings
of the sea-foam in the surrounding night.

And yet there is that infernal ice-smell again, and the chill that I
have called the Chill-of-Death, is stealing in again upon you from
some unknown quarter of the night. You send word forrard to the
look-outs, and to the man in the "nest," and redouble your own care of
the thousand humans who sleep so trustfully in their bunks beneath
your feet ... trusting you--a young man--with their lives ... with
everything. They, and the great ship that strides so splendid and
blind through the Night and the Dangers of the Night, are all, as it
were, in the hollow of your hand ... a moment of inattention, and a
thousand deaths upon the head of your father's son! Do you wonder that
you watch, with your very heart seeming dry with anxiety, on such a
night as this!

Four bells! Five bells! Six bells! And now there is only an hour to
go; yet, already, you have nearly given the signal three times to the
Quartermaster to "port" or "starboard," as the case may be; but each
time the conjured terror of the night, the dree, suggestive
foam-lights, the infernal ice-smell, and the Chill-of-Death have
proved to be no true Prophets of Disaster in your track.

Seven bells! My God! Even as the sweet silver sounds wander fore and
aft into the night, and are engulfed by the gale, you see something
close upon the starboard bow.... A boil of phosphorescent lights, over
some low-lying, sea-buried thing in the darkness. Your night-glasses
are glaring at it; and then, even before the various look-outs can
make their reports, you KNOW. "My God!" your spirit is crying inside
of you. "My God!" But your human voice is roaring words that hold life
and death for a thousand sleeping souls:--"HARD A STARBOARD!" "HARD A
STARBOARD!" The man in the Wheel-house leaps at your cry ... at the
fierce intensity of it; and then, with a momentary loss of nerve,
_whirls the wheel the wrong way_. You make one jump, and are into the
Wheel-house. The glass is tinkling all about you, and you do not know
in that instant that you are carrying the frame of the shattered
Wheel-house door upon your shoulders. Your fist takes the frightened
helmsman under the jaw, and your free hand grips the spokes, and
dashes the wheel round toward you, the engine roaring, away in its
appointed place. Your junior has already flown to his post at the
telegraph, and the engine-room is answering the order you have flung
at him as you leapt for the Wheel-house. But YOU ... why, you are
staring, half-mad, through the night, watching the monster bows swing
to port, against the mighty background of the night.... The seconds
are the beats of eternity, in that brief, tremendous time.... And
then, aloud to the wind and the night, you mutter, "Thank God!" For
she has swung clear. And below you the thousand sleepers sleep on.

A fresh Quartermaster has "come aft" (to use the old term) to relieve
the other, and you stagger out of the Wheel-house, becoming conscious
of the inconvenience of the broken woodwork around you. Someone,
several people, are assisting you to divest yourself of the framework
of the door; and your junior has a queer little air of respect for
you, that, somehow, the darkness is not capable of hiding.

You go back to your post then; but perhaps you feel a little sick,
despite a certain happy elation that stimulates you.

Eight bells! And your brother officer comes up to relieve you. The
usual formula is gone through, and you go down the bridge steps, to
the thousand sleeping ones.

Next day a thousand passengers play their games and read their books,
and talk their talks and make their usual sweepstakes, and never even
notice that one of the officers is a little weary-looking.

The carpenter has replaced the door; and a certain Quartermaster will
stand no more at the wheel. For the rest, all goes on as usual, and no
one ever knows.... I mean no one outside of official circles, unless
an odd rumour leaks out through the stewards.

And a certain man has no deaths to the name of his father's son.

_And the thousand never know._ Think of it, you people who go down to
the sea in floating palaces of steel and electric light. And let your
benedictions fall silently upon the quiet, grave, neatly-uniformed man
in blue upon the bridge. You have trusted him unthinkingly with your
lives; and not once in ten thousand times has he ever failed you. Do
you understand better now?




THE SEA HORSES

    "An' we's under the sea, b'ys,
    Where the Wild Horses go,
      Horses wiv tails
      As big as ole whales
    All jiggin' around in a row,
    An' when you ses Whoa!
    Them divvils _does_ go!"


"How was it you catched my one, granfer?" asked Nebby, as he had asked
the same question any time during the past week, whenever his burly,
blue-guernseyed grandfather crooned out the old Ballade of the
Sea-Horses, which, however, he never carried past the portion given
above.

"Like as he was a bit weak, Nebby b'y; an' I gev him a smart clip wiv
the axe, 'fore he could bolt off," explained his grandfather, lying
with inimitable gravity and relish.

Nebby dismounted from his curious-looking go-horse, by the simple
method of dragging it forward from between his legs. He examined its
peculiar, unicorn-like head, and at last put his finger on a bruised
indentation in the black paint that covered the nose.

"'S that where you welted him, granfer?" he asked, seriously.

"Aye," said his granfer Zacchy, taking the strangely-shaped go-horse,
and examining the contused paint. "Aye, I shore hit 'm a tumble welt."

"Are he dead, granfer?" asked the boy.

"Well," said the burly old man, feeling the go-horse all over with an
enormous finger and thumb, "betwixt an' between, like." He opened the
cleverly hinged mouth, and looked at the bone teeth with which he had
fitted it, and then squinted earnestly, with one eye, down the
red-painted throat. "Aye," he repeated, "betwixt an' between, Nebby.
Don't you never let 'm go to water, b'y; for he'd maybe come alive
ag'in, an' ye'd lose 'm sure."

Perhaps old Diver-Zacchy, as he was called in the little sea-village,
was thinking that water would prove unhealthy to the glue, with which
he had fixed-on the big bonito's tail, at what he termed the starn-end
of the curious looking beast. He had cut the whole thing out of a
nice, four-foot by ten-inch piece of soft, knot-less yellow pine; and,
to the rear, he had attached, thwart-ship, the afore-mentioned
bonito's tail; for the thing was no ordinary horse, as you may think;
but a _gen-u-ine_ (as Zacchy described it) Sea-Horse, which he had
brought up from the sea bottom for his small grandson, whilst
following his occupation as diver.

The animal had taken him many a long hour to carve, and had been made
during his spell-ohs, between dives, aboard the diving-barge. The
creature itself was a combined production of his own extremely fertile
fancy, plus his small grandson's Faith. For Zacchy had manufactured
unending and peculiar stories of what he saw daily at the bottom of
the sea, and during many a winter's evening, Nebby had "cut boats"
around the big stove, whilst the old man smoked and yarned the
impossible yarns that were so marvellously real and possible to the
boy. And of all the tales that the old diver told in his whimsical
fashion, there was none that so stirred Nebby's feelings as the one
about the Sea-Horses.

At first it had been but a scrappy and a fragmentary yarn, suggested
as like as not, by the old ballade which Zacchy so often hummed,
half-unconsciously. But Nebby's constant questionings had provided so
many suggestions for fresh additions, that at last it took nearly the
whole of a long evening for the Tale of the Sea-Horses to be told
properly, from where the first Horse was seen by Zacchy, eatin'
sea-grass as nat'rel as ye like, to where Zacchy had seen li'l Martha
Tullet's b'y ridin' one like a reel cow-puncher; and from that
tremendous effort of imagination, the Horse Yarn had speedily grown to
include every child that wended the Long Road out of the village.

"Shall I go ridin' them Sea-Horses, Granfer, when I dies?" Nebby had
asked, earnestly.

"Aye," Granfer Zacchy had replied, absently, puffing at his corn-cob.
"Aye, like's not, Nebby. Like as not."

"Mebbe I'll die middlin' soon, Granfer?" Nebby had suggested,
longingly. "There's plenty li'l boys dies 'fore they gets growed up."

"Husht! b'y! Husht!" Granfer had said, wakening suddenly to what the
child was saying.

Later, when Nebby had many times betrayed his exceeding high
requirement of death, that he might ride the Sea-Horses all round his
Granfer at work on the sea-bottom, old Zacchy had suddenly evolved a
less drastic solution of the difficulty.

"I'll ketch ye one, Nebby, sure," he said, "an' ye kin ride it round
the kitchen."

The suggestion pleased Nebby enormously, and practically nullified his
impatience regarding the date of his death, which was to give him the
freedom of the sea and all the Sea-Horses therein.

For a long month, old Zacchy was met each evening by a small and
earnest boy, desirous of learning whether he had "catched one" that
day, or not. Meanwhile, Zacchy had been dealing honestly with that
four-foot by ten-inch piece of yellow pine, already described. He had
carved out his notion of what might be supposed to constitute a
veritable Sea-Horse, aided in his invention by Nebby's illuminating
questions as to whether Sea-Horses had tails like a real horse or like
real fishes; did they wear horse-shoes; did they bite?

These were three points upon which Nebby's curiosity was definite; and
the results were definite enough in the finished work; for Granfer
supplied the peculiar creature with "reel" bone teeth and a workable
jaw; two squat, but prodigious legs, near what he termed the "bows";
whilst to the "starn" he affixed the bonito-tail which has already had
mention, setting it the way Dame Nature sets it on the bonito, that
is, "thwart-ships," so that its two flukes touched the ground when the
go-horse was in position, and thus steadied it admirably with this
hint taken direct from the workmanship of the Great Carpenter.

There came a day when the horse was finished and the last coat of
paint had dried smooth and hard. That evening, when Nebby came running
to meet Zacchy, he was aware of his Grandfather's voice in the dusk,
shouting:--"Whoa, Mare! Whoa, Mare!" followed immediately by the
cracking of a whip.

Nebby shrilled out a call, and raced on, mad with excitement, towards
the noise. He knew instantly that at last Granfer had managed to catch
one of the wily Sea-Horses. Presumably the creature was somewhat
intractable; for when Nebby arrived, he found the burly form of
Granfer straining back tremendously upon stout reins, which Nebby saw
vaguely in the dusk were attached to a squat, black monster:--

"Whoa, Mare!" roared Granfer, and lashed the air furiously with his
whip. Nebby shrieked delight, and ran round and round, whilst Granfer
struggled with the animal.

"Hi! Hi! Hi!" shouted Nebby, dancing from foot to foot. "Ye've catched
'm, Granfer! Ye've catched 'm, Granfer!"

"Aye," said Granfer, whose struggles with the creature must have been
prodigious; for he appeared to pant. "She'll go quiet now, b'y. Take a
holt!" And he handed the reins and the whip over to the excited, but
half-fearful Nebby. "Put y'r hand on 'er, Neb," said old Zacchy. "
That'll quiet 'er."

Nebby did so, a little nervously, and drew away in a moment.

"She's all wet 's wet!" he cried out.

"Aye," said Granfer, striving to hide the delight in his voice. "She'm
straight up from the water, b'y."

This was quite true; it was the final artistic effort of Granfer's
imagination; he had dipped the horse overside, just before leaving the
diving barge. He took his towel from his pocket, and wiped the horse
down, hissing as he did so.

"Now, b'y," he said, "welt 'er good, an' make her take ye home."

Nebby straddled the go-horse, made an ineffectual effort to crack the
whip, shouted:--"Gee-up! Gee-up!" And was off-two small, lean bare
legs twinkling away into the darkness at a tremendous rate,
accompanied by shrill and recurrent "Gee-ups!"

Granfer Zacchy stood in the dusk, laughing happily, and pulled out his
pipe. He filled it slowly, and as he applied the light, he heard the
galloping of the horse, returning. Nebby dashed up, and circled his
Granfer in splendid fashion, singing in a rather breathless voice:--

    "An' we's under the sea, b'ys.
      Where the Wild Horses go,
        Horses wiv tails
        As big as ole whales
      All jiggin' around in a row,
      An' when you ses Whoa!
      Them debbils _does_ go!"

And away he went again at the gallop.

This had happened a week earlier; and now we have Nebby questioning
Granfer Zacchy as to whether the Sea-Horse is really alive or dead.

"Should think they has Sea-Horses 'n heaven, Granfer?" said Nebby,
thoughtfully, as he once more straddled the go-horse.

"Sure," said Granfer Zacchy.

"Is Martha Tullet's li'l b'y gone to heaven?" asked Nebby.

"Sure," said Granfer again, as he sucked at his pipe.

Nebby was silent a good while, thinking. It was obvious that he
confused heaven with the Domain of the Sea-Horses; for had not Granfer
himself seen Martha Tullet's li'l b'y riding one of the Sea-Horses.
Nebby had told Mrs. Tullet about it; but she had only thrown her apron
over her head, and cried, until at last Nebby had stolen away, feeling
rather dumpy.

"Has you ever seed any angels wiv wings on the Sea-Horses, Granfer?"
Nebby asked, presently; determined to have further information with
which to assure his ideas.

"Aye," said Granfer Zacchy. "Shoals of 'em. Shoals of 'em, b'y."

Nebby was greatly pleased.

"Could they ride some, Granfer?" he questioned.

"Sure," said old Zacchy, reaching for his pouch.

"As good 's me?" asked Nebby, anxiously.

"Middlin' near. Middlin' near, b'y," said Granfer Zacchy. "Why, Neb,"
he continued, waking up with a sudden relish to the full possibilities
of the question, "thar's some of them lady ayngels as c'ud do
back-somersaults an' never take a throw, b'y."

It is to be feared that Granfer Zacchy's conception of a lady angel
had been formed during odd visits to the circus. But Nebby was duly
impressed, and bumped his head badly the same day, trying to achieve
the rudiments of a back-somersault.


2

Some evenings later, Nebby came running to meet old Zacchy, with an
eager question:--

"Has you seed Jane Melly's li'l gel ridin' the Horses, Granfer?" he
asked, earnestly.

"Aye," said Granfer. Then, realising suddenly what the question
portended:--

"What's wrong wiv Mrs. Melly's wee gel?" he queried.

"Dead," said Nebby, calmly. "Mrs. Kay ses it's the fever come to the
village again, Granfer."

Nebby's voice was cheerful; for the fever had visited the village some
months before, and Granfer Zacchy had taken Nebby to live on the
barge, away from danger of infection. Nebby had enjoyed it all
enormously, and had often prayed God since to send another fever, with
its attendant possibilities of life again aboard the diving-barge.

"Shall we live in the barge, Granfer?" he asked, as he swung along
with the old man.

"Maybe! Maybe!" said old Zacchy, absently, in a somewhat troubled
voice.

Granfer left Nebby in the kitchen, and went on up the village to make
inquiries; the result was that he packed Nebby's clothes and toys into
a well-washed sugar-bag, and the next day took the boy down to the
barge, to live. But whereas Granfer walked, carrying the sack of gear,
Nebby rode all the way, most of it at an amazing gallop. He even rode
daringly down the narrow, railless gang-plank. It is true that Granfer
Zacchy took care to keep close behind, in as unobtrusive a fashion as
possible; but of this, or the need of such watchfulness, Nebby was
most satisfactorily ignorant. He was welcomed in the heartiest fashion
by Ned, the pump-man, and Binny, who attended to the air-pipe and
life-line when Granfer Zacchy was down below.


3

Life aboard the diving-barge was a very happy time for Nebby. It was a
happy time also for Granfer Zacchy and his two men; for the child,
playing constantly in their midst, brought back to them an adumbration
of their youth. There was only one point upon which there arose any
trouble, and that was Nebby's forgetfulness, in riding across the
air-tube, when he was exercising his Sea-Horse.

Ned, the pump-man, had spoken very emphatically to Nebby on this
point, and Nebby had promised to remember; but, as usual, soon forgot.
They had taken the barge outside the bar, and anchored her over the
buoy that marked Granfer's submarine operations. The day was
gloriously fine, and so long as the weather remained fixed, they meant
to keep the barge out there, merely sending the little punt ashore
for provisions.

To Nebby, it was all just splendid! When he was not riding his
Sea-Horse, he was talking to the men, or waiting at the gangway
eagerly for Granfer's great copper head-piece to come up out of the
water, as the air-tube and life-line were slowly drawn aboard. Or else
his shrill young voice was sure to be heard, as he leant over the rail
and peered into the depths below, singing:--

    "An' we's under the sea, b'ys.
      Where the Wild Horses go,
        Horses wiv tails
        As big as ole whales
      All jiggin' around in a row.
      An' when you ses Whoa!
      Them debbils _does_ go!"

Possibly, he considered it as some kind of charm with which to call
the Sea-Horses up to view.

Each time the boat went ashore, it brought sad news, that first this
and then that one had gone the Long Road; but it was chiefly the
children that interested Nebby. Each time that his Granfer came up out
of the depths, Nebby would dance round him impatiently, until the big
helmet was unscrewed; then would come his inevitable, eager
question:--Had Granfer seen Carry Andrew's li'l gel; or had Granfer
seen Marty's li'l b'y riding the Sea-Horses? And so on.

"Sure," Granfer would reply; though, several times, it was his first
intimation that the child mentioned had died; the news having reached
the barge through some passing boat, whilst he was on the sea-bottom.

4

"Look you, Nebby!" shouted Ned, the pump-man, angrily. "I'll shore
break that horse of yours up for kindlin' next time you goes steppin'
on the air-pipe."

It was all too true; Nebby had forgotten, and done it again; but
whereas, generally, he took Ned's remonstrances in good part, and
promised better things, he stood now, looking with angry defiance at
the man. The suggestion that his Sea-Horse was made of wood, bred in
him a tempest of bitterness. Never for one moment to himself had he
allowed so horrible a thought to enter his own head; not even when, in
a desperate charge, he had knocked a chip off the nose of the
Sea-Horse, and betrayed the merciless wood below. He had simply
refused to look particularly at the place; his fresh, child's
imagination allowing him presently to grow assured again that all was
well; that he truly rode a "gen-u-ine" Sea-Horse. In his earnestness
of determined make-believe, he had even avoided showing Granfer Zacchy
the place, and asking him to mend it, much as he wanted it mended.
Granfer always mended his toys for him; but _this_ could not be
mended. It was a _real_ Sea-Horse; not a toy. Nebby resolutely averted
his thoughts from the possibility of any other Belief; though it is
likely that such mental processes were more subconscious than
conscious.

And now, Ned had said the deadly thing, practically in so many naked
words. Nebby trembled with anger and a furious mortification of his
pride of Sea-Horse-Ownership. He looked round swiftly for the surest
way to avenge the brutish insult, and saw the air-pipe; the thing
around which the bother had been made. Yes, that would make Ned angry!
Nebby turned his strange steed, and charged straight away back at the
pipe. There, with an angry and malicious deliberateness, he halted,
and made the big front hoofs of his extraordinary monster, stamp upon
the air-pipe.

"You young devil!" roared Ned, scarcely able to believe the thing he
saw. "You young devil!"

Nebby continued to stamp the big hoofs upon the pipe, glaring with
fierce, defiant, blue eyes at Ned. Whereupon, Ned's patience arose and
departed, and Ned himself arrived bodily in haste and with
considerable vigour. He gave one kick, and the Sea-Horse went flying
across the deck, and crashed into the low bulwarks. Nebby screamed;
but it was far more a scream of tremendous anger, than of fear.

"I'll heave the blamed thing over the side!" said Ned, and ran to
complete his dreadful sacrilege. The following instant, something
clasped his right leg, and small, distinctly sharp teeth bit his bare
shin, below the up-rolled trousers. Ned yelled, and sat rapidly and
luridly upon the deck, in a fashion calculated to shock his system, in
every sense of the word.

Nebby had loosed from him, the instant his bite had taken effect; and
now he was nursing and examining the black monster of his dreams and
waking moments. He knelt there, near the bulwarks, looking with
burning eyes of anger and enormous distress at the effects of Ned's
great kick; for Ned wore his bluchers on his bare feet. Ned himself
still endured a sitting conjunction with the deck; he had not yet
finished expressing himself; not that Nebby was in the least
interested ... anger and distress had built a wall of fierce
indifference about his heart. He desired chiefly Ned's death.

If Ned, himself, had been less noisy, he would have heard Binny even
earlier than he did; for that sane man had jumped to the air-pump,
luckily for Granfer Zacchy, and was now, as he worked, emptying his
soul of most of its contents upon the derelict Ned. As it was, Ned's
memory and ears did duty together, and he remembered that he had
committed the last crime in the Pumpman's Calendar ... he had left the
pump, whilst his diver was still below water. Powder ignited in quite
a considerable quantity beneath him, could scarcely have moved Ned
more speedily. He gave out one yell, and leaped for the pump; at the
same instant he discovered that Binny was there, and his gasp of
relief was as vehement as prayer. He remembered his leg, and concluded
his journey to the pump, with a limp. Here, with one hand he pumped,
whilst with the other, he investigated Nebby's teeth-marks. He found
that the skin was barely broken; but it was his temper that most
needed mending; and, of course, it had been very naughty of Nebby to
attempt such a familiarity.

    *    *    *    *    *

Binny was drawing in the life-line and air-pipe; for Granfer Zacchy
was ascending the long rope-ladder, that led up from the sea-bottom,
to learn what had caused the unprecedented interruption of his
air-supply.

It was a very angry Granfer who, presently, having heard a fair
representation of the facts, applied a wet but horny hand to Nebby's
anatomy, in a vigorous and decided manner. Yet Nebby neither cried nor
spoke; he merely clung on tightly to the Sea-Horse; and Granfer
whacked on. At last Granfer grew surprised at the continued absence of
remonstrance on Nebby's part, and turned that young man the other end
about, to discover the wherefore of so determined a silence.

Nebby's face was very white, and tears seemed perilously near; yet
even the nearness of these, did not in any way detract from the
expression of unutterable defiance that looked out at Granfer and all
the world, from his face. Granfer regarded him for a few moments with
earnest attention and doubt, and decided to cease whipping that atom
of blue-eyed stubbornness. He looked at the Sea-Horse that Nebby
clutched so tightly, in his silence, and perceived the way to make
Nebby climb down ... Nebby must go and beg Ned's pardon for trying to
eat him (Granfer smothered a chuckle), or else the Sea-Horse would be
taken away.

Nebby's face, however, showed no change, unless it was that the blue
eyes shone with a fiercer defiance, which dried out of them that
suspicion of tears. Granfer pondered over him, and had a fresh idea.
He would take the Sea-Horse back again to the bottom of the sea; and
it would then come alive once more and swim away, and Nebby would
never see it again, if Nebby did not go at once to Ned and beg Ned's
pardon, that very minute. Granfer was prodigiously stern.

There came, perhaps, the tiniest flash of fright into the blue eyes;
but it was blurred with unbelief; and, anyway, it had no power at that
stage of Nebby's temper to budge him from his throne of enormous
anger. He decided, with that fierce courage of the burner of boats,
that if Granfer did truly do such a dreadful thing, he (Nebby) would
"kneel down proper" and pray God to kill Ned. An added relish of
vengeance came to his child's mind.... He would kneel down in front of
Ned; he would pray to God "out loud." Ned should thus learn beforehand
that he was doomed.

In that moment of inspired Intention, Nebby became trebly fixed into
his Aura of Implacable Anger. He voiced his added grimness of heart in
the most tremendous words possible:

"It's wood!" said Nebby, glaring at Granfer, in a kind of fierce,
sick, horrible triumph. "It carn't come back alive again!"

Then he burst into tears, at this dreadful act of disillusionment, and
wrenching himself free from Granfer's gently-detaining hand, he dashed
away aft, and down the scuttle into the cuddy, where for an hour he
hid himself under a bunk, and refused, in dreary silence, any
suggestion of dinner.

After dinner, however, he emerged, tear-stained but unbroken. He had
brought the Sea-Horse below with him; and now, as the three men
watched him, unobtrusively, from their seats around the little
cuddy-table, it was plain to them that Nebby had some definite object
in view, which he was attempting to mask under an attitude of superb
but ineffectual casualness.

"B'y," said Granfer Zacchy, in a very stern voice, "come you an' beg
Ned's pard'n, or I'll shore take th' Sea-Horse down wiv me, an' you'll
never see 'm no more, an' I'll never ketch ye another, Nebby."

Nebby's reply was an attempted dash for the scuttle-ladder; but
Granfer reached out a long arm, that might have been described as
possessing the radius of the small cuddy. As a result, Nebby was put
with his face in a corner, whilst Granfer Zacchy laid the Sea-Horse
across his knees, and stroked it meditatively, as he smoked a restful
after-dinner pipe.

Presently, he knocked out his pipe, and, reaching round, brought Nebby
to stand at his knee.

"Nebby, b'y," he said, in his grave, kindly fashion, "go you an' beg
Ned's pard'n, an' ye shall hev this right back to play wiv."

But Nebby had not been given time yet to ease himself clear of the
cloud of his indignation; and even as he stood there by Granfer, he
could see the great bruise in the paint, where Ned's blucher had taken
effect; and the broken fluke of the tail, that had been smashed when
the poor Sea-Horse brought up so violently against the low bulwarks of
the barge.

"Ned's a wicked pig man!" said Nebby, with a fresh intensity of anger
against the pump-hand.

"Hush, b'y!" said Granfer, with real sternness. "Ye've had fair chance
to come round, an' ye've not took it, an' now I'll read ye a lesson as
ye'll shore mind!"

He stood up, and put the Sea-Horse under his arm; then, with one hand
on Nebby's shoulder, he went to the ladder, and so in a minute they
were all on the deck of the barge. Presently, Granfer was once more
transformed from a genial and burly giant, into an indiarubber-covered
and dome-ended monster. Then, with a slowness and solemnity befitting
so terrible an execution of justice, Granfer made a fathom, or so, of
spunyard fast about the Sea-Horse's neck, whilst Nebby looked on,
white-faced.

When this was accomplished, Granfer stood up and marched with
ponderous steps to the side, the Sea-Horse under his arm. He began to
go slowly down the wooden rungs of the rope-ladder, and presently
there were only his shoulders and copper-headpiece visible. Nebby
stared down in an anguish; he could see the Sea-Horse vaguely. It
seemed to waggle in the crook of Granfer's arm. It was surely about to
swim away. Then Granfer's shoulders, and finally his great copper head
disappeared from sight, and there was soon only the slight working of
the ladder, and the paying out of the air-pipe and life-line, to tell
that any one was down there in all that greyness of the water-dusk;
for Granfer had often explained to Nebby that it was always "evenin'
at th' sea-bottom."

Nebby sobbed once or twice, in a dry, horrid way, in his throat; then,
for quite half an hour, he lay flat on his stomach in the gangway,
silent and watchful, staring down into the water. Several times he
felt _quite_ sure he saw something swimming with a queer, waggling
movement, a little under the water; and presently he started to sing
in a low voice:--

    "An' we's under the sea, b'ys,
    Where the Wild Horses go,
      Horses wiv tails
      As big as ole whales
    All jiggin' around in a row,
    An' when you ses Whoa!
    Them debbils _does_ go!"

But it seemed to have no power to charm the Sea-Horse up to the
surface; and he fell silent, after singing it through, maybe a dozen
times. He was waiting for Granfer. He had a vague hope, which grew,
that Granfer had meant to tie it up with the spunyard, so that it
could not swim away; and perhaps Granfer would bring it up with him
when he came. Nebby felt that he would really beg Ned's pardon, if
only Granfer brought the Sea-Horse up with him again.

A little later, there came the signal that Granfer was about to
ascend, and Nebby literally trembled with excitement, as the life-line
and air-pipe came in slowly, hand over hand. He saw the big dome of
the helmet come vaguely into view, with the line of the air-pipe
leading down at the usual "funny" angle, right into the top of the
dome (it was an old type of helmet). Then the helmet broke the water,
and Nebby could not see anything, because the "rimples" on the water
stopped him seeing. Granfer's big shoulders came into view, and then
sufficient of him for Nebby to see that the Sea-Horse was truly not
with him. Nebby whitened. Granfer had _really_ let the Sea-Horse go.
As a matter of fact, Granfer Zacchy had tethered the Sea-Horse to some
tough marine weed-rootlets at the sea-bottom, so as to prevent it
floating traitorously to the surface; but to Nebby it was plain only
that the Sea-Horse had truly "come alive" and swum away.

Granfer stepped on to the deck, and Binny eased off the great helmet,
whilst Ned ceased his last, slow revolution of the pump-handle.

It was at this moment that Nebby faced round on Ned, with a white,
set, little face, in which his blue eyes literally burned. Ned was
surely doomed in that instant! And then, even in the Moment of his
Intention, Nebby heard Granfer say to Binny:

"Aye, I moored it wiv the spunyarn safe enough."

Nebby's anger lost its deadliness abruptly, under the sudden sweet
chemistry of hope. He oscillated an instant between a new, vague
thought, and his swiftly-lessening requirement of vengeance. The new,
vague thought became less vague, and he swayed the more toward it; and
so, in a moment, had rid himself of his Dignity, and run across to
Granfer Zacchy:

"Has it comed alive, Granfer?" he asked, breathlessly, with the
infinite eagerness and expectancy of a child.

"Aye!" said Granfer Zacchy, with apparent sternness. "Ye've sure lost
it now, b'y. 'Tis swimmin' an' swimmin' roun' an' roun' all the time."

Nebby's eyes shone with sudden splendour, as the New Idea took now a
most definite form in his young brain.

Granfer, looking at him with eyes of tremendous sternness, was quite
non-plussed at the harmless effect of his expectedly annihilative news
concerning the final and obvious lostness of the Sea-Horse. Yet, Nebby
said never a word to give Granfer an inkling of the stupendous plan
that was settling fast in his daring child's-mind. He opened his mouth
once or twice upon a further question; then relapsed into the safety
of silence again, as though instinctively realising that he might ask
something that would make Granfer suspicious.

Presently, Nebby had stolen away once more to the gangway, and there,
lying on his stomach, he began again to look down into the sea. His
anger now was almost entirely submerged in the great, glorious New
Idea, that filled him with such tremendous exaltation that he could
scarcely lie quiet, or cease from singing aloud at the top of his
voice.

A few moments earlier, he had meant to "kneel down proper" and pray
God "out loud" for Ned to be killed quickly and painfully; but now all
was changed. Though, in an indifferent sort of way, in his
healthily-savage child's-mind, he did not _forgive_ Ned.... Ned's sin
had, of course, been unforgivable, presumably "for ever and ever and
ever"--Certainly until to-morrow! Meanwhile, Nebby never so much as
thought of him, except it might be as one whose bewilderment should
presently be the last lustre of the glory of his (Nebby's) proposed
achievement. Not that Nebby thought it all out like this into separate
ideas; but it was all there in that young and surging head ... in what
I might term a Chaos of Determination, buoying up (as it might be a
lonesome craft) one clear, vigorous Idea.

Granfer Zacchy went down twice more before evening, and each time that
he returned, Nebby questioned him earnestly as to the doings of the
Sea-Horse; and each time, Granfer told the same tale (in accents of
would-be sternness) that the Sea-Horse was "jest swimmin' roun' an'
roun'; an' maybe ye wish now ye'd begged Ned's pardon, when ye was
bid!"

But, in his heart, Granfer decided that the Sea-Horse might be safely
re-caught on the morrow.


5

That night, when the three men were asleep in the little cuddy,
Nebby's small figure slipped noiselessly out of the bunk that lay
below Granfer Zacchy's. He flitted silently to the ladder, and stole
up into the warm night, his shirt (a quaint cut-down of Granfer's)
softly flicking his lean, bare legs, as he moved through the darkness,
along the barge's decks.

Nebby came to a stop where Granfer's diving-suit was hung up carefully
on the "frame"; but this was not what Nebby wanted. He stooped to the
bottom of the "frame," and pulled up the small hatch of a square
locker, where reposed the big, domed, copper helmet, glimmering dully
in the vague starlight.

Nebby reached into the locker, and lugged the helmet out bodily,
hauling with both hands upon the air-pipe. He carried it across
clumsily to the gangway, the air-pipe unreeling off the winch, with
each step that he took.

He found the helmet too clumsy and rotund to lift easily on to his own
curly head, and so, after an attempt or two, evolved the method of
turning the helmet upon its side, and then kneeling down and thrusting
his head into it; after which, with a prodigious effort, he rose
victoriously to his knees, and began to fumble himself backwards over
the edge of the gangway, on to the wooden rungs of Granfer's
rope-ladder, which had not been hauled up. He managed a firm foot-hold
with his left foot, and then with his right; and so began to descend,
slowly and painfully, the great helmet rocking clumsily on his small
shoulders.

His right foot touched the water at the fourth rung, and he paused,
bringing the other foot down beside the first. The water was
pleasantly warm, and Nebby hesitated only a very little while, ere he
ventured the next step. Then he stopped again, and tried to look down
into the water. The action swayed the big helmet backwards, so
that--inside of it--Nebby's delightfully impudent little nose received
a bang that made his determined blue eyes water. He loosed his left
hand from the ladder, holding on with his right, and tried to push the
clumsy helmet forward again into place.

He was, as you will understand, up to his knees in the water, and the
rung, on which he perched, was slippery with that peculiar
slipperiness, that wood and water together know so well how to breed.
One of Nebby's bare feet slipped, and immediately the other. The
great helmet gave a prodigious wobble, and completed the danger; for
the sudden strain wrenched his grip from the rope between the rungs.
There was a muffled little cry inside the helmet, and Nebby swung a
small, desperate hand through the darkness towards the ladder; but it
was too late; he was falling. There was a splash; not a very big
splash for so big a boy's-heart and courage; and no one heard it, or
the little bubbling squeak that came out of the depths of the big
copper helmet. And then, in a moment, there was only the vaguely
disturbed surface of the water, and the air-pipe was running out
smoothly and swiftly off the drum.


6

It was in the strange, early-morning light, when the lemon and
gold-of-light of dawn was in the grey East, that Granfer discovered
the thing which had happened. With the wakefulness that is so often an
asset of healthy age, he had turned-out in the early hours, to fill
his pipe, and had discovered that Nebby's bunk was empty.

He went swiftly up the small ladder. On the deck, the out-trailed
air-pipe whispered its tale in silence, and Granfer rushed to it,
shouting in a dreadful voice for Binny and Ned, who came bounding up,
sleepily, in their heavy flannel drawers.

They hauled in the air-pipe, swiftly but carefully; but when the great
dome of the helmet came up to them, there was no Nebby; only, tangled
from the thread of one of the old-fashioned thumb-screws, they found
several golden, curly strands of Nebby's hair.

Granfer, his great muscular hands trembling, began to get into his
rubber suit, the two men helping him, wordless. Within a hundred and
fifty seconds, he was dwindling away down under the quiet sea that
spread, all grey and lemon-hued and utterly calm, in the dawn. Ned was
turning the pump-handle, and wiping his eyes undisguisedly from time
to time with the back of one hairy, disengaged hand. Binny, who was of
a sterner type, though no less warm-hearted, was grimly silent, giving
his whole attention to the air-pipe and the life-line; his hand
delicate upon the line, awaiting the signal. He could tell from the
feel and the coming-up and going-out of the pipe and the line, that
Granfer Zacchy was casting round and round, in ever largening circles
upon the sea-bottom.

All that day, Granfer quartered the sea-bottom; staying down so long
each time, that at last Binny and Ned were forced to remonstrate. But
the old man turned on them, and snarled in a kind of speechless anger
and agony that forced them to be silent and let him go his own gait.

For three days, Granfer continued his search, the sea remaining calm;
but found nothing. On the fourth day, Granfer Zacchy was forced to
take the barge in over the bar; for the wind breezed up hard out of
the North, and blew for a dreary and savage fortnight, each day of
which found Granfer, with Binny and Ned, searching the shore for the
"giving up" of the sea. But the sea had one of its secret moods, and
gave up nothing.

At the end of the fortnight of heavy weather, it fell calm, and they
took the barge out again, to start once more their daily work. There
was little use now in searching further for the boy. The barge was
moored again over the old spot, and Granfer descended; and the first
thing he saw in the grey half-light of the water, was the Sea-Horse,
still moored securely by the length of spunyarn to the rootlets of
heavy weed at the sea-bottom.

The sight of the creature, gave old Zacchy a dreadful feeling; it was,
at once, so familiar of Nebby, as to give him the sensation and
unreasoning impression that the "b'y" must be surely close at hand;
and yet, at the same time, the grotesque, inanimate creature was the
visible incarnation of the Dire Cause of the unspeakable loneliness
and desolation that now possessed his old heart so utterly. He glared
at it, through the thick glass of his helmet, and half raised his axe
to strike at it. Then, with a sudden revulsion, he reached out, and
pulled the silent go-horse to him, and hugged it madly, as if, indeed,
it were the boy himself.

Presently, old Granfer Zacchy grew calmer, and turned to his work; yet
a hundred times, he would find himself staring round in the watery
twilight towards it--staring eagerly and unreasoningly, and actually
listening, inside his helmet, for sounds that the eternal silence of
the sea might never bring through its dumb waters, that are Barriers
of Silence about the lonesome diver in the strange underworld of the
waters. And then, realising freshly that there was no longer One who
might make the so-craved-for sounds, Granfer would turn again,
grey-souled and lonely, to his work. Yet, in a while, he would be
staring and listening once more.

In the course of days, old Zacchy grew calmer and more resigned; yet
he kept the motionless Sea-Horse tethered, in the quiet twilight of
the water, to the weed-rootlets at the sea-bottom. And more and more,
he grew to staring round at it; and less and less did it seem a futile
or an unreasonable thing to do.

In weeks, the habit grew to such an extent, that he had ceased to be
aware of it. He prolonged his hours under water, out of all reason, so
far as his health was concerned; and turned queerly "dour" when Ned
and Binny remonstrated with him, warning him not to stay down so long,
or he would certainly have to pay the usual penalty.

Only once did Granfer say a word in explanation, and then it was
obviously an unintentional remark, jerked out of him by the intensity
of his feelings:--

"Like as I feel 'm nigh me, w'en I'm below," he had muttered, in a
half coherent fashion. And the two men understood; for it was just
what they had vaguely supposed. They had no reply to make; and the
matter dropped.

Generally now, on descending each morning, Granfer would stop near the
Sea-Horse, and "look it over." Once, he discovered that the
bonito-tail had come unglued; but this he remedied neatly, by lashing
it firmly into position with a length of roping-twine. Sometimes, he
would pat the head of the horse, with one great hand, and mutter a
quite unconscious:--"Whoa, mare!" as it bobbed silently under his
touch. Occasionally, as he swayed heavily past it, in his clumsy
dress, the slight swirl of the water in his "wake" would make the
Horse slue round uncannily towards him; and thereafter, it would swing
and oscillate for a brief time, slowly back into quietness; the while
that Granfer would stand and watch it, unconsciously straining his
ears, in that place of no-sound.

Two months passed in this way, and Granfer was vaguely aware that his
health was failing; but the knowledge brought no fear to him; only
the beginnings of an indefinite contentment--a feeling that maybe he
would be "soon seein' Nebby." Yet the thought was never definitely
conscious; nor ever, of course, in any form, phrased. Yet it had its
effect, in the vague contentment which I have hinted at, which brought
a new sense of ease round Granfer's heart; so that, one day, as he
worked, he found himself crooning unconsciously the old Ballade of the
Sea Horses.

He stopped on the instant, all an ache with memory; then turned and
peered towards the Sea-Horse, which loomed, a vague shadow, silent in
the still water. It had seemed to him, in that moment, that he had
heard a subtile echo of his crooned song, in the quiet deeps around
him. Yet, he saw nothing, and presently assured himself that he heard
nothing; and so came round again upon his work.

A number of times in the early part of that day, old Granfer caught
himself crooning the old Ballade, and each time he shut his lips
fiercely on the sound, because of the ache of memory that the old song
bred in him; but, presently, all was forgotten in an intense
listening; for, abruptly, old Zacchy was sure that he heard the song,
coming from somewhere out of the eternal twilight of the waters. He
slued himself round, trembling, and stared towards the Sea-Horse; but
there was nothing new to be seen, neither was he any more sure that he
had ever heard anything.

Several times this happened, and on each occasion Granfer would heave
himself round ponderously in the water, and listen with an intensity
that had in it, presently, something of desperateness.

In the late afternoon of that day, Granfer again heard something; but
refused now to credit his hearing, and continued grimly at work. And
then, suddenly, there was no longer any room for doubt ... a shrill,
sweet child's voice was singing, somewhere among the grey twilights
far to his back. He heard it with astounding clearness, helmet and
surrounding water notwithstanding. It was a sound, indeed, that he
would have heard through all the Mountains of Eternity. He stared
round, shaking violently.

The sound appeared to come from the greyness that dwelt away beyond a
little wood of submarine growths, that trailed up their roots, so
hushed and noiseless, out of a near-by vale in the sea-bottom.

As Granfer stared, everything about him darkened into a wonderful and
rather dreadful Blackness. This passed, and he was able to see again;
but somehow, as it might be said, newly. The shrill, sweet, childish
singing had ceased; but there was something beside the Sea-Horse ... a
little, agile figure, that caused the Sea-Horse to bob and bound at
its moorings. And, suddenly, the little figure was astride the
Sea-Horse, and the Horse was free, and two twinkling legs urged it
across the sea-bottom towards Granfer.

Granfer thought that he stood up, and ran to meet the boy; but Nebby
dodged him, the Sea-Horse curvetting magnificently; and immediately
Nebby began to gallop round and round Granfer, singing:--

    "An' we's under the sea, b'ys,
      Where the Wild Horses go,
        Horses wiv tails
        As big as ole whales
      All jiggin' around in a row,
      An' when you ses Whoa!
      Them debbils does go!"

The voice of the blue-eyed mite was ineffably gleeful; and, abruptly,
tremendous youth invaded Granfer, and a glee beyond all
understanding.

7

On the deck of the barge, Ned and Binny were in great doubt and
trouble. The weather had been growing heavy and threatening, during
all the late afternoon; and now it was culminating in a tremendous,
black squall, which was coming swiftly down upon them.

Time after time, Binny had attempted to signal Granfer Zacchy to come
up; but Granfer had taken a turn with his life-line round a hump of
rock that protruded out of the sea-bottom; so that Binny was powerless
to do aught; for there was no second set of diving gear aboard.

All that the two men could do, was to wait, in deep anxiety, keeping
the pump going steadily, and standing-by for the signal that was never
to come; for by that time, old Granfer Zacchy was sitting very quiet
and huddled against the rock, round which he had hitched his line to
prevent Binny from signalling him, as Binny had become prone to do,
when Granfer stayed below, out of all reason and wisdom.

And all the time, Ned kept the un-needed pump going, and far down in
the grey depth, the air came out in a continual series of bubbles,
around the big copper helmet. But Granfer was breathing an air of
celestial sweetness, all unwotting and un-needing of the air that Ned
laboured faithfully to send to him.

The squall came down in a fierce haze of rain and foam, and the
ungainly old craft swung round, jibbing heavily at her kedge-rope,
which gave out a little twanging sound, that was lost in the roar of
the wind. The unheard twanging of the rope, ended suddenly in a dull
thud, as it parted; and the bluff old barge fell off, broadside on to
the weight of the squall. She drifted with astonishing rapidity, and
the life-line and the air-pipe flew out, with a buzz of the unwinding
drums, and parted, with two differently toned reports, that were plain
in an instant's lull in the roaring of the squall.

Binny had run forrard to the bows, to try to get over another kedge;
but now he came racing aft again, shouting. Ned still pumped on
mechanically, with a look of dull, stunned horror in his eyes; the
pump driving a useless jet of air through the broken remnant of the
air-pipe. Already, the barge was a quarter of a mile to leeward of the
diving-ground, and the men could do no more than hoist the foresail,
and try to head her in safely over the bar, which was now right under
their lee.

Down in the sea, old Granfer Zacchy had altered his position; the jerk
upon the air-pipe had done that. But Granfer was well enough content;
not only for the moment; but for Eternity; for as Nebby rode so
gleefully round and round him, there had come a change in all things;
there were strange and subtile lights in all the grey twilights of the
deep, that seemed to lead away and away into stupendous and infinitely
beautiful distances.

"Is you listenin', Granfer?" Old Zacchy heard Nebby say; and
discovered suddenly that Nebby was insisting that he should race him
across the strangely glorified twilights, that bounded them now
eternally.

"Sure, b'y," said Granfer Zacchy, undismayed; and Nebby wheeled his
charger.

"Gee-Up!" shouted Nebby, excitedly, and his small legs began to
twinkle ahead in magnificent fashion; with Granfer running a cheerful
and deliberate second.

And so passed Granfer Zacchy and Nebby into the Land where little boys
may ride Sea-Horses for ever, and where Parting becomes one of the
Lost Sorrows.

And Nebby led the way at a splendid gallop; maybe, for all that I have
any right to know, to the very Throne of the Almighty, singing, shrill
and sweet:--

    "An' we's under the sea, b'ys,
      Where the Wild Horses go,
        Horses wiv tails
        As big as ole whales
      All jiggin' around in a row,
      An' when you ses Whoa!
      Them debbils _does_ go!"

And overhead (was it _only_ a dozen fathoms!) there rushed the
white-maned horses of the sea, mad with the glory of the storm, and
tossing ruthless from crest to crest, a wooden go-horse, from which
trailed a length of broken spunyarn.




THE DERELICT


"It's the _Material_," said the old ship's doctor.... "The _Material_,
plus the Conditions; and, maybe," he added slowly, "a third
factor--yes, a third factor; but there, there...." He broke off his
half-meditative sentence, and began to charge his pipe.

"Go on, Doctor," we said, encouragingly, and with more than a little
expectancy. We were in the smoke-room of the _Sand-a-lea_, running
across the North Atlantic; and the Doctor was a character. He
concluded the charging of his pipe, and lit it; then settled himself,
and began to express himself more fully:--

"The _Material_," he said, with conviction, "is inevitably the medium
of expression of the Life-Force--the fulcrum, as it were; lacking
which, it is unable to exert itself, or, indeed, to express itself in
any form or fashion that would be intelligible or evident to us.

"So potent is the share of the _Material_ in the production of that
thing which we name Life, and so eager the Life-Force to express
itself, that I am convinced it would, if given the right Conditions,
make itself manifest even through so hopeless-seeming a medium as a
simple block of sawn wood; for I tell you, gentlemen, the Life-Force
is both as fiercely urgent and as indiscriminate as Fire--the
Destructor; yet which some are now growing to consider the very
essence of Life rampant.... There is a quaint seeming paradox there,"
he concluded, nodding his old grey head.

"Yes, Doctor," I said. "In brief, your argument is that Life is a
thing, state, fact, or element, call-it-what-you-like, which requires
the _Material_ through which to manifest itself, and that given the
_Material_, plus the Conditions, the result is Life. In other words,
that Life is an evolved product, manifested through Matter and bred of
Conditions--eh?"

"As we understand the word," said the old Doctor. "Though, mind you,
there _may_ be a third factor. But, in my heart, I believe that it is
a matter of chemistry; Conditions and a suitable medium; but given the
Conditions, the Brute is so almighty that it will seize upon anything
through which to manifest itself. It is a Force generated by
Conditions; but nevertheless this does not bring us one iota nearer to
its _explanation_, any more than to the explanation of Electricity or
Fire. They are, all three, of the Outer Forces--Monsters of the Void.
Nothing we can do will _create_ any one of them; our power is merely
to be able, by providing the Conditions, to make each one of them
manifest to our physical senses. Am I clear?"

"Yes, Doctor, in a way you are," I said. "But I don't agree with you;
though I think I understand you. Electricity and Fire are both what I
might call natural things; but Life is an abstract something--a kind
of all-permeating Wakefulness. Oh, I can't explain it; who could! But
it's spiritual; not just a thing bred out of a Condition, like Fire,
as you say, or Electricity. It's a horrible thought of yours. Life's a
kind of spiritual mystery...."

"Easy, my boy!" said the old Doctor, laughing gently to himself; "or
else I may be asking you to demonstrate the spiritual mystery of life
of the limpet, or the crab, shall we say."

He grinned at me, with ineffable perverseness. "Anyway," he continued,
"as I suppose you've all guessed, I've a yarn to tell you in support
of my impression that Life is no more a mystery or a miracle than Fire
or Electricity. But, please to remember, gentlemen, that because we've
succeeded in naming and making good use of these two Forces, they're
just as much mysteries, fundamentally, as ever. And, anyway, the thing
I'm going to tell you, won't explain the mystery of Life; but only
give you one of my pegs on which I hang my feeling that Life is, as I
have said, a Force made manifest through Conditions (that is to say,
natural Chemistry), and that it can take for its purpose and Need, the
most incredible and unlikely Matter; for without Matter, it cannot
come into existence--it cannot become manifest...."

"I don't agree with you, Doctor," I interrupted. "Your theory would
destroy all belief in life after death. It would...."

"Hush, sonny," said the old man, with a quiet little smile of
comprehension. "Hark to what I've to say first; and, anyway, what
objection have you to material life, after death; and if you object to
a material framework, I would still have you remember that I am
speaking of Life, as we understand the word in this our life. Now do
be a quiet lad, or I'll never be done:--

"It was when I was a young man, and that is a good many years ago,
gentlemen. I had passed my examinations; but was so run down with
overwork, that it was decided that I had better take a trip to sea. I
was by no means well off, and very glad, in the end, to secure a
nominal post as Doctor in a sailing passenger-clipper, running out to
China.

"The name of the ship was the _Bheotpte_, and soon after I had got all
my gear aboard, she cast off, and we dropped down the Thames, and next
day were well away out in the Channel.

"The Captain's name was Gannington, a very decent man; though quite
illiterate. The First Mate, Mr. Berlies, was a quiet, sternish,
reserved man, very well-read. The Second Mate, Mr. Selvern, was,
perhaps, by birth and upbringing, the most socially cultured of the
three; but he lacked the stamina and indomitable pluck of the two
others. He was more of a sensitive; and emotionally and even mentally,
the most alert man of the three.

"On our way out, we called at Madagascar, where we landed some of our
passengers; then we ran Eastward, meaning to call at North West Cape;
but about a hundred degrees East, we encountered very dreadful
weather, which carried away all our sails and sprung the jibboom and
fore t'gallant mast.

"The storm carried us Northward for several hundred miles, and when it
dropped us finally, we found ourselves in a very bad state. The ship
had been strained, and had taken some three feet of water through her
seams; the main topmast had been sprung, in addition to the jibboom
and fore t'gallant mast; two of our boats had gone, as also one of the
pigsties (with three fine pigs), this latter having been washed
overboard but some half hour before the wind began to ease, which it
did quickly; though a very ugly sea ran for some hours after.

"The wind left us just before dark, and when morning came, it brought
splendid weather; a calm, mildly undulating sea, and a brilliant sun,
with no wind. It showed us also that we were not alone; for about two
miles away to the Westward, was another vessel, which Mr. Selvern, the
Second Mate, pointed out to me.

"'That's a pretty rum looking packet, Doctor,' he said, and handed me
his glass. I looked through it, at the other vessel, and saw what he
meant; at least, I thought I did.

"'Yes, Mr. Selvern,' I said, 'she's got a pretty old-fashioned look
about her.'

"He laughed at me, in his pleasant way.

"'It's easy to see you're not a sailor, Doctor,' he remarked. 'There's
a dozen rum things about her. She's a derelict, and has been floating
round, by the look of her, for many a score of years. Look at the
shape of her counter, and the bows and cutwater. She's as old as the
hills, as you might say, and ought to have gone down to Davy Jones a
long time ago. Look at the growths on her, and the thickness of her
standing rigging; that's all salt encrustations, I fancy, if you
notice the white colour. She's been a small barque; but don't you see
she's not a yard left aloft. They've all dropped out of the slings;
everything rotted away; wonder the standing rigging hasn't gone too. I
wish the Old Man would let us take the boat, and have a look at her;
she'd be well worth it.'

"There seemed little chance, however, of this; for all hands were
turned-to and kept hard at it all day long, repairing the damage to
the masts and gear, and this took a long while, as you may think. Part
of the time, I gave a hand, heaving on one of the deck-capstans; for
the exercise was good for my liver. Old Captain Gannington approved,
and I persuaded him to come along and try some of the same medicine,
which he did; and we grew very chummy over the job.

"We got talking about the derelict, and he remarked how lucky we were
not to have run full tilt on to her, in the darkness; for she lay
right away to leeward of us, according to the way that we had been
drifting in the storm. He also was of the opinion that she had a
strange look about her, and that she was pretty old; but on this
latter point, he plainly had far less knowledge than the Second Mate;
for he was, as I have said, an illiterate man, and knew nothing of
sea-craft, beyond what experience had taught him. He lacked the
book-knowledge which the Second Mate had, of vessels previous to his
day, which it appeared the derelict was.

"'She's an old 'un, Doctor' was the extent of his observations in this
direction.

"Yet, when I mentioned to him that it would be interesting to go
aboard, and give her a bit of an overhaul, he nodded his head, as if
the idea had been already in his mind, and accorded with his own
inclinations.

"'When the work's over, Doctor,' he said. 'Can't spare the men now, ye
know. Got to get all shipshape an' ready as smart as we can. But we'll
take my gig, an' go off in the Second Dog Watch. The glass is steady,
an' it'll be a bit of gam for us.'

"That evening, after tea, the captain gave orders to clear the gig and
get her overboard. The Second Mate was to come with us, and the
Skipper gave him word to see that two or three lamps were put into the
boat, as it would soon fall dark. A little later, we were pulling
across the calmness of the sea, with a crew of six at the oars, and
making very good speed of it.

"Now, gentlemen, I have detailed to you with great exactness, all the
facts, both big and little, so that you can follow step by step each
incident in this extraordinary affair; and I want you now to pay the
closest attention.

"I was sitting in the stern-sheets, with the Second Mate, and the
Captain, who was steering; and as we drew nearer and nearer to the
stranger, I studied her with an ever growing attention, as, indeed,
did Captain Gannington and the Second Mate. She was, as you know, to
the Westward of us, and the sunset was making a great flame of red
light to the back of her, so that she showed a little blurred and
indistinct, by reason of the halation of the light, which almost
defeated the eye in any attempt to see her rotting spars and
standing-rigging, submerged as they were in the fiery glory of the
sunset.

"It was because of this effect of the sunset, that we had come quite
close, comparatively, to the derelict, before we saw that she was all
surrounded by a sort of curious scum, the colour of which was
difficult to decide upon, by reason of the red light that was in the
atmosphere; but which afterwards we discovered to be brown. This scum
spread all about the old vessel for many hundreds of yards, in a huge,
irregular patch, a great stretch of which reached out to the Eastward,
upon our starboard side, some score, or so, fathoms away.

"'Queer stuff,' said Captain Gannington, leaning to the side, and
looking over. 'Something in the cargo as 'as gone rotten an' worked
out through 'er seams.'

"'Look at her bows and stern,' said the Second Mate; 'just look at the
growth on her.'

"There were, as he said, great clumpings of strangelooking sea-fungi
under the bows and the short counter astern. From the stump of her
jibboom and her cutwater, great beards of rime and marine-growths hung
downward into the scum that held her in. Her blank starboard side was
presented to us, all a dead, dirtyish white, streaked and mottled
vaguely with dull masses of heavier colour.

"'There's a steam or haze rising off her,' said the Second Mate,
speaking again; 'you can see it against the light. It keeps coming and
going. Look!'

"I saw then what he meant--a faint haze or steam, either suspended
above the old vessel, or rising from her; and Captain Gannington saw
it also:--

"'Spontaneous combustion!' he exclaimed. 'We'll 'ave to watch w'en we
lift the 'atches; 'nless it's some poor devil that's got aboard of
'er; but that ain't likely.'

"We were now within a couple of hundred yards of the old derelict, and
had entered into the brown scum. As it poured off the lifted oars, I
heard one of the men mutter to himself:--'dam treacle!' and, indeed,
it was something like it. As the boat continued to forge nearer and
nearer to the old ship, the scum grew thicker and thicker; so that, at
last, it perceptibly slowed us.

"'Give way, lads! Put some beef to it!' sung out Captain Gannington;
and thereafter there was no sound, except the panting of the men, and
the faint, reiterated suck, suck, of the sullen brown scum upon the
oars, as the boat was forced ahead. As we went, I was conscious of a
peculiar smell in the evening air, and whilst I had no doubt that the
puddling of the scum, by the oars, made it rise, I felt that in some
way, it was vaguely familiar; yet I could give it no name.

"We were now very close to the old vessel, and presently she was high
above us, against the dying light. The Captain called out then
to:--'in with the bow oars, and stand-by with the boathook,' which was
done.

"'Aboard there! Ahoy! Aboard there! Ahoy!' shouted Captain Gannington;
but there came no answer, only the flat sound of his voice going lost
into the open sea, each time he sung out.

"'Ahoy! Aboard there! Ahoy!' he shouted, time after time; but there
was only the weary silence of the old hulk that answered us; and,
somehow as he shouted, the while that I stared up half expectantly at
her, a queer little sense of oppression, that amounted almost to
nervousness, came upon me. It passed; but I remember how I was
suddenly aware that it was growing dark. Darkness comes fairly rapidly
in the tropics; though not so quickly as many fiction-writers seem to
think; but it was not that the coming dusk had perceptibly deepened in
that brief time, of only a few moments, but rather that my nerves had
made me suddenly a little hyper-sensitive. I mention my state
particularly; for I am not a nervy man, normally; and my abrupt touch
of nerves is significant, in the light of what happened.

"'There's no one aboard there!' said Captain Gannington. 'Give way,
men!' For the boat's crew had instinctively rested on their oars, as
the Captain hailed the old craft. The men gave way again; and then the
Second Mate called out excitedly:--'Why, look there, there's our
pigsty! See, it's got _Bheotpte_ painted on the end. It's drifted down
here, and the scum's caught it. What a blessed wonder!'

"It was, as he had said, our pigsty that had been washed overboard in
the storm; and most extraordinary to come across it there.

"'We'll tow it off with us, when we go,' remarked the Captain, and
shouted to the crew to get-down to their oars; for they were hardly
moving the boat, because the scum was so thick, close in around the
old ship, that it literally clogged the boat from going ahead. I
remember that it struck me, in a half-conscious sort of way, as
curious that the pigsty, containing our three dead pigs, had managed
to drift in so far, unaided, whilst we could scarcely manage to
_force_ the boat in, now that we had come right into the scum. But the
thought passed from my mind; for so many things happened within the
next few minutes.

"The men managed to bring the boat in alongside, within a couple of
feet of the derelict, and the man with the boathook, hooked on.

"''Ave ye got 'old there, forrard?' asked Captain Gannington.

"'Yessir!' said the bow-man; and as he spoke, there came a queer noise
of tearing.

"'What's that?' asked the Captain.

"'It's tore, Sir. Tore clean away!' said the man; and his tone showed
that he had received something of a shock.

"'Get a hold again then!' said Captain Gannington, irritably. 'You
don't s'pose this packet was built yesterday! Shove the hook into the
main chains.' The man did so, gingerly, as you might say; for it
seemed to me, in the growing dusk, that he put no strain on to the
hook; though, of course, there was no need; you see, the boat could
not go very far, of herself, in the stuff in which she was embedded.
I remember thinking this, also, as I looked up at the bulging side of
the old vessel. Then I heard Captain Gannington's voice:--

"'Lord! but she's old! An' what a colour, Doctor! She don't half want
paint, do she! ... Now then, somebody, one of them oars.'

"An oar was passed to him, and he leant it up against the ancient,
bulging side; then he paused, and called to the Second Mate to light a
couple of the lamps, and stand-by to pass them up; for darkness had
settled down now upon the sea.

"The Second Mate lit two of the lamps, and told one of the men to
light a third, and keep it handy in the boat; then he stepped across,
with a lamp in each hand, to where Captain Gannington stood by the oar
against the side of the ship.

"'Now, my lad,' said the Captain, to the man who had pulled stroke,
'up with you, an' we'll pass ye up the lamps.'

"The man jumped to obey; caught the oar, and put his weight upon it,
and as he did so, something seemed to give a little.

"'Look!' cried out the Second Mate, and pointed, lamp in hand ...
'It's sunk in!'

"This was true. The oar had made quite an indentation into the
bulging, somewhat slimy side of the old vessel.

"'Mould, I reckon,' said Captain Gannington, bending towards the
derelict, to look. Then, to the man:--

"'Up you go, my lad, and be smart.... Don't stand there waitin'!'

"At that, the man, who had paused a moment as he felt the oar give
beneath his weight, began to shin up, and in a few seconds he was
aboard, and leant out over the rail for the lamps. These were passed
up to him, and the Captain called to him to steady the oar. Then
Captain Gannington went, calling to me to follow, and after me the
Second Mate.

"As the Captain put his face over the rail, he gave a cry of
astonishment:--

"'Mould, by gum! Mould.... Tons of it! ... Good Lord!'

"As I heard him shout that, I scrambled the more eagerly after him,
and in a moment or two, I was able to see what he meant---- Everywhere
that the light from the two lamps struck, there was nothing but smooth
great masses and surfaces of a dirty white mould.

"I climbed over the rail, with the Second Mate close behind, and stood
upon the mould-covered decks. There might have been no planking
beneath the mould, for all that our feet could feel. It gave under our
tread, with a spongy, puddingy feel. It covered the deck-furniture of
the old ship, so that the shape of each article and fitment was often
no more than suggested through it.

"Captain Gannington snatched a lamp from the man, and the Second Mate
reached for the other. They held the lamps high, and we all stared. It
was most extraordinary, and, somehow, most abominable. I can think of
no other word, gentlemen, that so much describes the predominant
feeling that affected me at the moment.

"'Good Lord!' said Captain Gannington, several times. 'Good Lord!' But
neither the Second Mate nor the man said anything, and for my part I
just stared, and at the same time began to smell a little at the air;
for there was again a vague odour of something half familiar, that
somehow brought to me a sense of half-known fright.

"I turned this way and that, staring, as I have said. Here and there,
the mould was so heavy as to entirely disguise what lay beneath;
converting the deck-fittings into indistinguishable mounds of mould,
all dirty-white, and blotched and veined with irregular, dull purplish
markings.

"There was a strange thing about the mould, which Captain Gannington
drew attention to--it was that our feet did not crush into it and
break the surface, as might have been expected; but merely indented
it.

"'Never seen nothin' like it before! ... Never!' said the Captain,
after having stooped with his lamp to examine the mould under our
feet. He stamped with his heel, and the stuff gave out a dull,
puddingy sound. He stooped again, with a quick movement, and stared,
holding the lamp close to the deck. 'Blest, if it ain't a reg'lar skin
to it!' he said.

"The Second Mate and the man and I all stooped, and looked at it. The
Second Mate progged it with his forefinger, and I remember I rapped it
several times with my knuckles, listening to the dead sound it gave
out, and noticing the close, firm texture of the mould.

"'Dough!' said the Second Mate. 'It's just like blessed dough! ...
Pouf!' He stood up with a quick movement. 'I could fancy it stinks a
bit,' he said.

"As he said this, I knew suddenly what the familiar thing was, in the
vague odour that hung about us--It was that the smell had something
animal-like in it; something of the same smell, only _heavier_, that
you will smell in any place that is infested with mice. I began to
look about with a sudden very real uneasiness.... There might be vast
numbers of hungry rats aboard.... They might prove exceedingly
dangerous, if in a starving condition; yet, as you will understand,
somehow I hesitated to put forward my idea as a reason for caution; it
was too fanciful.

"Captain Gannington had begun to go aft, along the mould-covered
maindeck, with the Second Mate; each of them holding his lamp high up,
so as to cast a good light about the vessel. I turned quickly and
followed them, the man with me keeping close to my heels, and plainly
uneasy. As we went, I became aware that there was a feeling of
moisture in the air, and I remembered the slight mist, or smoke, above
the hulk, which had made Captain Gannington suggest spontaneous
combustion, in explanation.

"And always, as we went, there was that vague, animal smell; and,
suddenly, I found myself wishing we were well away from the old
vessel.

"Abruptly, after a few paces, the Captain stopped and pointed at a row
of mould-hidden shapes on either side of the maindeck ... 'Guns,' he
said. 'Been a privateer in the old days, I guess; maybe worse! We'll
'ave a look below, Doctor; there may be something worth touchin'.
She's older than I thought. Mr. Selvern thinks she's about three
hundred year old; but I scarce think it.'

"We continued our way aft, and I remember that I found myself walking
as lightly and gingerly as possible; as if I were subconsciously
afraid of treading through the rotten, mould-hid decks. I think the
others had a touch of the same feeling, from the way that they walked.
Occasionally, the soft mould would grip our heels, releasing them with
a little, sullen suck.

"The Captain forged somewhat ahead of the Second Mate; and I know
that the suggestion he had made himself, that perhaps there might be
something below, worth the carrying away, had stimulated his
imagination. The Second Mate was, however, beginning to feel somewhat
the same way that I did; at least, I have that impression. I think, if
it had not been for what I might truly describe as Captain
Gannington's sturdy courage, we should all of us have just gone back
over the side very soon; for there was most certainly an unwholesome
feeling abroad, that made one feel queerly lacking in pluck; and you
will soon perceive that this feeling was justified.

"Just as the Captain reached the few, mould-covered steps, leading up
on to the short half-poop, I was suddenly aware that the feeling of
moisture in the air had grown very much more definite. It was
perceptible now, intermittently, as a sort of thin, moist, fog-like
vapour, that came and went oddly, and seemed to make the decks a
little indistinct to the view, this time and that. Once, an odd puff
of it beat up suddenly from somewhere, and caught me in the face,
carrying a queer, sickly, heavy odour with it, that somehow frightened
me strangely, with a suggestion of a waiting and half-comprehended
danger.

"We had followed Captain Gannington up the three, mould-covered steps,
and now went slowly aft along the raised after-deck.

"By the mizzenmast, Captain Gannington paused, and held his lantern
near to it....

"'My word, Mister,' he said to the Second Mate, 'it's fair thickened
up with the mould; why, I'll g'antee it's close on four foot thick.'
He shone the light down to where it met the deck. 'Good Lord!' he
said, 'look at the sea-lice on it!' I stepped up; and it was as he had
said; the sea-lice were thick upon it, some of them huge; not less
than the size of large beetles, and all a clear, colourless shade,
like water, except where there were little spots of grey in them,
evidently their internal organisms.

"'I've never seen the like of them, 'cept on a live cod!' said Captain
Gannington, in an extremely puzzled voice. 'My word! but they're
whoppers!' Then he passed on; but a few paces farther aft, he stopped
again, and held his lamp near to the mould-hidden deck.

"'Lord bless me, Doctor!' he called out, in a low voice, 'did ye ever
see the like of that? Why, it's a foot long, if it's a hinch!'

"I stooped over his shoulder, and saw what he meant; it was a clear,
colourless creature, about a foot long, and about eight inches high,
with a curved back that was extraordinarily narrow. As we stared, all
in a group, it gave a queer little flick, and was gone.

"'Jumped!' said the Captain. 'Well, if that ain't a giant of all the
sea-lice that ever I've seen! I guess it's jumped twenty-foot clear.'
He straightened his back, and scratched his head a moment, swinging
the lantern this way and that with the other hand, and staring about
us. 'Wot are _they_ doin' aboard 'ere!' he said. 'You'll see 'em
(little things) on fat cod, an' suchlike.... I'm blowed, Doctor, if I
understand.'

"He held his lamp towards a big mound of the mould, that occupied part
of the after portion of the low poop-deck, a little fore-side of where
there came a two-foot high 'break' to a kind of second and loftier
poop, that ran away aft to the taffrail. The mound was pretty big,
several feet across, and more than a yard high. Captain Gannington
walked up to it:--

"'I reck'n this 's the scuttle,' he remarked, and gave it a heavy
kick. The only result was a deep indentation into the huge, whitish
hump of mould, as if he had driven his foot into a mass of some doughy
substance. Yet, I am not altogether correct in saying that this was
the only result; for a certain other thing happened---- From a place
made by the Captain's foot, there came a little gush of a purplish
fluid, accompanied by a peculiar smell, that was, and was not,
half-familiar. Some of the mould-like substance had stuck to the toe
of the Captain's boot, and from this, likewise, there issued a sweat,
as it were, of the same colour.

"'Well!' said Captain Gannington, in surprise; and drew back his foot
to make another kick at the hump of mould; but he paused, at an
exclamation from the Second Mate:--

"'Don't, Sir!' said the Second Mate.

"I glanced at him, and the light from Captain Gannington's lamp showed
me that his face had a bewildered, half-frightened look, as if he were
suddenly and unexpectedly half-afraid of something, and as if his
tongue had given away his sudden fright, without any intention on his
part to speak.

"The Captain also turned and stared at him:--

"'Why, Mister?' he asked, in a somewhat puzzled voice, through which
there sounded just the vaguest hint of annoyance. 'We've got to shift
this muck, if we're to get below.'

"I looked at the Second Mate, and it seemed to me that, curiously
enough, he was listening less to the Captain, than to some other
sound.

"Suddenly, he said in a queer voice:--'Listen, everybody!'

"Yet, we heard nothing, beyond the faint murmur of the men talking
together in the boat alongside.

"'I don't hear nothin',' said Captain Gannington, after a short pause.
'Do you, Doctor?'

"'No,' I said.

"'Wot was it you thought you heard?' asked the Captain, turning again
to the Second Mate. But the Second Mate shook his head, in a curious,
almost irritable way; as if the Captain's question interrupted his
listening. Captain Gannington stared a moment at him; then held his
lantern up, and glanced about him, almost uneasily. I know I felt a
queer sense of strain. But the light showed nothing, beyond the
greyish dirty-white of the mould in all directions.

"'Mister Selvern,' said the Captain at last, looking at him, 'don't
get fancying things. Get hold of your bloomin' self. Ye know ye heard
nothin'?'

"'I'm quite sure I heard something, Sir!' said the Second Mate. 'I
seemed to hear----' He broke off sharply, and appeared to listen, with
an almost painful intensity.

"'What did it sound like?' I asked.

"'It's all right, Doctor,' said Captain Gannington, laughing gently.
'Ye can give him a tonic when we get back. I'm goin' to shift this
stuff.'

"He drew back, and kicked for the second time at the ugly mass, which
he took to hide the companionway. The result of his kick was
startling; for the whole thing wobbled sloppily, like a mound of
unhealthy-looking jelly.

"He drew his foot out of it, quickly, and took a step backward,
staring, and holding his lamp towards it:--

"'By gum!' he said; and it was plain that he was genuinely startled,
'the blessed thing's gone soft!'

"The man had run back several steps from the suddenly flaccid mound,
and looked horribly frightened. Though, of what, I am sure he had not
the least idea. The Second Mate stood where he was, and stared. For my
part, I know I had a most hideous uneasiness upon me. The Captain
continued to hold his light towards the wobbling mound, and stare:--

"It's gone squashy all through!' he said. 'There's no scuttle there.
There's no bally woodwork inside that lot! Phoo! what a rum smell!'

"He walked round to the after-side of the strange mound, to see
whether there might be some signs of an opening into the hull at the
back of the great heap of mould-stuff. And then:--

"'LISTEN!' said the Second Mate, again, in the strangest sort of
voice.

"Captain Gannington straightened himself upright, and there succeeded
a pause of the most intense quietness, in which there was not even the
hum of talk from the men alongside in the boat. We all heard it--a
kind of dull, soft Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! somewhere in the hull under
us; yet so vague that I might have been half doubtful I heard it, only
that the others did so, too.

"Captain Gannington turned suddenly to where the man stood:--

"'Tell them----' he began. But the fellow cried out something, and
pointed. There had come a strange intensity into his somewhat
unemotional face; so that the Captain's glance followed his action
instantly. I stared, also, as you may think. It was the great mound,
at which the man was pointing. I saw what he meant.

"From the two gapes made in the mould-like stuff by Captain
Gannington's boot, the purple fluid was jetting out in a queerly
regular fashion, almost as if it were being forced out by a pump. My
word! but I stared! And even as I stared, a larger jet squirted out,
and splashed as far as the man, spattering his boots and trouser-legs.

"The fellow had been pretty nervous before, in a stolid, ignorant sort
of way; and his funk had been growing steadily; but, at this, he
simply let out a yell, and turned about to run. He paused an instant,
as if a sudden fear of the darkness that held the decks, between him
and the boat, had taken him. He snatched at the Second Mate's lantern;
tore it out of his hand, and plunged heavily away over the vile
stretch of mould.

"Mr. Selvern, the Second Mate, said not a word; he was just standing,
staring at the strange-smelling twin streams of dull purple, that were
jetting out from the wobbling mound. Captain Gannington, however,
roared an order to the man to come back; but the man plunged on and on
across the mould, his feet seeming to be clogged by the stuff, as if
it had grown suddenly soft. He zigzagged, as he ran, the lantern
swaying in wild circles, as he wrenched his feet free, with a constant
plop, plop; and I could hear his frightened gasps, even from where I
stood.

"'Come back with that lamp!' roared the Captain again; but still the
man took no notice, and Captain Gannington was silent an instant, his
lips working in a queer, inarticulate fashion; as if he were stunned
momentarily by the very violence of his anger at the man's
insubordination. And in the silence, I heard the sounds again:--Thud!
Thud! Thud! Thud! Quite distinctly now, beating, it seemed suddenly to
me, right down under my feet, but deep.

"I stared down at the mould on which I was standing, with a quick,
disgusting sense of the terrible all about me; then I looked at the
Captain, and tried to say something, without appearing frightened. I
saw that he had turned again to the mound, and all the anger had gone
out of his face. He had his lamp out towards the mound, and was
listening. There was a further moment of absolute silence; at least, I
know that I was not conscious of any sound at all, in all the world,
except that extraordinary Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! down somewhere in
the huge bulk under us.

"The Captain shifted his feet, with a sudden, nervous movement; and as
he lifted them, the mould went plop! plop! He looked quickly at me,
trying to smile, as if he were not thinking anything very much about
it:--'What do you make of it, Doctor?' he said.

"'I think----' I began. But the Second Mate interrupted with a single
word; his voice pitched a little high, in a tone that made us both
stare instantly at him:--

"'Look!' he said, and pointed at the mound. The thing was all of a
slow quiver. A strange ripple ran outward from it, along the deck,
like you will see a ripple run inshore out of a calm sea. It reached a
mound a little fore-side of us, which I had supposed to be the
cabin-skylight; and in a moment, the second mound sank nearly level
with the surrounding decks, quivering floppily in a most extraordinary
fashion. A sudden, quick tremor took the mould, right under the
Second Mate, and he gave out a hoarse little cry, and held his arms
out on each side of him, to keep his balance. The tremor in the mould,
spread, and Captain Gannington swayed, and spread his feet, with a
sudden curse of fright. The Second Mate jumped across to him, and
caught him by the wrist:--

"'The boat, Sir!' he said, saying the very thing that I had lacked the
pluck to say. 'For God's sake----'

"But he never finished; for a tremendous, hoarse scream cut off his
words. They hove themselves round, and looked. I could see without
turning. The man who had run from us, was standing in the waist of the
ship, about a fathom from the starboard bulwarks. He was swaying from
side to side, and screaming in a dreadful fashion. He appeared to be
trying to lift his feet, and the light from his swaying lantern showed
an almost incredible sight. All about him the mould was in active
movement. His feet had sunk out of sight. The stuff appeared to be
_lapping_ at his legs; and abruptly his bare flesh showed. The hideous
stuff had rent his trouser-legs away, as if they were paper. He gave
out a simply sickening scream, and, with a vast effort, wrenched one
leg free. It was partly destroyed. The next instant he pitched face
downward, and the stuff heaped itself upon him, as if it were actually
alive, with a dreadful savage life. It was simply infernal. The man
had gone from sight. Where he had fallen was now a writhing, elongated
mound, in constant and horrible increase, as the mould appeared to
move towards it in strange ripples from all sides.

"Captain Gannington and the Second Mate were stone silent, in amazed
and incredulous horror; but I had begun to reach towards a grotesque
and terrific conclusion, both helped and hindered by my professional
training.

"From the men in the boat alongside, there was a loud shouting, and I
saw two of their faces appear suddenly above the rail. They showed
clearly, a moment, in the light from the lamp which the man had
snatched from Mr. Selvern; for, strangely enough, this lamp was
standing upright and unharmed on the deck, a little way fore-side of
that dreadful, elongated, growing mound, that still swayed and writhed
with an incredible horror. The lamp rose and fell on the passing
ripples of the mould, just--for all the world--as you will see a boat
rise and fall on little swells. It is of some interest to me now,
psychologically, to remember how that rising and falling lantern
brought home to me, more than anything, the incomprehensible, dreadful
strangeness of it all.

"The men's faces disappeared, with sudden yells, as if they had
slipped, or been suddenly hurt; and there was a fresh uproar of
shouting from the boat. The men were calling to us to come away; to
come away. In the same instant, I felt my left boot drawn suddenly and
forcibly downward, with a horrible, painful gripe. I wrenched it free,
with a yell of angry fear. Forrard of us, I saw that the vile surface
was all a-move; and abruptly I found myself shouting in a queer
frightened voice:--

"'The boat, Captain! The boat, Captain!'

"Captain Gannington stared round at me, over his right shoulder, in a
peculiar, dull way, that told me he was utterly dazed with
bewilderment and the incomprehensibleness of it all. I took a quick,
clogged, nervous step towards him, and gripped his arm and shook it
fiercely.

"'The boat!' I shouted at him. 'The boat! For God's sake, tell the men
to bring the boat aft!'

"Then the mould must have drawn his feet down; for, abruptly, he
bellowed fiercely with terror, his momentary apathy giving place to
furious energy. His thick-set, vastly muscular body doubled and
writhed with his enormous effort, and he struck out madly, dropping
the lantern. He tore his feet free, something ripping as he did so.
The _reality_ and necessity of the situation had come upon him,
brutishly real, and he was roaring to the men in the boat:--

"'Bring the boat aft! Bring 'er aft! Bring 'er aft!'

"The Second Mate and I were shouting the same thing, madly.

"For God's sake be smart, lads!' roared the Captain, and stooped
quickly for his lamp, which still burned. His feet were gripped again,
and he hove them out, blaspheming breathlessly, and leaping a yard
high with his effort. Then he made a run for the side, wrenching his
feet free at each step. In the same instant, the Second Mate cried out
something, and grabbed at the Captain:--

"'It's got hold of my feet! It's got hold of my feet!' he screamed.
His feet had disappeared up to his boot-tops; and Captain Gannington
caught him round the waist with his powerful left arm, gave a mighty
heave, and the next instant had him free; but both his boot-soles had
almost gone.

"For my part, I jumped madly from foot to foot, to avoid the plucking
of the mould; and suddenly I made a run for the ship's side. But
before I could get there, a queer gape came in the mould, between us
and the side, at least a couple of feet wide, and how deep I don't
know. It closed up in an instant, and all the mould, where the gape
had been, went into a sort of flurry of horrible ripplings, so that I
ran back from it; for I did not dare to put my foot upon it. Then the
Captain was shouting at me:--

"'Aft, Doctor! Aft, Doctor! This way, Doctor! Run!' I saw then that he
had passed me, and was up on the after, raised portion of the poop. He
had the Second Mate thrown like a sack, all loose and quiet, over his
left shoulder; for Mr. Selvern had fainted, and his long legs flogged,
limp and helpless, against the Captain's massive knees as the Captain
ran. I saw, with a queer, unconscious noting of minor details, how the
torn soles of the Second Mate's boots flapped and jigged, as the
Captain staggered aft.

"'Boat ahoy! Boat ahoy! Boat ahoy!' shouted the Captain; and then I
was beside him, shouting also. The men were answering with loud yells
of encouragement, and it was plain they were working desperately to
force the boat aft, through the thick scum about the ship.

"We reached the ancient, mould-hid taffrail, and slewed about,
breathlessly, in the half-darkness, to see what was happening. Captain
Gannington had left his lantern by the big mound, when he picked up
the Second Mate; and as we stood, gasping, we discovered suddenly that
all the mould between us and the light was full of movement. Yet, the
part on which we stood, for about six or eight feet forrard of us, was
still firm.

"Every couple of seconds, we shouted to the men to hasten, and they
kept on calling to us that they would be with us in an instant. And
all the time, we watched the deck of that dreadful hulk, feeling, for
my part, literally sick with mad suspense, and ready to jump overboard
into that filthy scum all about us.

"Down somewhere in the huge bulk of the ship, there was all the time
that extraordinary, dull, ponderous Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! growing
ever louder. I seemed to feel the whole hull of the derelict beginning
to quiver and thrill with each dull beat. And to me, with the
grotesque and monstrous suspicion of what made that noise, it was, at
once, the most dreadful and incredible sound I have ever heard.

"As we waited desperately for the boat, I scanned incessantly so much
of the grey-white bulk as the lamp showed. The whole of the decks
seemed to be in strange movement. Forrard of the lamp, I could see,
indistinctly, the moundings of the mould swaying and nodding
hideously, beyond the circle of the brightest rays. Nearer, and full
in the glow of the lamp, the mound which should have indicated the
skylight, was swelling steadily. There were ugly, purple veinings on
it, and as it swelled, it seemed to me that the veinings and mottlings
on it, were becoming plainer--rising, as though embossed upon it, like
you will see the veins stand out on the body of a powerful,
full-blooded horse. It was most extraordinary. The mound that we had
supposed to cover the companionway, had sunk flat with the surrounding
mould, and I could not see that it jetted out any more of the purplish
fluid.

"'A quaking movement of the mould began, away forrard of the lamp, and
came flurrying away aft towards us; and at the sight of that, I
climbed up on to the spongy-feeling taffrail, and yelled afresh for
the boat. The men answered with a shout, which told me they were
nearer; but the beastly scum was so thick that it was evidently a
fight to move the boat at all. Beside me, Captain Gannington was
shaking the Second Mate furiously, and the man stirred and began to
moan. The Captain shook him again.

"'Wake up! Wake up, Mister!' he shouted.

"The Second Mate staggered out of the Captain's arms, and collapsed
suddenly, shrieking:--'My feet! Oh, God! My feet!' The Captain and I
lugged him up off the mould, and got him into a sitting position upon
the taffrail, where he kept up a continual moaning.

"'Hold 'im, Doctor,' said the Captain, and whilst I did so, he ran
forrard a few yards, and peered down over the starboard quarter rail.
'For God's sake, be smart, lads! Be smart! Be smart!' he shouted down
to the men; and they answered him, breathless, from close at hand; yet
still too far away for the boat to be any use to us on the instant.

"I was holding the moaning, half-unconscious officer, and staring
forrard along the poop decks. The flurrying of the mould was coming
aft, slowly and noiselessly. And then, suddenly, I saw something
closer:--

"'Look out, Captain!' I shouted; and even as I shouted, the mould near
to him gave a sudden peculiar slobber. I had seen a ripple stealing
towards him through the horrible stuff. He gave an enormous, clumsy
leap, and landed near to us on the sound part of the mould; but the
movement followed him. He turned and faced it, swearing fiercely. All
about his feet there came abruptly little gapings, which made horrid
sucking noises.

"'Come _back_, Captain!' I yelled. 'Come back, _quick_!'

"As I shouted, a ripple came at his feet--lipping at them; and he
stamped insanely at it, and leaped back, his boot torn half off his
foot. He swore madly with pain and anger, and jumped swiftly for the
taffrail.

"'Come on, Doctor! Over we go!' he called. Then he remembered the
filthy scum, and hesitated; roaring out desperately to the men to
hurry. I stared down, also.

"'The Second Mate?' I said.

"'I'll take charge, Doctor,' said Captain Gannington, and caught hold
of Mr. Selvern. As he spoke, I thought I saw something beneath us,
outlined against the scum. I leaned out over the stern, and peered.
There was something under the port quarter.

"'There's something down there, Captain!' I called, and pointed in the
darkness.

"He stooped far over, and stared.

"'A boat, by gum! A BOAT!' he yelled, and began to wriggle swiftly
along the taffrail, dragging the Second Mate after him. I followed.

"'A boat it is, sure!' he exclaimed, a few moments later; and, picking
up the Second Mate clear of the rail, he hove him down into the boat,
where he fell with a crash into the bottom.

"'Over ye go, Doctor!' he yelled at me, and pulled me bodily off the
rail, and dropped me after the officer. As he did so, I felt the whole
of the ancient, spongy rail give a peculiar, sickening quiver, and
begin to wobble. I fell on to the Second Mate, and the Captain came
after, almost in the same instant; but fortunately, he landed clear of
us, on to the fore thwart, which broke under his weight, with a loud
crack and splintering of wood.

"'Thank God!' I heard him mutter. 'Thank God! ... I guess that was a
mighty near thing to goin' to hell.'

"He struck a match, just as I got to my feet, and between us we got
the Second Mate straightened out on one of the after thwarts. We
shouted to the men in the boat, telling them where we were, and saw
the light of their lantern shining round the starboard counter of the
derelict. They called back to us, to tell us they were doing their
best; and then, whilst we waited, Captain Gannington struck another
match, and began to overhaul the boat we had dropped into. She was a
modern, two-bowed boat, and on the stern, there was painted 'CYCLONE
Glasgow.' She was in pretty fair condition, and had evidently drifted
into the scum and been held by it.

"Captain Gannington struck several matches, and went forrard towards
the derelict. Suddenly he called to me, and I jumped over the thwarts
to him.

"'Look, Doctor,' he said; and I saw what he meant--a mass of bones, up
in the bows of the boat. I stooped over them, and looked. There were
the bones of at least three people, all mixed together, in an
extraordinary fashion, and quite clean and dry. I had a sudden thought
concerning the bones; but I said nothing; for my thought was vague, in
some ways, and concerned the grotesque and incredible suggestion that
had come to me, as to the cause of that ponderous, dull Thud! Thud!
Thud! Thud! that beat on so infernally within the hull, and was plain
to hear even now that we had got off the vessel herself. And all the
while, you know, I had a sick, horrible, mental-picture of that
frightful wriggling mound aboard the hulk.

"As Captain Gannington struck a final match, I saw something that
sickened me, and the Captain saw it in the same instant. The match
went out, and he fumbled clumsily for another, and struck it. We saw
the thing again. We had not been mistaken.... A great lip of
grey-white was protruding in over the edge of the boat--a great lappet
of the mould was coming stealthily towards us; a live mass of _the
very hull itself_. And suddenly Captain Gannington yelled out, in so
many words, the grotesque and incredible thing I was thinking:--

"'SHE'S ALIVE!'

"I never heard such a sound of _comprehension_ and terror in a man's
voice. The very horrified assurance of it, made actual to me the thing
that, before, had only lurked in my subconscious mind. I knew he was
right; I knew that the explanation, my reason and my training, both
repelled and reached towards, was the true one....... I wonder whether
anyone can possibly understand our feelings in that moment.... The
unmitigable horror of it, and the _incredibleness_.

"As the light of the match burned up fully, I saw that the mass of
living matter, coming towards us, was streaked and veined with purple,
the veins standing out, enormously distended. The whole thing quivered
continuously to each ponderous Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud! of that
gargantuan organ that pulsed within the huge grey-white bulk. The
flame of the match reached the Captain's fingers, and there came to me
a little sickly whiff of burned flesh; but he seemed unconscious of
any pain. Then the flame went out, in a brief sizzle; yet at the last
moment, I had seen an extraordinary raw look, become visible upon the
end of that monstrous, protruding lappet. It had become dewed with a
hideous, purplish sweat. And with the darkness, there came a sudden
charnel-like stench.

"I heard the match-box split in Captain Gannington's hands, as he
wrenched it open. Then he swore, in a queer frightened voice; for he
had come to the end of his matches. He turned clumsily in the
darkness, and tumbled over the nearest thwart, in his eagerness to get
to the stern of the boat; and I after him; for we knew that thing was
coming towards us through the darkness; reaching over that piteous
mingled heap of human bones, all jumbled together in the bows. We
shouted madly to the men, and for answer saw the bows of the boat
emerge dimly into view, round the starboard counter of the derelict.

"'Thank God!' I gasped out; but Captain Gannington yelled to them to
show a light. Yet this they could not do; for the lamp had just been
stepped on, in their desperate efforts to force the boat round to us.

"'Quick! Quick!' I shouted.

"'For God's sake be smart, men!' roared the Captain; and both of us
faced the darkness under the port counter, out of which we knew (but
could not see) the thing was coming towards us.

"'An oar! Smart now; pass me an oar!' shouted the Captain; and reached
out his hands through the gloom towards the oncoming boat. I saw a
figure stand up in the bows, and hold something out to us, across the
intervening yards of scum. Captain Gannington swept his hands through
the darkness, and encountered it.

"'I've got it. Let go there!' he said, in a quick, tense voice.

"In the same instant, the boat we were in, was pressed over suddenly
to starboard by some tremendous weight. Then I heard the Captain
shout:--'Duck y'r head, Doctor;' and directly afterwards he swung the
heavy, fourteen-foot ash oar round his head, and struck into the
darkness. There came a sudden squelch, and he struck again, with a
savage grunt of fierce energy. At the second blow, the boat righted,
with a slow movement, and directly afterwards the other boat bumped
gently into ours.

"Captain Gannington dropped the oar, and springing across to the
Second Mate, hove him up off the thwart, and pitched him with knee and
arms clear in over the bows among the men; then he shouted to me to
follow, which I did, and he came after me, bringing the oar with him.
We carried the Second Mate aft, and the Captain shouted to the men to
back the boat a little; then they got her bows clear of the boat we
had just left, and so headed out through the scum for the open sea.

"'Where's Tom 'Arrison?' gasped one of the men, in the midst of his
exertions. He happened to be Tom Harrison's particular chum; and
Captain Gannington answered him briefly enough:--

"'Dead! Pull! Don't talk!'

"Now, difficult as it had been to force the boat through the scum to
our rescue, the difficulty to get clear seemed tenfold. After some
five minutes pulling, the boat seemed hardly to have moved a fathom,
if so much; and a quite dreadful fear took me afresh; which one of the
panting men put suddenly into words:--

"'It's got us!' he gasped out; 'same as poor Tom!' It was the man who
had inquired where Harrison was.

"'Shut y'r mouth an' _pull_!' roared the Captain. And so another few
minutes passed. Abruptly, it seemed to me that the dull, ponderous
Thud ! Thud! Thud! Thud! came more plainly through the dark, and I
stared intently over the stern. I sickened a little; for I could
almost swear that the dark mass of the monster was actually _nearer_
... that it was coming nearer to us through the darkness. Captain
Gannington must have had the same thought; for after a brief look into
the darkness, he made one jump to the stroke-oar, and began to
double-bank it.

"'Get forrid under the thwarts, Doctor!' he said to me, rather
breathlessly. 'Get in the bows, an' see if you can't free the stuff a
bit round the bows.'

"I did as he told me, and a minute later I was in the bows of the
boat, puddling the scum from side to side with the boathook, and
trying to break up the viscid, clinging muck. A heavy, almost
animal-like odour rose off it, and all the air seemed full of the
deadening smell. I shall never find words to tell any one the whole
horror of it all--the threat that seemed to hang in the very air
around us; and, but a little astern, that incredible thing, coming, as
I firmly believe, nearer, and the scum holding us like half melted
glue.

'The minutes passed in a deadly, eternal fashion, and I kept staring
back astern into the darkness; but never ceasing to puddle that filthy
scum, striking at it and switching it from side to side, until I
sweated.

"Abruptly, Captain Gannington sang out:--

"'We're gaining, lads. Pull! 'And I felt the boat forge ahead
perceptibly, as they gave way, with renewed hope and energy. There was
soon no doubt of it; for presently that hideous Thud! Thud! Thud!
Thud! had grown quite dim and vague somewhere astern, and I could no
longer see the derelict; for the night had come down tremendously
dark, and all the sky was thick overset with heavy clouds. As we drew
nearer and nearer to the edge of the scum, the boat moved more and
more freely, until suddenly we emerged with a clean, sweet, fresh
sound, into the open sea.

"'Thank God!' I said aloud, and drew in the boathook, and made my way
aft again to where Captain Gannington now sat once more at the tiller.
I saw him looking anxiously up at the sky, and across to where the
lights of our vessel burned, and again he would seem to listen
intently; so that I found myself listening also.

"'What's that, Captain?' I said sharply; for it seemed to me that I
heard a sound far astern, something between a queer whine and a low
whistling. 'What's that?'

"'It's wind, Doctor,' he said, in a low voice. 'I wish to God we were
aboard.'

"Then, to the men:--'Pull! Put y'r backs into it, or ye'll never put
y'r teeth through good bread again!'

"The men obeyed nobly, and we reached the vessel safely, and had the
boat safely stowed, before the storm came, which it did in a furious
white smother out of the West. I could see it for some minutes
beforehand, tearing the sea, in the gloom, into a wall of
phosphorescent foam; and as it came nearer, that peculiar whining,
piping sound, grew louder and louder, until it was like a vast steam
whistle, rushing towards us across the sea.

"And when it did come, we got it very heavy indeed; so that the
morning showed us nothing but a welter of white seas; and that grim
derelict was many a score of miles away in the smother, lost as
utterly as our hearts could wish to lose her.

"When I came to examine the Second Mate's feet, I found them in a very
extraordinary condition. The soles of them had the appearance of
having been partly digested. I know of no other word that so exactly
describes their condition; and the agony the man suffered, must have
been dreadful.

"Now," concluded the Doctor, "that is what I call a case in point. If
we could know exactly what that old vessel had originally been loaded
with, and the juxtaposition of the various articles of her cargo, plus
the heat and time she had endured, plus one or two other only
guessable quantities, we should have solved the chemistry of the
Life-Force, gentlemen. Not necessarily the _origin_, mind you; but, at
least, we should have taken a big step on the way. I've often
regretted that gale, you know--in a way, that is, in a way! It was a
most amazing discovery; but, at the time, I had nothing but
thankfulness to be rid of it.... A most amazing chance. I often think
of the way the monster woke out of its torpor.... And that scum....
The dead pigs caught in it.... I fancy that was a grim kind of net,
gentlemen.... It caught many things.... It ..."

The old Doctor sighed and nodded.

"If I could have had her bill of lading," he said, his eyes full of
regret. "If---- It might have told me something to help. But,
anyway...." He began to fill his pipe again.... "I suppose," he ended,
looking round at us gravely, "I s'pose we humans are an ungrateful lot
of beggars, at the best! ... But ... but what a chance! What a
chance--eh?"




MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED
THE HOUSE OF PRAYER

(An incident in the life of Father Johnson, Roman
Catholic Priest.)

_"And the Great Deep of Life."_


Father Johnson's Irish village is not Irish. For some unknown reason
it is polyglot. They are, as one might say, a most extraordinary
family.

I took my friend, James Pelple, down with me for an afternoon's jaunt,
to give the priest a call in his new house; for he had moved since
last I saw him. Pelple knew of Father Johnson, by hearsay, and
disapproved strongly. There is no other word to describe his feelings.

"A good man, yes," he would remark. "But if all you tell me, and half
of what I hear from others, is true, he is much too lax. His
ritual----"

"I've never been to his place," I interrupted. "I know him only as the
man. As a man, I love him, as you know; as a priest, I admire him.
Concerning his ritual, I know nothing. I don't believe he is the man
to be unduly lax on vital points."

"Just so! Just so!" said Pelple. "_I_ know nothing; but I've heard
some _very_ peculiar things."

I smiled to myself. Certainly, Father Johnson has some unusual ways. I
have seen him, for instance, when we have been alone, forget to say
his grace, until, maybe, he had eaten one dish. Then, remembering, he
would touch his fingers together, and say:--"Bless this food to me"
(glancing at the empty dish), "an' I thank Thee for it" (looking at
the full one in front). Then, remembering the dish yet on the
stove:--"An' that too, Lord," and direct the Lord's attention to the
same, by a backward nod of his head. Afterwards, resuming his eating
and talking, in the most natural fashion.

"I've heard that he allows his church to be used for some very
extraordinary purposes," continued Pelple. "I cannot, of course,
credit _some_ of the things I hear; but I have been assured that the
women take their knitting into the church on weekday evenings, whilst
the men assemble there, as to a kind of rendezvous, where village
topics are allowed. I consider it most improper, most improper! Don't
you?"

But I found it difficult to criticise Father Johnson. I was frankly an
admirer, as I am to-day. So I held my peace, assisted by an elusive
movement of the head, that might have been either a nod or a negative.

When we reached the village, and asked for the priest's new house,
three men of the place escorted us there in state, as to the house of
a chieftain. Reaching it, two of them pointed to him through the
window, where he sat at table, smoking, after his early tea. The third
man would have accompanied us in; but I told him that I wanted to see
the priest alone; whereupon they all went happily. To have need to see
the priest alone, was a need that each and all understood, as a part
of their daily lives.

I lifted the latch, and we passed in, as all are welcome to do at any
hour of the day or night. The door of his house opened into a short
half-passage, and I could see direct into his little room, out of
which went the small scullery-kitchen. As we entered, I heard Sally,
his servant-wench, washing dishes in the little scullery; and just
then Father Johnson called out to her:--"Sally, I'll make a bet with
ye."

In the scullery, I heard a swift rustling and a subdued clatter, and
knew that Sally (having heard that preliminary often before) was
stealthily removing the handles of the knives from the boiling water.
Then her reply:--

"Did y'r riv'rence sphake?"

"I did, Sally, colleen," said the priest's voice. "I'll make a bet
with ye, Sally, you've the handles av thim knives over hilt in the hot
water--eh, Sally!"

And then Sally's voice, triumphant:--

"Ye're wrong, y'r riv'rence, thim knives is on the dhresser!"

"Aye, Sally," said Father Johnson; "but were they not in the hot water
whin I sphoke firrst?"

"They was, y'r riv'rence," said Sally, in a shamed voice; just as she
had been making the same confession for the past seven years. And then
the priest had a little fit of happy, almost silent laughter, puffing
out great clouds of smoke; in the midst of which we walked in on him.

After our greetings, which the priest had met with that strange
magnetism of heartiness, that had left even the critical Pelple less
disapproving, we were set down to a tea, which we simply had to eat,
the priest waiting on us himself, and making the little meal "go," as
you might say, with the abundance of his energy and humour--telling a
hundred quaint tales and jests of the country-side, with his brogue
making points of laughter where more formal speech would have left us
dull and untouched.

The meal over, the priest suggested that we might like to accompany
him down to his chapel, and see whether things were "kapin' happy," as
he phrased it. As you may suppose, we were quite eager to accept his
invitation; for, as I have made clear already, I had never been down
to his place before, and I had heard many things--even as had
Pelple--about his chapel and his methods.

We had not far to go. On the way, Father Johnson pointed with his
thumb to a little stone-built cabin, very small and crude, which I
learned was rented by a certain old Thomas Cardallon, who was not an
Irishman.

"Tom's wife died last week," said the priest, quietly. "He's to be
evicted to-morrow as iver is, if he cannot fhind the rint."

I put my hand into my pocket, with a half involuntary movement; but he
shook his head, as much as to say no good could be done that way. This
was all, and we were past the small hovel in a minute; but I found
myself looking back with a sudden, new curiosity at the little
rough-built living-place, that, before, had been only one poor hut
among many; yet was now instinct to me with a history of its own, so
that it stood out, in my memory, from the others, that were here and
there about, as something indicative of the life-hope and striving of
two poor humans. I put it badly. I know; but it was just such a jumble
of vague thoughts and emotions as these, that stirred in my mind. I
had reason afterwards to have further memory of the cottage and its
one-time occupants.

We reached the chapel very soon; but when we entered, I stood for a
moment, in astonishment, looking up the single aisle of the long
whitewashed room. There was not much noise; for, as I discovered,
reverence and the sense of the Place, held power all the time;
moreover, they were Father Johnson's people. I looked at my friend,
smiling, I fear.

"Even worse than Rumour foretold," I suggested in a low voice; but he
made no reply; for he appeared to me to be stifled by the excess of
his astounded disapproval. The priest was a few paces before us, where
we had made our involuntary pause in the doorway; and he, too, came to
a stand, and looked at the scene, unobserved.

You will understand that there was cause for my astonishment, and
even--as many will agree--with the strong disapprobation which my
friend was feeling, when I tell you that _there was an auction in
progress within the House_; for within the doorway to the left, was a
pile of household goods, evidently from the cottage of one of the very
poor. In front of the little heap was an old man, and round him, in a
semicircle, stood a number of the villagers, listening intently to the
old man's extolling of each article of his household gear, which he
was putting up for sale.

"'My House shall be called----'" I quoted softly and involuntarily;
but less with any blame in my heart, than a great wonder, salted by a
vague shockedness. The priest, still standing a little before me,
caught my half unconscious quotation; but he only said "Hush!" so
gently that I felt suddenly ashamed, as if I were a child fumbling
with the Garments of Life, which the priest had worn upon his
shoulders all the long years.

For maybe the half of a minute longer, we stood staring at the scene,
Father Johnson still a few paces before us into the chapel.

"Tom Cardallon," he explained presently, over his shoulder. "If he
sold outside, the officers would confiscate. I showed ye the house av
him, as we passed."

He beckoned us to join the group of villagers round the pitiful pile
of household goods, which we did, whilst he went on up the chapel,
speaking a word here and there to the many who were gathered together
in companionship for the quiet hour that preceded the evening Rosary.
Some were praying; a few were sitting quietly in restful isolation
from the world of reality; many of the women, I noticed, were
knitting, or sitting making butter in small glass jars, which they
shook constantly in their hands. The whole scene, in the soft evening
light that came in through the long narrow windows, giving me an
extraordinary sense of restfulness and natural humanity.

I turned presently from my viewing of the general chapel, to the
particular corner where I stood upon the skirt of the little group
around the old man. I began to catch the drift of his remarks, uttered
in a low tone, and found myself edging nearer, to hear more plainly. I
gathered--as the priest had told us--that he had just lost his wife,
after a long illness which had run them hopelessly into debt. Indeed,
as you know, the eviction from the little hovel was arranged for the
morrow, if the old man could not find the small sum which would make
it possible for him to stay on in the old cottage, where he had
evidently spent many very happy years.

"This 'ere," the old man was saying, holding up a worn saucepan, "wer'
one as my missus 'as cooked a pow'r o' spuds in."

He stopped, and turned half from us a moment, with a queer little
awkward gesture, as if looking round for something that he knew
subconsciously he was not in search of. I believe, in reality, the
movement was prompted by an unrealised desire to avert his face
momentarily, which had begun to work, as memory stirred in him. He
faced round again.

"Eh," he continued, "she wer' great on chips in batter, she wer'. Me
'n 'er used ter 'ave 'em every Sunday night as ever was. Like as they
was good to sleep on, so she said. An' I guess they was all cooked in
this 'ere ole pan."

He finished his curious eulogy, rather lamely, and pulled out his old
red handkerchief. After he had blown his nose, and furtively wiped his
eyes, he used the handkerchief to polish the interior and exterior of
the pan; after which he held it up once more to the view of the silent
and sympathetic crowd.

"What'll ye give for it?" he asked, looking round anxiously at the
many faces.

"Sixpence," said a low voice, and the old man, after a quick glance
round the crowd, said: "It's yours, Mrs. Mike Callan," and handed it
across to a woman in the front of the crowd. The money was paid into
his hand in coppers, as I could tell by the chink.

I looked towards the purchaser, feeling that I should like to buy back
the saucepan, and return it to the old man. This way, I saw Father
Johnson moving here and there through the little crowd, with a calico
bag in his hand. From this, in a surreptitious manner, he drew
something constantly--which I conceived, by the faint chinking, to be
money--and distributed it to a man here and a woman there among the
onlookers, accompanying each act with a few whispered words.

I understood much and guessed the rest. It was obvious that the people
had little money to spare; for both their clothes and their little
huts, all told of an utter poverty. This poverty, Father Johnson was
remedying for the occasion, and his whispered words were probably
hints concerning the articles for which to bid, and the amount to be
bid for each. This, of course, is only a guess; but I believe that I
am correct, in the main.

Once, I bid for a little old crock, offering double or treble its
original value; but the old man took not the slightest notice, and
continued to offer the article to bids that counted pence to the
shillings of my offer. I was astonished, and began to see newly, if I
may put it in that way. The man next to me, bid fivepence; then turned
and put up his finger, shaking his head in a friendly fashion, but
warningly. Evidently, I was to be allowed no part in this function of
neighbourly help, which was obviously ordered by rules of which I
lacked a fundamental knowledge. A woman, near to me, made things
somewhat clearer. She bent my-wards, and whispered:

"'E'd not take it back from you, Sir, nor the price you offered,
neither. 'E's got a inderpendent 'eart, 'e 'as, Sir. Poor old man."

So the things were going to be given back, after all. I wondered how
they would arrange the returning. It was evident that he had no
conceiving of the intentions of his neighbours; for the emotion of
distress was too plainly writ in his face, with each familiar article
that he auctioned. I learned afterwards that he was detained in chapel
by Father Johnson for a few "worrds," during which the household gear
was replaced in his cottage.

When everything else had been sold, there remained only a poor bundle
of something, done up in a faded shawl. It was as if the old man had
put off, to the very end, the selling of this. Now, he got down
clumsily on to his knees, and began to undo the knots, fumbling
stupidly, and bending his head low over the bundle. He got the knots
undone at last, and presently, after a little turning over of the few
things, in a way that I perceived to be more a dumb caressing, than
because he sought any particular article, he rose to his feet, holding
an old worn skirt.

"This 'ere," he said, slowly, "wer' my missus's best, an' she wer'
very spechul 'bout it, these 'ere thirty year. I mind w'en she first
wor' it." (His face lined a moment with emotion, grotesquely.) "She
wer' that slim 's she hed ter put a tuck in ther waistban'; not that
it 'armed it; she tuk pertickler care, an----"

I lost the old man's low-voiced explanation at this point; for I was
aware suddenly that Father Johnson was almost at my side. I glanced an
instant at him; but he was staring at the old man, with the oddest
expression on his face. I noticed, subconsciously, that he was
clenching and unclenching his hands rapidly. Then the old man's quaver
caught my ear again:--

"It's fine an' good cloth, an' them stain-marks couldn't be 'elped. As
she said, it wer' ther Lord's will, an' she mustn't complain. This
'ere one on the 'em wer' done fifteen year back----" Again my
attention was distracted. I caught the sharp flip of a finger and
thumb, and a man looked round and sidled out of the crowd, up to
Father Johnson, in obedience to his signal.

"Sthop ut, Mike! Sthop ut this instant!" I heard the priest whisper,
his brogue coming out strong, because he was stirred. "Offer tin bob
for the lot, an' sthop ut; 'tis breakin' the hearts av us."

He handed the man some money, and Mike bid for the shawl-full. But,
even then, it was horrible to see old Cardallon's fight, before he
could relinquish the garments to the buyer.

The sale was over. The latter part of it had been attended by an ever
increasing audience, from those who at first had been content to sit
and talk and rest quietly on the benches; and who--coming from the
outlying districts--were not intimate neighbours of old Tom. As they
broke up to return to their seats, I saw one or two women crying
openly.

James Pelple and I stayed for the service of the Rosary, in all
reverence, though of another persuasion. Afterwards, as we stood in
the doorway, waiting for Father Johnson, I looked across at him.

"Well?" I queried, "a den of thieves?"

But Pelple, "the Stickler," shook his head.

"A wonderful man," he said, "a wonderful man. I should like to know
him better."

I laughed outright.

"So you've come under the banner too," I said. "I wondered whether you
would." And just then, Father Johnson joined us in his cassock, and we
began our return journey to his house.

On the way, we passed the door of Cardallon's cottage, the upper half
of which was open. The priest looked in, with a cheery word, and we
joined him. The old man was standing in the centre of his hard-beaten
mud floor, staring round in a stunned, incredulous fashion at all his
restored household goods. He looked half-vacantly at Father Johnson,
the tears running slowly down his wrinkled face. In his right hand, he
held the little bundle, knotted round with the faded shawl.

The priest stretched a hand over the half-door, and blessed old Tom
Cardallon in the loveliest, homeliest way, that stirred me, I admit
frankly, to the very depths.

Then he turned away, and we resumed our walk, leaving the old man to
his tears, which I am convinced were signs, in part at least, of a
gentle happiness.

"He would not take the money from us," said the priest, later. "But do
ye think the heart av him would let him sind back the gear!"

I looked across at Pelple, and smiled to his nod; for I knew that his
last vague questioning was answered.




FROM THE TIDELESS SEA


The Captain of the schooner leant over the rail, and stared for a
moment, intently.

"Pass us them glasses, Jock," he said, reaching a hand behind him.

Jock left the wheel for an instant, and ran into the little
companionway. He emerged immediately with a pair of marine-glasses,
which he pushed into the waiting hand.

For a little, the Captain inspected the object through the binoculars.
Then he lowered them, and polished the object glasses.

"Seems like er water-logged barr'l as sumone's been doin' fancy
paintin' on," he remarked after a further stare. "Shove ther 'elm down
er bit, Jock, an' we'll 'ave er closer look at it."

Jock obeyed, and soon the schooner bore almost straight for the object
which held the Captain's attention. Presently, it was within some
fifty feet, and the Captain sung out to the boy in the caboose to pass
along the boathook.

Very slowly, the schooner drew nearer, for the wind was no more than
breathing gently. At last the cask was within reach, and the Captain
grappled at it with the boathook. It bobbed in the calm water, under
his ministrations; and, for a moment, the thing seemed likely to elude
him. Then he had the hook fast in a bit of rotten-looking rope which
was attached to it. He did not attempt to lift it by the rope; but
sung out to the boy to get a bowline round it. This was done, and the
two of them hove it up on to the deck.

The Captain could see now, that the thing was a small water-breaker,
the upper part of which was ornamented with the remains of a painted
name.

"H--M--E--B----" spelt out the Captain with difficulty, and scratched
his head. "'ave er look at this 'ere, Jock. See wot you makes of it."

Jock bent over from the wheel, expectorated, and then stared at the
breaker. For nearly a minute he looked at it in silence.

"I'm thinkin' some of the letterin's washed awa'," he said at last,
with considerable deliberation. "I have ma doots if he'll be able to
read it.

"Hadn't ye no better knock in the end?" he suggested, after a further
period of pondering. "I'm thinkin' ye'll be lang comin' at them
contents otherwise."

"It's been in ther water er thunderin' long time," remarked the
Captain, turning the bottom side upwards. "Look at them barnacles!"

Then, to the boy:--

"Pass erlong ther 'atchet outer ther locker."

Whilst the boy was away, the Captain stood the little barrel on end,
and kicked away some of the barnacles from the underside. With them,
came away a great shell of pitch. He bent, and inspected it.

"Blest if ther thing ain't been pitched!" he said. "This 'ere's been
put afloat er purpose, an' they've been, mighty anxious as ther stuff
in it shouldn't be 'armed.

He kicked away another mass of the barnacle-studded pitch. Then, with
a sudden impulse, he picked up the whole thing and shook it violently.
It gave out a light, dull, thudding sound, as though something soft
and small were within. Then the boy came with the hatchet.

"Stan' clear!" said the Captain, and raised the implement. The next
instant, he had driven in one end of the barrel. Eagerly, he stooped
forward. He dived his hand down and brought out a little bundle
stitched up in oilskin.

"I don' spect as it's anythin' of valley," he remarked. "But I guess
as there's sumthin' 'ere as 'll be worth tellin' 'bout w'en we gets
'ome."

He slit up the oilskin as he spoke. Underneath, there was another
covering of the same material, and under that a third. Then a longish
bundle done up in tarred canvas. This was removed, and a black,
cylindrical shaped case disclosed to view. It proved to be a tin
canister, pitched over. Inside of it, neatly wrapped within a last
strip of oilskin, was a roll of papers, which, on opening, the Captain
found to be covered with writing. The Captain shook out the various
wrappings; but found nothing further. He handed the MS. across to
Jock.

"More 'n your line 'n mine, I guess," he remarked. "Jest you read it
up, an' I'll listen."

He turned to the boy.

"Fetch thef dinner erlong 'ere. Me an' ther Mate 'll 'ave it
comfertable up 'ere, an' you can take ther wheel.... Now then, Jock!"

And, presently, Jock began to read.

"THE LOSING OF THE _Homebird_"

"The _'Omebird_!" exclaimed the Captain. "Why, she were lost w'en I
wer' quite a young feller. Let me see--seventy-three. That were it.
Tail end er seventy-three w'en she left 'ome, an' never 'eard of
since; not as I knows. Go a'ead with ther yarn, Jock."

"It is Christmas eve. Two years ago to-day, we became lost to the
world. Two years! It seems like twenty since I had my last Christmas
in England. Now, I suppose, we are already forgotten--and this ship is
but one more among the missing! My God! to think upon our loneliness
gives me a choking feeling, a tightness across the chest!

"I am writing this in the saloon of the sailing ship, _Homebird_, and
writing with but little hope of human eye ever seeing that which I
write; for we are in the heart of the dread Sargasso Sea--the Tideless
Sea of the North Atlantic. From the stump of our mizzen mast, one may
see, spread out to the far horizon, an interminable waste of weed--a
treacherous, silent vastitude of slime and hideousness!

"On our port side, distant some seven or eight miles, there is a
great, shapeless, discoloured mass. No one, seeing it for the first
time, would suppose it to be the hull of a long lost vessel. It bears
but little resemblance to a sea-going craft, because of a strange
superstructure which has been built upon it. An examination of the
vessel herself, through a telescope, tells one that she is
unmistakably ancient. Probably a hundred, possibly two hundred, years.
Think of it! Two hundred years in the midst of this desolation! It is
an eternity.

"At first we wondered at that extraordinary superstructure. Later, we
were to learn its use--and profit by the teaching of hands long
withered. It is inordinately strange that we should have come upon
this sight for the dead! Yet, thought suggests, that there may be many
such, which have lain here through the centuries in this World of
Desolation. I had not imagined that the earth contained so much
loneliness, as is held within the circle, seen from the stump of our
shattered mast. Then comes the thought that I might wander a hundred
miles in any direction--and still be lost.

"And that craft yonder, that one break in the monotony, that monument
of a few men's misery, serves only to make the solitude the more
atrocious; for she is a very effigy of terror, telling of tragedies in
the past, and to come!

"And now to get back to the beginnings of it. I joined the _Homebird_,
as a passenger, in the early part of November. My health was not quite
the thing, and I hoped the voyage would help to set me up. We had a
lot of dirty weather for the first couple of weeks out, the wind dead
ahead. Then we got a Southerly slant, that carried us down through the
forties; but a good deal more to the Westward than we desired. Here we
ran right into a tremendous cyclonic storm. All hands were called to
shorten sail, and so urgent seemed our need, that the very officers
went aloft to help make up the sails, leaving only the Captain (who
had taken the wheel) and myself upon the poop. On the maindeck; the
cook was busy letting go such ropes as the Mates desired.

"Abruptly, some distance ahead, through the vague sea-mist, but rather
on the port bow, I saw loom up a great black wall of cloud.

"'Look, Captain!' I exclaimed; but it had vanished before I had
finished speaking. A minute later it came again, and this time the
Captain saw it.

"'O, my God!' he cried, and dropped his hands from the wheel. He leapt
into the companionway, and seized a speaking trumpet. Then out on
deck. He put it to his lips.

"'Come down from aloft! Come down! Come down!' he shouted. And
suddenly I lost his voice in a terrific mutter of sound from somewhere
to port. It was the voice of the storm--shouting. My God! I had never
heard anything like it! It ceased as suddenly as it had begun, and, in
the succeeding quietness, I heard the whining of the kicking-tackles
through the blocks. Then came a quick clang of brass upon the deck,
and I turned quickly. The Captain had thrown down the trumpet, and
sprung back to the wheel. I glanced aloft, and saw that many of the
men were already in the rigging, and racing down like cats.

"I heard the Captain draw his breath with a quick gasp.

"'Hold on for your lives!' he shouted, in a hoarse, unnatural voice.

"I looked at him. He was staring to windward with a fixed stare of
painful intentness, and my gaze followed his. I saw, not four hundred
yards distant, an enormous mass of foam and water coming down upon us.
In the same instant, I caught the hiss of it, and immediately it was a
shriek, so intense and awful, that I cringed impotently with sheer
terror.

"The smother of water and foam took the ship a little fore-side of the
beam, and the wind was with it. Immediately, the vessel rolled over on
to her side, the sea-froth flying over her in tremendous cataracts.

"It seemed as though nothing could save us. Over, over we went, until
I was swinging against the deck, almost as against the side of a
house; for I had grasped the weather rail at the Captain's warning. As
I swung there, I saw a strange thing. Before me was the port quarter
boat. Abruptly, the canvas cover was flipped clean off it, as though
by a vast, invisible hand.

"The next instant, a flurry of oars, boats' masts and odd gear
flittered up into the air, like so many feathers, and blew to leeward
and was lost in the roaring chaos of foam. The boat, herself, lifted
in her chocks, and suddenly was blown clean down on to the maindeck,
where she lay all in a ruin of white-painted timbers.

"A minute of the most intense suspense passed; then, suddenly, the
ship righted, and I saw that the three masts had carried away. Yet, so
hugely loud was the crying of the storm, that no sound of their
breaking had reached me.

"I looked towards the wheel; but no one was there. Then I made out
something crumpled up against the lee rail. I struggled across to it,
and found that it was the Captain. He was insensible, and queerly limp
in his right arm and leg. I looked round. Several of the men were
crawling aft along the poop. I beckoned to them, and pointed to the
wheel, and then to the Captain. A couple of them came towards me, and
one went to the wheel. Then I made out through the spray the form of
the Second Mate. He had several more of the men with him, and they had
a coil of rope, which they took forrard. I learnt afterwards that they
were hastening to get out a sea-anchor, so as to keep the ship's head
towards the wind.

"We got the Captain below, and into his bunk. There, I left him in the
hands of his daughter and the steward, and returned on deck.

"Presently, the Second Mate came back, and with him the remainder of
the men. I found then that only seven had been saved in all. The rest
had gone.

"The day passed terribly--the wind getting stronger hourly; though, at
its worst, it was nothing like so tremendous as that first burst.

"The night came--a night of terror, with the thunder and hiss of the
giant seas in the air above us, and the wind bellowing like some vast
Elemental beast.

"Then, just before the dawn, the wind lulled, almost in a moment; the
ship rolling and wallowing fearfully, and the water coming
aboard--hundreds of tons at a time. Immediately afterwards it caught
us again; but more on the beam, and bearing the vessel over on to her
side, and this only by the pressure of the element upon the stark
hull. As we came head to wind again, we righted, and rode, as we had
for hours, amid a thousand fantastic hills of phosphorescent flame.

"Again the wind died--coming again after a longer pause, and then, all
at once, leaving us. And so, for the space of a terrible half hour,
the ship lived through the most awful, windless sea that can be
imagined. There was no doubting but that we had driven right into the
calm centre of the cyclone--calm only so far as lack of wind, and yet
more dangerous a thousand times than the most furious hurricane that
ever blew.

"For now we were beset by the stupendous Pyramidal Sea; a sea once
witnessed, never forgotten; a sea in which the whole bosom of the
ocean is projected towards heaven in monstrous hills of water; not
leaping forward, as would be the case if there were wind; but hurling
upwards in jets and peaks of living brine, and falling back in a
continuous thunder of foam.

"Imagine this, if you can, and then have the clouds break away
suddenly overhead, and the moon shine down upon that hellish turmoil,
and you will have such a sight as has been given to mortals but
seldom, save with death. And this is what we saw, and to my mind there
is nothing within the knowledge of man to which I can liken it.

"Yet we lived through it, and through the wind that came later. But
two more complete days and nights had passed, before the storm ceased
to be a terror to us, and then, only because it had carried us into
the seaweed laden waters of the vast Sargasso Sea.

"Here, the great billows first became foamless; and dwindled gradually
in size as we drifted further among the floating masses of weed. Yet
the wind was still furious, so that the ship drove on steadily,
sometimes between banks, and other times over them.

"For a day and a night we drifted thus; and then astern I made out a
great bank of weed, vastly greater than any which hitherto we had
encountered. Upon this, the wind drove us stern foremost, so that we
over-rode it. We had been forced some distance across it, when it
occurred to me that our speed was slackening. I guessed presently that
the sea-anchor, ahead, had caught in the weed, and was holding. Even
as I surmised this, I heard from beyond the bows a faint, droning,
twanging sound, blending with the roar of the wind. There came an
indistinct report, and the ship lurched backwards through the weed.
The hawser, connecting us with the sea-anchor, had parted.

"I saw the Second Mate run forrard with several men. They hauled in
upon the hawser, until the broken end was aboard. In the meantime, the
ship, having nothing ahead to keep her "bows on," began to slew
broadside towards the wind. I saw the men attach a chain to the end of
the broken hawser; then they paid it out again, and the ship's head
came back to the gale.

"When the Second Mate came aft, I asked him why this had been done,
and he explained that so long as the vessel was end-on, she would
travel over the weed. I inquired why he wished her to go over the
weed, and he told me that one of the men had made out what appeared to
be clear water astern, and that--could we gain it--we might win free.

"Through the whole of that day, we moved rearwards across the great
bank; yet, so far from the weed appearing to show signs of thinning,
it grew steadily thicker, and, as it became denser, so did our speed
slacken, until the ship was barely moving. And so the night found us.

"The following morning discovered to us that we were within a quarter
of a mile of a great expanse of clear water--apparently the open sea;
but unfortunately the wind had dropped to a moderate breeze, and the
vessel was motionless, deep sunk in the weed; great tufts of which
rose up on all sides, to within a few feet of the level of our
maindeck.

"A man was sent up the stump of the mizzen, to take a look round. From
there, he reported that he could see something, that might be weed,
across the water; but it was too far distant for him to be in any way
certain. Immediately afterwards, he called out that there was
something, away on our port beam; but what it was, he could not say,
and it was not until a telescope was brought to bear, that we made it
out to be the hull of the ancient vessel I have previously mentioned.

"And now, the Second Mate began to cast about for some means by which
he could bring the ship to the clear water astern. The first thing
which he did, was to bend a sail to a spare yard, and hoist it to the
top of the mizzen stump. By this means, he was able to dispense with
the cable towing over the bows, which, of course, helped to prevent
the ship from moving. In addition, the sail would prove helpful to
force the vessel across the weed. Then he routed out a couple of
kedges. These, he bent on to the ends of a short piece of cable, and,
to the bight of this, the end of a long coil of strong rope.

"After that, he had the starboard quarter boat lowered into the weed,
and in it he placed the two kedge anchors. The end of another length
of rope, he made fast to the boat's painter. This done, he took four
of the men with him, telling them to bring chain-hooks, in addition to
the oars--his intention being to force the boat through the weed,
until he reached the clear water. There, in the marge of the weed, he
would plant the two anchors in the thickest clumps of the growth;
after which we were to haul the boat back to the ship, by means of the
rope attached to the painter.

"'Then,' as he put it, 'we'll take the kedge-rope to the capstan, and
heave her out of this blessed cabbage heap!'

"The weed proved a greater obstacle to the progress of the boat, than,
I think, he had anticipated. After half an hour's work, they had gone
scarcely more than some two hundred feet from the vessel; yet, so
thick was the stuff, that no sign could we see of them, save the
movement they made among the weed, as they forced the boat along.

"Another quarter of an hour passed away, during which the three men
left upon the poop, paid out the ropes as the boat forged slowly
ahead. All at once, I heard my name called. Turning, I saw the
Captain's daughter in the companionway, beckoning to me. I walked
across to her.

"'My father has sent me up to know, Mr. Philips, how they are getting
on?'

"'Very slowly, Miss Knowles,' I replied. 'Very slowly indeed. The weed
is so extraordinarily thick.'

"She nodded intelligently, and turned to descend; but I detained her a
moment.

"'Your father, how is he?' I asked.

"She drew her breath swiftly.

"'Quite himself,' she said; 'but so dreadfully weak. He----'

"An outcry from one of the men, broke across her speech:--

"'Lord 'elp us, mates! wot were that!'

"I turned sharply. The three of them were staring over the taffrail. I
ran towards them, and Miss Knowles followed.

"'Hush!' she said, abruptly. 'Listen!'

"I stared astern to where I knew the boat to be. The weed all about it
was quaking queerly--the movement extending far beyond the radius of
their hooks and oars. Suddenly, I heard the Second Mate's voice:

"'Look out, lads! My God, look out!'

"And close upon this, blending almost with it, came the hoarse scream
of a man in sudden agony.

"I saw an oar come up into view, and descend violently, as though
someone struck at something with it. Then the Second Mate's voice,
shouting:--

"'Aboard there! Aboard there! Haul in on the rope! Haul in on the
rope----!' It broke off into a sharp cry.

"As we seized hold of the rope, I saw the weed hurled in all
directions, and a great crying and choking swept to us over the brown
hideousness around.

"'Pull!' I yelled, and we pulled. The rope tautened; but the boat
never moved.

"'Tek it ter ther capsting!' gasped one of the men.

"Even as he spoke, the rope slackened. "'It's coming!' cried Miss
Knowles. 'Pull! Oh! Pull!'

"She had hold of the rope along with us, and together we hauled, the
boat yielding to our strength with surprising ease.

"'There it is!' I shouted, and then I let go of the rope. There was no
one in the boat.

"'For the half of a minute, we stared, dumfoundered. Then my gaze
wandered astern to the place from which we had plucked it. There was a
heaving movement among the great weed masses. I saw something waver up
aimlessly against the sky; it was sinuous, and it flickered once or
twice from side to side; then sank back among the growth, before I
could concentrate my attention upon it.

"I was recalled to myself by a sound of dry sobbing. Miss Knowles was
kneeling upon the deck, her hands clasped round one of the iron
uprights of the rail. She seemed momentarily all to pieces.

"'Come! Miss Knowles,' I said, gently. 'You must be brave. We cannot
let your father know of this in his present state.'

"She allowed me to help her to her feet. I could feel that she was
trembling badly. Then, even as I sought for words with which to
reassure her, there came a dull thud from the direction of the
companionway. We looked round. On the deck, face downward, lying half
in and half out of the scuttle, was the Captain. Evidently, he had
witnessed everything. Miss Knowles gave out a wild cry, and ran to her
father. I beckoned to one of the men to help me, and, together, we
carried him back to his bunk. An hour later, he recovered from his
swoon. He was quite calm, though very weak, and evidently in
considerable pain.

"Through his daughter, he made known to me that he wished me to take
the reins of authority in his place. This, after a slight demur, I
decided to do; for, as I reassured myself, there were no duties
required of me, needing any special knowledge of shipcraft. The vessel
was fast; so far as I could see, irrevocably fast. It would be time to
talk of freeing her, when the Captain was well enough to take charge
once more.

"I returned on deck, and made known to the men the Captain's wishes.
Then I chose one to act as a sort of bo'sun over the other two, and to
him I gave orders that everything should be put to rights before the
night came. I had sufficient sense to leave him to manage matters in
his own way; for, whereas my knowledge of what was needful, was
fragmentary, his was complete.

"By this time, it was near to sunsetting, and it was with melancholy
feelings that I watched the great hull of the sun plunge lower. For
awhile, I paced the poop, stopping ever and anon to stare over the
dreary waste by which we were surrounded. The more I looked about, the
more a sense of lonesomeness and depression and fear assailed me. I
had pondered much upon the dread happening of the day, and all my
ponderings led to a vital questioning:--What was there among all that
quiet weed, which had come upon the crew of the boat, and destroyed
them? And I could not make answer, and the weed was silent--dreadly
silent!

"The sun had drawn very near to the dim horizon, and I watched it,
moodily, as it splashed great clots of red fire across the water that
lay stretched into the distance across our stern. Abruptly, as I
gazed, its perfect lower edge was marred by an irregular shape. For a
moment, I stared, puzzled. Then I fetched a pair of glasses from the
holdfast in the companion. A glance through these, and I knew the
extent of our fate. That line, blotching the round of the sun, was the
conformation of another enormous weed bank.

"I remembered that the man had reported something as showing across
the water, when he was sent up to the top of the mizzen stump in the
morning; but, what it was, he had been unable to say. The thought
flashed into my mind that it had been only _just_ visible from aloft
in the morning, and now it was in sight from the deck. It occurred to
me that the wind might be compacting the weed, and driving the bank
which surrounded the ship, down upon a larger portion. Possibly, the
clear stretch of water had been but a temporary rift within the heart
of the Sargasso Sea. It seemed only too probable.

"Thus it was that I meditated, and so, presently, the night found me.
For some hours further, I paced the deck in the darkness, striving to
understand the incomprehensible; yet with no better result than to
weary myself to death. Then, somewhere about midnight, I went below to
sleep.

"The following morning, on going on deck, I found that the stretch of
clear water had disappeared entirely, during the night, and now, so
far as the eye could reach, there was nothing but a stupendous
desolation of weed.

"The wind had dropped completely, and no sound came from all that
weed-ridden immensity. We had, in truth, reached the Cemetery of the
Ocean!

"The day passed uneventfully enough. It was only when I served out
some food to the men, and one of them asked whether they could have a
few raisins, that I remembered, with a pang of sudden misery, that it
was Christmas day. I gave them the fruit, as they desired, and they
spent the morning in the galley, cooking their dinner. Their stolid
indifference to the late terrible happenings, appalled me somewhat,
until I remembered what their lives were, and had been. Poor fellows!
One of them ventured aft at dinner time, and offered me a slice of
what he called 'plum duff.' He brought it on a plate which he had
found in the galley and scoured thoroughly with sand and water. He
tendered it shyly enough, and I took it, so graciously as I could, for
I would not hurt his feelings; though the very smell of the stuff was
an abomination.

"During the afternoon, I brought out the Captain's telescope, and made
a thorough examination of the ancient hulk on our port beam.
Particularly did I study the extraordinary superstructure around her
sides; but could not, as I have said before, conceive of its use.

"The evening, I spent upon the poop, my eyes searching wearily across
that vile quietness, and so, in a little, the night came--Christmas
night, sacred to a thousand happy memories. I found myself dreaming of
the night a year previous, and, for a little while, I forgot what was
before me. I was recalled suddenly--terribly. A voice rose out of the
dark which hid the maindeck. For the fraction of an instant, it
expressed surprise; then pain and terror leapt into it. Abruptly, it
seemed to come from above, and then from somewhere _beyond_ the ship,
and so in a moment there was silence, save for a rush of feet and the
bang of a door forrard.

"I leapt down the poop ladder, and ran along the maindeck, towards the
fo'cas'le. As I ran, something knocked off my cap. I scarcely noticed
it _then_. I reached the fo'cas'le, and caught at the latch of the
port door. I lifted it and pushed; but the door was fastened.

"'Inside there!' I cried, and banged upon the panels with my clenched
fist.

"A man's voice came, incoherently.

"'Open the door!' I shouted. 'Open the door!'

"'Yes, Sir--I'm com--ming, Sir,' said one of them, jerkily.

"I heard footsteps stumble across the planking. Then a hand fumbled at
the fastening, and the door flew open under my weight.

"The man who had opened to me, started back. He held a flaring
slush-lamp above his head, and, as I entered, he thrust it forward.
His hand was trembling visibly, and, behind him, I made out the face
of one of his mates, the brow and dirty, clean-shaven upper lip
drenched with sweat. The man who held the lamp, opened his mouth, and
gabbered at me; but, for a moment, no sound came.

"'Wot--wot were it? Wot we-ere it?' he brought out at last, with a
gasp.

"The man behind, came to his side, and gesticulated.

"'What was what?' I asked sharply, and looking from one to the other.
'Where's the other man? What was that screaming?'

"The second man drew the palm of his hand across his brow; then
flirted his fingers deckwards.

"'We don't know, Sir! We don't know! It were Jessop! Somethin's took
'im just as we was comin' forrid! We--we--He-he-HARK!'

"His head came forward with a jerk as he spoke, and then, for a space,
no one stirred. A minute passed, and I was about to speak, when,
suddenly, from somewhere out upon the deserted maindeck, there came a
queer, subdued noise, as though something moved stealthily hither and
thither. The man with the lamp caught me by the sleeve, and then, with
an abrupt movement, slammed the door and fastened it.

"'That's IT, Sir!' he exclaimed, with a note of terror and conviction
in his voice.

"I bade him be silent, while I listened; but no sound came to us
through the door, and so I turned to the men and told them to let me
have all they knew.

"It was little enough. They had been sitting in the galley, yarning,
until, feeling tired, they had decided to go forrard and turn-in. They
extinguished the light, and came out upon the deck, closing the door
behind them. Then, just as they turned to go forrard, Jessop gave out
a yell. The next instant they heard him screaming in the air above
their heads, and, realising that some terrible thing was upon them,
they took forthwith to their heels, and ran for the security of the
fo'cas'le.

"Then I had come.

"As the men made an end of telling me, I thought I heard something
outside, and held up my hand for silence. I caught the sound again.
Someone was calling my name. It was Miss Knowles. Likely enough she
was calling me to supper--and she had no knowledge of the dread thing
which had happened. I sprang to the door. She might be coming along
the maindeck in search of me. And there was Something out there, of
which I had no conception--something unseen, but deadly tangible!

"'Stop, Sir!' shouted the men, together; but I had the door open.

"'Mr. Philips!' came the girl's voice at no great distance. 'Mr.
Philips!'

"'Coming, Miss Knowles!' I shouted, and snatched the lamp from the
man's hand.

"'The next instant, I was running aft, holding the lamp high, and
glancing fearfully from side to side. I reached the place where the
mainmast had been, and spied the girl coming towards me.

"'Go back!' I shouted. 'Go back!'

"She turned at my shout, and ran for the poop ladder. I came up with
her, and followed close at her heels. On the poop, she turned and
faced me.

"'What is it, Mr. Philips?'

"I hesitated. Then:--

"'I don't know!' I said.

"'My father heard something,' she began. 'He sent me. He----'

"I put up my hand. It seemed to me that I had caught again the sound
of something stirring on the maindeck.

"'Quick!' I said sharply. 'Down into the cabin!.' And she, being a
sensible girl, turned and ran down without waste of time. I followed,
closing and fastening the companion-doors behind me.

"In the saloon, we had a whispered talk, and I told her everything.
She bore up bravely, and said nothing; though her eyes were very wide,
and her face pale. Then the Captain's voice came to us from the
adjoining cabin.

"'Is Mr. Philips there, Mary?'

"'Yes, father.'

"'Bring him in.'

"I went in.

"'What was it, Mr. Philips?' he asked, collectedly.

"I hesitated; for I was willing to spare him the ill news; but he
looked at me with calm eyes for a moment, and I knew that it was
useless attempting to deceive him.

"'Something has happened, Mr. Philips,' he said, quietly. 'You need
not be afraid to tell me.'

"At that, I told him so much as I knew, he listening, and nodding his
comprehension of the story.

"'It must be something big,' he remarked, when I had made an end. 'And
yet you saw nothing when you came aft?'

"'No,' I replied.

"'It is something in the weed,' he went on. 'You will have to keep off
the deck at night.'

"After a little further talk, in which he displayed a calmness that
amazed me, I left him, and went presently to my berth.

"The following day, I took the two men, and, together, we made a
thorough search through the ship; but found nothing. It was evident to
me that the Captain was right. There was some dread Thing hidden
within the weed. I went to the side and looked down. The two men
followed me. Suddenly, one of them pointed.

"'Look, Sir!' he exclaimed. 'Right below you, Sir! Two eyes like
blessed great saucers! Look!'

"I stared; but could see nothing. The man left my side, and ran into
the galley. In a moment, he was back with a great lump of coal.

"'Just there, Sir,' he said, and hove it down into the weed
immediately beneath where we stood.

"Too late, I saw the thing at which he aimed--two immense eyes, some
little distance below the surface of the weed. I knew instantly to
what they belonged; for I had seen large specimens of the octopus some
years previously, during a cruise in Australasian waters.

"'Look out, man!' I shouted, and caught him by the arm. 'It's an
octopus! Jump back!' I sprang down on to the deck. In the same
instant, huge masses of weed were hurled in all directions, and half a
dozen immense tentacles whirled up into the air. One lapped itself
about his neck. I caught his leg; but he was torn from my grasp, and I
tumbled backwards on to the deck. I heard a scream from the other man
as I scrambled to my feet. I looked to where he had been; but of him
there was no sign. Regardless of the danger, in my great agitation, I
leapt upon the rail, and gazed down with frightened eyes. Yet, neither
of him nor his mate, nor the monster, could I perceive a vestige.

"How long I stood there staring down bewilderedly, I cannot say;
certainly some minutes. I was so bemazed that I seemed incapable of
movement. Then, all at once, I became aware that a light quiver ran
across the weed, and the next instant, something stole up out of the
depths with a deadly celerity. Well it was for me that I had seen it
in time, else should I have shared the fate of those two--and the
others. As it was, I saved myself only by leaping backwards on to the
deck. For a moment, I saw the feeler wave above the rail with a
certain apparent aimlessness; then it sank out of sight, and I was
alone.

"An hour passed before I could summon a sufficiency of courage to
break the news of this last tragedy to the Captain and his daughter,
and when I had made an end, I returned to the solitude of the poop;
there to brood upon the hopelessness of our position.

"As I paced up and down, I caught myself glancing continuously at the
nearer weed tufts. The happenings of the past two days had shattered
my nerves, and I feared every moment to see some slender death-grapple
searching over the rail for me. Yet, the poop, being very much higher
out of the weed than the maindeck, was comparatively safe; though only
comparatively.

"Presently, as I meandered up and down, my gaze fell upon the hulk of
the ancient ship, and, in a flash, the reason for that great
superstructure was borne upon me. It was intended as a protection
against the dread creatures which inhabited the weed. The thought came
to me that I would attempt some similar means of protection; for the
feeling that, at any moment, I might be caught and lifted out into
that slimy wilderness, was not to be borne. In addition, the work
would serve to occupy my mind, and help me to bear up against the
intolerable sense of loneliness which assailed me.

"I resolved that I would lose no time, and so, after some thought as
to the manner in which I should proceed, I routed out some coils of
rope and several sails. Then I went down on to the maindeck and
brought up an armful of capstan bars. These I lashed vertically to the
rail all round the poop. Then I knotted the rope to each, stretching
it tightly between them, and over this framework stretched the sails,
sewing the stout canvas to the rope, by means of twine and some great
needles which I found in the Mate's room.

"It is not to be supposed that this piece of work was accomplished
immediately. Indeed, it was only after three days of hard labour that
I got the poop completed. Then I commenced work upon the maindeck.
This was a tremendous undertaking, and a whole fortnight passed before
I had the entire length of it enclosed; for I had to be continually on
the watch against the hidden enemy. Once, I was very nearly surprised,
and saved myself only by a quick leap. Thereafter, for the rest of
that day, I did no more work; being too greatly shaken in spirit. Yet,
on the following morning, I recommenced, and from thence, until the
end, I was not molested.

"Once the work was roughly completed, I felt at ease to begin and
perfect it. This I did, by tarring the whole of the sails with
Stockholm tar ; thereby making them stiff, and capable of resisting
the weather. After that, I added many fresh uprights, and much
strengthening ropework, and finally doubled the sailcloth with
additional sails, liberally smeared with the tar.

"In this manner, the whole of January passed away, and a part of
February. Then, it would be on the last day of the month, the Captain
sent for me, and told me, without any preliminary talk, that he was
dying. I looked at him; but said nothing; for I had known long that it
was so. In return, he stared back with a strange intentness, as though
he would read my inmost thoughts, and this for the space of perhaps
two minutes.

"'Mr. Philips,' he said at last, 'I may be dead by this time
to-morrow. Has it ever occurred to you that my daughter will be alone
with you ?'

"'Yes, Captain Knowles,' I replied, quietly, and waited.

"For a few seconds, he remained silent; though, from the changing
expressions of his face, I knew that he was pondering how best to
bring forward the thing which it was in his mind to say.

"'You are a gentleman----' he began, at last.

"'I will marry her,' I said, ending the sentence for him.

"A slight flush of surprise crept into his face.

"'You--you have thought seriously about it?'

"'I have thought very seriously,' I explained.

"'Ah!' he said, as one who comprehends. And then, for a little, he lay
there quietly. It was plain to me that memories of past days were with
him. Presently, he came out of his dreams, and spoke, evidently
referring to my marriage with his daughter.

"'It is the only thing,' he said, in a level voice.

"I bowed, and after that, he was silent again for a space. In a
little, however, he turned once more to me:--

"'Do you--do you love her?'

"His tone was keenly wistful, and a sense of trouble lurked in his
eyes.

"'She will be my wife,' I said, simply; and he nodded.

"'God has dealt strangely with us,' he murmured presently, as though
to himself.

"Abruptly, he bade me tell her to come in.

"And then he married us.

"Three days later, he was dead, and we were alone.

"For a while, my wife was a sad woman; but gradually time eased her of
the bitterness of her grief.

"Then, some eight months after our marriage, a new interest stole into
her life. She whispered it to me, and we, who had borne our loneliness
uncomplainingly, had now this new thing to which to look forward. It
became a bond between us, and bore promise of some companionship as we
grew old. Old! At the idea of age, a sudden flash of thought darted
like lightning across the sky of my mind:--_FOOD!_ Hitherto, I had
thought of myself, almost as of one already dead, and had cared naught
for anything beyond the immediate troubles which each day forced upon
me. The loneliness of the vast Weed World had become an assurance of
doom to me, which had clouded and dulled my faculties, so that I had
grown apathetic. Yet, immediately, as it seemed, at the shy whispering
of my wife, was all this changed.

"That very hour, I began a systematic search through the ship. Among
the cargo, which was of a 'general' nature, I discovered large
quantities of preserved and tinned provisions, all of which I put
carefully on one side. I continued my examination until I had
ransacked the whole vessel. The business took me near upon six months
to complete, and when it was finished, I seized paper, and made
calculations, which led me to the conclusion that we had sufficient
food in the ship to preserve life in three people for some fifteen to
seventeen years. I could not come nearer to it than this; for I had no
means of computing the quantity the child would need year by year. Yet
it is sufficient to show me that seventeen years _must_ be the limit.
Seventeen years! And then----

"Concerning water, I am not troubled; for I have rigged a great
sailcloth tun-dish, with a canvas pipe into the tanks; and from every
rain, I draw a supply, which has never run short.

"The child was born nearly five months ago. She is a fine little girl,
and her mother seems perfectly happy. I believe I could be quietly
happy with them, were it not that I have ever in mind the end of those
seventeen years. True! we may be dead long before then; but, if not,
our little girl will be in her teens--and it is a hungry age.

"If one of us died--but no! Much may happen in seventeen years. I will
wait.

"My method of sending this clear of the weed is likely to succeed. I
have constructed a small fire-balloon, and this missive, safely
enclosed in a little barrel, will be attached. The wind will carry it
swiftly hence.

"Should this ever reach civilised beings, will they see that it is
forwarded to:--"

(Here followed an address, which, for some reason, had been roughly
obliterated. Then came the signature of the writer)

"Arthur Samuel Philips."

    *    *    *    *    *

The captain of the schooner looked over at Jock, as the man made an
end of his reading.

"Seventeen years pervisions," he muttered thoughtfully. "An' this 'ere
were written sumthin' like twenty-nine years ago!" He nodded his head
several times. "Poor creatures!" he exclaimed. "It'd be er long while,
Jock--a long while!"




FROM THE TIDELESS SEA

(_Further News of the "Homebird"_)


In the August of 1902, Captain Bateman, of the schooner _Agnes_,
picked up a small barrel, upon which was painted a half obliterated
word; which, finally, he succeeded in deciphering as "Homebird," the
name of a full-rigged ship, which left London in the November of 1873,
and from thenceforth was heard of no more by any man.

Captain Bateman opened the barrel, and discovered a packet of
Manuscript, wrapped in oilskin. This, on examination, proved to be an
account of the losing of the _Homebird_ amid the desolate wastes of
the Sargasso Sea. The papers were written by one, Arthur Samuel
Philips, a passenger in the ship; and, from them, Captain Bateman was
enabled to gather that the ship, mastless, lay in the very heart of
the dreaded Sargasso; and that all of the crew had been lost--some in
the storm which drove them thither, and some in attempts to free the
ship from the weed, which locked them in on all sides.

Only Mr. Philips and the Captain's daughter had been left alive, and
they two, the dying Captain had married. To them had been born a
daughter, and the papers ended with a brief but touching allusion to
their fear that, eventually, they must run short of food.

There is need to say but little more. The account was copied into most
of the papers of the day, and caused widespread comment. There was
even some talk of fitting out a rescue expedition; but this fell
through, owing chiefly to lack of knowledge of the whereabouts of the
ship in all the vastness of the immense Sargasso Sea. And so,
gradually, the matter has slipped into the background of the Public's
memory.

Now, however, interest will be once more excited in the lonesome fate
of this lost trio; for a second barrel, identical, it would seem, with
that found by Captain Bateman, has been picked up by a Mr. Bolton, of
Baltimore, master of a small brig, engaged in the South American
coast-trade. In this barrel was enclosed a further message from Mr.
Philips--the fifth that he has sent abroad to the world; but the
second, third and fourth, up to this time, have not been discovered.

This "fifth message" contains a vital and striking account of their
lives during the year 1879, and stands unique as a document informed
with human lonesomeness and longing. I have seen it, and read it
through, with the most intense and painful interest. The writing,
though faint, is very legible; and the whole manuscript bears the
impress of the same hand and mind that wrote the piteous account of
the losing of the _Homebird_, of which I have already made mention,
and with which, no doubt, many are well acquainted.

In closing this little explanatory note, I am stimulated to wonder
whether, somewhere, at some time, those three missing messages ever
shall be found. And then there may be others. What stories of human,
strenuous fighting with Fate may they not contain.

We can but wait and wonder. Nothing more may we ever learn; for what
is this one little tragedy among the uncounted millions that the
silence of the sea holds so remorselessly. And yet, again, news may
come to us out of the Unknown--out of the lonesome silences of the
dread Sargasso Sea--the loneliest and the most inaccessible place of
all the lonesome and inaccessible places of this earth.

And so I say, let us wait. W. H. H.


THE FIFTH MESSAGE

"This is the fifth message that I have sent abroad over the loathsome
surface of this vast Weed-World, praying that it may come to the open
sea, ere the lifting power of my fire-balloon be gone, and yet, if it
come there--the which I could now doubt--how shall I be the better for
it! Yet write I must, or go mad, and so I choose to write, though
feeling as I write that no living creature, save it be the giant
octopi that live in the weed about me, will ever see the thing I
write.

"My first message I sent out on Christmas Eve, 1875, and since then,
each eve of the birth of Christ has seen a message go skywards upon
the winds, towards the open sea. It is as though this approaching
time, of festivity and the meeting of parted loved ones, overwhelms
me, and drives away the half apathetic peace that has been mine
through spaces of these years of lonesomeness; so that I seclude
myself from my wife and the little one, and with ink, pen, and paper,
try to ease my heart of the pent emotions that seem at times to
threaten to burst it.

"It is now six completed years since the Weed-World claimed us from
the World of the Living--six years away from our brothers and sisters
of the human and living world--It has been six years of living in a
grave! And there are all the years ahead! Oh! My God! My God! I dare
not think upon them! I must control myself----

"And then there is the little one, she is nearly four and a half now,
and growing wonderfully, out among these wilds. Four and a half years,
and the little woman has never seen a human face besides ours--think
of it! And yet, if she lives four and forty years, she will never see
another.... Four and forty years! It is foolishness to trouble about
such a space of time; for the future, for us, ends in ten
years--eleven at the utmost. Our food will last no longer than
that.... My wife does not know; for it seems to me a wicked thing to
add unnecessarily to her punishment. She does but know that we must
waste no ounce of food-stuff, and for the rest she imagines that the
most of the cargo is of an edible nature. Perhaps, I have nurtured
this belief. If anything happened to me, the food would last a few
extra years; but my wife would have to imagine it an accident, else
would each bite she took sicken her.

"I have thought often and long upon this matter, yet I fear to leave
them; for who knows but that their very lives might at any time depend
upon my strength, more pitifully, perhaps, than upon the food which
they must come at last to lack. No, I must not bring upon them, and
myself, a _near_ and _certain_ calamity, to defer one that, though it
seems to have but little less certainty, is yet at a further distance.

"Until lately, nothing has happened to us in the past four years, if I
except the adventures that attended my mad attempt to cut a way
through the surrounding weed to freedom, and from which it pleased
God that I and those with me should be preserved.[1] Yet, in the
latter part of this year, an adventure, much touched with grimness,
came to us most unexpectedly, in a fashion quite unthought of--an
adventure that has brought into our lives a fresh and more active
peril; for now I have learned that the weed holds other terrors
besides that of the giant octopi.

"Indeed, I have grown to believe this world of desolation capable of
holding _any_ horror, as well it might. Think of it--an interminable
stretch of dank, brown loneliness in all directions, to the distant
horizon; a place where monsters of the deep and the weed have
undisputed reign; where never an enemy may fall upon them; but from
which they may strike with sudden deadliness! No human can ever bring
an engine of destruction to bear upon them, and the humans whose fate
it is to have sight of them, do so only from the decks of lonesome
derelicts, whence they stare lonely with fear, and without ability to
harm.

"I cannot describe it, nor can any hope ever to imagine it! When the
wind falls, a vast silence holds us girt, from horizon to horizon, yet
it is a silence through which one seems to feel the pulse of hidden
things all about us, watching and waiting--waiting and watching;
waiting but for the chance to reach forth a huge and sudden
death-grapple.... It is no use! I cannot bring it home to any; nor
shall I be better able to convey the frightening sound of the wind,
sweeping across these vast, quaking plains--the shrill whispering of
the weed-fronds, under the stirring of the winds. To hear it from
beyond our canvas screen, is like listening to the uncounted dead of
the mighty Sargasso wailing their own requiems. Or again, my fancy,
diseased with much loneliness and brooding, likens it to the advancing
rustle of armies of the great monsters that are always about
us--waiting.

[Footnote 1: This is evidently a reference to something which Mr.
Philips has set in an earlier message--one of the three lost
messages.--W.H.H.]

"And so to the coming of this new terror:--

"It was in the latter end of October that we first had knowledge of
it--a tapping in the night time against the side of the vessel, below
the water-line; a noise that came distinct, yet with a ghostly
strangeness in the quietness of the night. It was on a Monday night
when first I heard it. I was down in the lazarette, overhauling our
stores, and suddenly I heard it--tap--tap--tap--against the outside of
the vessel upon the starboard side, and below the water line. I stood
for awhile listening; but could not discover what it was that should
come a-tapping against our side, away out here in this lonesome world
of weed and slime. And then, as I stood there listening, the tapping
ceased, and so I waited, wondering, and with a hateful sense of fear,
weakening my manhood, and taking the courage out of my heart....

"Abruptly, it recommenced; but now upon the opposite side of the
vessel, and as it continued, I fell into a little sweat; for it seemed
to me that some foul thing out in the night was tapping for
admittance. Tap--tap--tap--it went, and continued, and there I stood
listening, and so gripped about with frightened thoughts, that I
seemed without power to stir myself; for the spell of the Weed-World,
and the fear bred of its hidden terrors and the weight and dreeness of
its loneliness have entered into my marrow, so that I could, then and
now, believe in the likelihood of matters which, ashore and in the
midst of my fellows, I might laugh at in contempt. It is the dire
lonesomeness of this strange world into which I have entered, that
serves so to take the heart out of a man.

"And so, as I have said, I stood there listening, and full of
frightened, but undefined, thoughts; and all the while the tapping
continued, sometimes with a regular insistence, and anon with a quick
spasmodic tap, tap, tap-a-tap, as though some Thing, having
Intelligence, signalled to me.

"Presently, however, I shook off something of the foolish fright that
had taken me, and moved over to the place from which the tapping
seemed to sound. Coming near to it, I bent my head down, close to the
side of the vessel, and listened. Thus, I heard the noises with
greater plainness, and could distinguish easily, now, that something
knocked with a hard object upon the outside of the ship, as though
someone had been striking her iron side with a small hammer.

"Then, even as I listened, came a thunderous blow close to my ear, so
loud and astonishing, that I leaped sideways in sheer fright. Directly
afterwards there came a second heavy blow, and then a third, as though
someone had struck the ship's side with a heavy sledge-hammer, and
after that, a space of silence, in which I heard my wife's voice at
the trap of the lazarette, calling down to me to know what had
happened to cause so great a noise.

"'Hush, My Dear!' I whispered; for it seemed to me that the thing
outside might hear her; though this could not have been possible, and
I do but mention it as showing how the noises had set me off my
natural balance.

"At my whispered command, my wife turned her about and came down the
ladder into the semi-darkness of the place.

"'What is it, Arthur?' she asked, coming across to me, and slipping
her hand between my arm and side.

"As though in reply to her query, there came against the outside of
the ship, a fourth tremendous blow, filling the whole of the lazarette
with a dull thunder.

"My wife gave out a frightened cry, and sprang away from me; but the
next instant, she was back, and gripping hard at my arm.

"'What is it, Arthur? What is it?' she asked me; her voice, though no
more than a frightened whisper, easily heard in the succeeding
silence.

"'I don't know, Mary,' I replied, trying to speak in a level tone.
'It's----'

"'There's something again,' she interrupted, as the minor tapping
noises recommenced.

"For about a minute, we stood silent, listening to those eerie taps.
Then my wife turned to me:--

"'Is it anything dangerous, Arthur--tell me? I promise you I shall be
brave.'

"'I can't possibly say, Mary,' I answered. 'I can't say; but I'm going
up on deck to listen.... Perhaps,' I paused a moment to think; but a
fifth tremendous blow against the ship's side, drove whatever I was
going to say, clean from me, and I could do no more than stand there,
frightened and bewildered, listening for further sounds. After a short
pause, there came a sixth blow. Then my wife caught me by the arm, and
commenced to drag me towards the ladder.

"'Come up out of this dark place, Arthur,' she said. 'I shall be ill
if we stay here any longer. Perhaps the--the thing outside can hear
us, and it may stop if we go upstairs.'

"By this, my wife was all of a shake, and I but little better, so that
I was glad to follow her up the ladder. At the top, we paused for a
while to listen, bending down over the open hatchway. A space of,
maybe, some five minutes passed away in silence; then there commenced
again the tapping noises, the sounds coming clearly up to us where we
crouched. Presently, they ceased once more, and after that, though we
listened for a further space of some ten minutes, they were not
repeated. Neither were there any more of the great bangs.

"In a little, I led my wife away from the hatch, to a seat in the
saloon; for the hatch is situated under the saloon table. After that,
I returned to the opening, and replaced the cover. Then I went into
our cabin--the one which had been the Captain's, her father,--and
brought from there a revolver, of which we have several. This, I
loaded with care, and afterwards placed in my side pocket.

"Having done this, I fetched from the pantry, where I have made it my
use to keep such things at hand, a bull's-eye lantern, the same having
been used on dark nights when clearing up the ropes from the decks.
This, I lit, and afterwards turned the dark-slide to cover the light.
Next, I slipped off my boots; and then, as an afterthought, I reached
down one of the long-handled American axes from the rack about the
mizzenmast--these being keen and very formidable weapons.

"After that, I had to calm my wife and assure her that I would run no
unnecessary risks, if, indeed, there were any risks to run; though, as
may be imagined, I could not say what new peril might not be upon us.
And then, picking up the lantern, I made my way silently on stockinged
feet, up the companionway. I had reached the top, and was just
stepping out on to the deck, when something caught my arm. I turned
swiftly, and perceived that my wife had followed me up the steps, and
from the shaking of her hand upon my arm, I gathered that she was very
much agitated.

"'Oh, My Dear, My Dear, don't go! don't go!' she whispered, eagerly.
'Wait until it is daylight. Stay below to-night. You don't know what
may be about in this horrible place.'

"I put the lantern and the axe upon the deck beside the companion;
then bent towards the opening, and took her into my arms, soothing
her, and stroking her hair; yet with ever an alert glance to and fro
along the indistinct decks. Presently, she was more like her usual
self, and listened to my reasoning, that she would do better to stay
below, and so, in a little, left me, having made me promise afresh
that I would be very wary of danger.

"When she had gone, I picked up the lantern and the axe, and made my
way cautiously to the side of the vessel. Here, I paused and listened
very carefully, being just above that spot upon the port side where I
had heard the greater part of the tapping, and all of the heavy bangs;
yet, though I listened, as I have said, with much attention, there was
no repetition of the sounds.

"Presently, I rose and made my way forrard to the break of the poop.
Here, bending over the rail which ran across, I listened, peering
along the dim maindecks; but could neither see nor hear anything; not
that, indeed, I had any reason for expecting to see or hear ought
unusual _aboard_ of the vessel; for all of the noises had come from
over the side, and, more than that, from beneath the water-line. Yet
in the state of mind in which I was, I had less use for reason than
fancy; for that strange thudding and tapping, out here in the midst of
this world of loneliness, had set me vaguely imagining unknowable
terrors, stealing upon me from every shadow that lay upon the
dimly-seen decks.

"Then, as still I listened, hesitating to go down on to the maindeck,
yet too dissatisfied with the result of my peerings, to cease from my
search, I heard, faint yet clear in the stillness of the night, the
tapping noises recommence.

"I took my weight from off the rail, and listened; but I could no
longer hear them, and at that, I leant forward again over the rail,
and peered down on to the maindeck. Immediately, the sounds came once
more to me, and I knew now, that they were borne to me by the medium
of the rail, which conducted them to me through the iron stanchions by
which it is fixed to the vessel.

"At that, I turned and went aft along the poop deck, moving very
warily and with quietness. I stopped over the place where first I had
heard the louder noises, and stooped, putting my ear against the rail.
Here, the sounds came to me with great distinctness.

"For a little, I listened; then stood up, and slid away that part of
the tarred canvas-screen which covers the port opening through which
we dump our refuse; they being made here for convenience, one upon
each side of the vessel. This, I did very silently; then, leaning
forward through the opening, I peered down into the dimness of the
weed. Even as I did so, I heard plainly below me a heavy thud,
muffled and dull by reason of the intervening water, against the iron
side of the ship. It seemed to me that there was some disturbance amid
the dark, shadowy masses of the weed. Then I had opened the dark-slide
of my lantern, and sent a clear beam of light down into the blackness.
For a brief instant, I thought I perceived a multitude of things
moving. Yet, beyond that they were oval in shape, and showed white
through the weed fronds, I had no clear conception of anything; for
with the flash of the light, they vanished, and there lay beneath me
only the dark, brown masses of the weed--demurely quiet.

"But an impression they did leave upon my over excited imagination--an
impression that might have been due to morbidity, bred of too much
loneliness; but nevertheless it seemed to me that I had seen
momentarily a multitude of dead white faces, upturned towards me among
the meshes of the weed.

"For a little, I leant there, staring down at the circle of illumined
weed; yet with my thoughts in such a turmoil of frightened doubts and
conjectures, that my physical eyes did but poor work, compared with
the orb that looks inward. And through all the chaos of my mind there
rose up weird and creepy memories--ghouls, the un-dead. There seemed
nothing improbable, in that moment, in associating the terms with the
fears that were besetting me. For no man may dare to say what terrors
this world holds, until he has become lost to his brother men, amid
the unspeakable desolation of the vast and slimy weed-plains of the
Sargasso Sea.

"And then, as I leaned there, so foolishly exposing myself to those
dangers which I had learnt did truly exist, my eyes caught and
subconsciously noted the strange and subtle undulation which always
foretells the approach of one of the giant octopi. Instantly, I leapt
back, and whipped the tarred canvas-cover across the opening, and so
stood alone there in the night, glancing frightenedly before and
behind me, the beam from my lamp casting wavering splashes of light to
and fro about the decks. And all the time, I was listening--listening;
for it seemed to me that some Terror was brooding in the night, that
might come upon us at any moment and in some unimagined form.

"Then, across the silence, stole a whisper, and I turned swiftly
towards the companionway. My wife was there, and she reached out her
arms to me, begging me to come below into safety. As the light from my
lantern flashed upon her, I saw that she had a revolver in her right
hand, and at that, I asked her what she had it for; whereupon she
informed me that she had been watching over me, through the whole of
the time that I had been on deck, save for the little while that it
had taken her to get and load the weapon.

"At that, as may be imagined, I went and embraced her very heartily,
kissing her for the love that had prompted her actions; and then,
after that, we spoke a little together in low tones--she asking that I
should come down and fasten up the companion-doors, and I demurring,
telling her that I felt too unsettled to sleep; but would rather keep
watch about the poop for a while longer.

"Then, even as we discussed the matter, I motioned to her for
quietness. In the succeeding silence, she heard it, as well as I, a
slow--tap! tap! tap! coming steadily along the dark maindecks. I felt
a swift vile fear, and my wife's hold upon me became very tense,
despite that she trembled a little. I released her grip from my arm,
and made to go towards the break of the poop; but she was after me
instantly, praying me at least to stay where I was, if I would not go
below.

"Upon that, I bade her very sternly to release me, and go down into
the cabin; though all the while I loved her for her very solicitude.
But she disobeyed me, asserting very stoutly, though in a whisper,
that if I went into danger, she would go with me; and at that I
hesitated; but decided, after a moment, to go no further than the
break of the poop, and not to venture on to the maindeck.

"I went very silently to the break, and my wife followed me. From the
rail across the break, I shone the light of the lantern; but could
neither see nor hear anything; for the tapping noise had ceased. Then
it recommenced, seeming to have come near to the port side of the
stump of the mainmast. I turned the lantern towards it, and, for one
brief instant, it seemed to me that I saw something pale, just beyond
the brightness of my light. At that, I raised my pistol and fired, and
my wife did the same, though without any telling on my part. The noise
of the double explosion went very loud and hollow sounding along the
decks, and after the echoes had died away, we both of us thought we
heard the tapping going away forrard again.

"After that, we stayed awhile, listening and watching; but all was
quiet, and, presently, I consented to go below and bar up the
companion, as my wife desired; for, indeed, there was much sense in
her plea of the futility of my staying up upon the decks.

"The night passed quietly enough, and on the following morning, I made
a very careful inspection of the vessel, examining the decks, the
weed outside of the ship, and the sides of her. After that, I removed
the hatches, and went down into the holds; but could nowhere find
anything of an unusual nature.

"That night, just as we were making an end of our supper, we heard
three tremendous blows given against the starboard side of the ship,
whereat, I sprang to my feet, seized and lit the dark-lantern, which I
had kept handy, and ran quickly and silently up on to the deck. My
pistol, I had already in my pocket, and as I had soft slippers upon my
feet, I needed not to pause to remove my footgear. In the
companionway, I had left the axe, and this I seized as I went up the
steps.

"Reaching the deck, I moved over quietly to the side, and slid back
the canvas door; then I leant out and opened the slide of the lantern,
letting its light play upon the weed in the direction from which the
bangs had seemed to proceed; but nowhere could I perceive anything out
of the ordinary, the weed seeming undisturbed. And so, after a little,
I drew in my head, and slid-to the door in the canvas screen; for it
was but wanton folly to stand long exposed to any of the giant octopi
that might chance to be prowling near, beneath the curtain of the
weed.

"From then, until midnight, I stayed upon the poop, talking much in a
quiet voice to my wife, who had followed me up into the companion. At
times, we could hear the knocking, sometimes against one side of the
ship, and again upon the other. And, between the louder knocks, and
accompanying them, would sound the minor tap, tap, tap-a-tap, that I
had first heard.

"About midnight, feeling that I could do nothing, and no harm
appearing to result to us from the unseen things that seemed to be
encircling us my wife and I made our way below to rest, securely
barring the companion-doors behind us.

"It would be, I should imagine, about two o'clock in the morning, that
I was aroused from a somewhat troubled sleep, by the agonised
screaming of our great boar, away forrard. I leant up upon my elbow,
and listened, and so grew speedily wide awake. I sat up, and slid from
my bunk to the floor. My wife, as I could tell from her breathing, was
sleeping peacefully, so that I was able to draw on a few clothes
without disturbing her.

"Then, having lit the dark-lantern, and turned the slide over the
light, I took the axe in my other hand, and hastened towards the door
that gives out of the forrard end of the saloon, on to the maindeck,
beneath the shelter of the break of the poop. This door, I had locked
before turning-in, and now, very noiselessly, I unlocked it, and
turned the handle, opening the door with much caution. I peered out
along the dim stretch of the maindeck; but could see nothing; then I
turned on the slide of the lamp, and let the light play along the
decks; but still nothing unusual was revealed to me.

"Away forrard, the shrieking of the pig had been succeeded by an
absolute silence, and there was nowhere any noise, if I except an
occasional odd tap-a-tap, which seemed to come from the side of the
ship. And so, taking hold of my courage, I stepped out on to the
maindeck, and proceeded slowly forrard, throwing the beam of light to
and fro continuously, as I walked.

"Abruptly, I heard away in the bows of the ship a sudden multitudinous
tapping and scraping and slithering; and so loud and near did it
sound, that I was brought up all of a round-turn, as the saying is.
For, perhaps, a whole minute, I stood there hesitating, and playing
the light all about me, not knowing but that some hateful thing might
leap upon me from out of the shadows.

"And then, suddenly, I remembered that I had left the door open behind
me, that led into the saloon, so that, were there any deadly thing
about the decks, it might chance to get in upon my wife and child as
they slept. At the thought, I turned and ran swiftly aft again, and in
through the door to my cabin. Here, I made sure that all was right
with the two sleepers, and after that, I returned to the deck,
shutting the door, and locking it behind me.

"And now, feeling very lonesome out there upon the dark decks, and cut
off in a way from a retreat, I had need of all my manhood to aid me
forrard to learn the wherefore of the pig's crying, and the cause of
that manifold tapping. Yet go I did, and have some right to be proud
of the act; for the dreeness and lonesomeness and the cold fear of the
Weed-World, squeeze the pluck out of one in a very woeful manner.

"As I approached the empty fo'cas'le, I moved with all wariness,
swinging the light to and fro, and holding my axe very handily, and
the heart within my breast like a shape of water, so in fear was I.
Yet, I came at last to the pigsty, and so discovered a dreadful sight.
The pig, a huge boar of twenty-score pounds, had been dragged out on
to the deck, and lay before the sty with all his belly ripped up, and
stone dead. The iron bars of the sty--great bars they are too--had
been torn apart, as though they had been so many straws; and, for the
rest, there was a deal of blood both within the sty and upon the
decks.

"Yet, I did not stay then to see more; for, all of a sudden, the
realisation was borne upon me that this was the work of some
monstrous thing, which even at that moment might be stealing upon me;
and, with the thought, an overwhelming fear leapt upon me, overbearing
my courage; so that I turned and ran for the shelter of the saloon,
and never stopped until the stout door was locked between me and that
which had wrought such destruction upon the pig. And as I stood there,
quivering a little with very fright, I kept questioning dumbly as to
what manner of wild-beast thing it was that could burst asunder iron
bars, and rip the life out of a great boar, as though it were of no
more account than a kitten. And then more vital questions:--How did it
get aboard, and where had it hidden? And again:--_What was it?_ And so
in this fashion for a good while, until I had grown something more
calmed.

"But through all the remainder of that night, I slept not so much as a
wink.

"Then in the morning when my wife awoke, I told her of the happenings
of the night; whereat she turned very white, and fell to reproaching
me for going out at all on to the deck, declaring that I had run
needlessly into danger, and that, at least, I should not have left her
alone, sleeping in ignorance of what was towards. And after that, she
fell into a fit of crying, so that I had some to-do comforting her.
Yet, when she had come back to calmness, she was all for accompanying
me about the decks, to see by daylight what had indeed befallen in the
night-time. And from this decision, I could not turn her; though I
assured her I should have told her nothing, had it not been that I
wished to warn her from going to and fro between the saloon and the
galley, until I had made a thorough search about the decks. Yet, as I
have remarked, I could not turn her from her purpose of accompanying
me, and so was forced to let her come, though against my desire.

"We made our way on deck through the door that opens under the break
of the poop, my wife carrying her loaded revolver half-clumsily in
both hands, whilst I had mine held in my left, and the long-handled
axe in my right--holding it very readily.

"On stepping out on to the deck, we closed the door behind us, locking
it and removing the key; for we had in mind our sleeping child. Then
we went slowly forrard along the decks, glancing about warily. As we
came fore-side of the pigsty, and my wife saw that which lay beyond
it, she let out a little exclamation of horror, shuddering at the
sight of the mutilated pig, as, indeed, well she might.

"For my part, I said nothing; but glanced with much apprehension about
us; feeling a fresh access of fright; for it was very plain to me that
the boar had been molested since I had seen it--the head having been
torn, with awful might, from the body; and there were, besides, other
new and ferocious wounds, one of which had come nigh to severing the
poor brute's body in half. All of which was so much additional
evidence of the formidable character of the monster, or Monstrosity,
that had attacked the animal.

"I did not delay by the pig, nor attempt to touch it; but beckoned my
wife to follow me up on to the fo'cas'le head. Here, I removed the
canvas cover from the small skylight which lights the fo'cas'le
beneath; and, after that, I lifted off the heavy top, letting a flood
of light down into the gloomy place. Then I leant down into the
opening, and peered about; but could discover no signs of any lurking
thing, and so returned to the maindeck, and made an entrance into the
fo'cas'le through the starboard doorway. And now I made a more minute
search; but discovered nothing, beyond the mournful array of
sea-chests that had belonged to our dead crew.

"My search concluded, I hastened out from the doleful place, into the
daylight, and after that made fast the door again, and saw to it that
the one upon the port side was also securely locked. Then I went up
again on to the fo'cas'le head, and replaced the skylight-top and the
canvas cover, battening the whole down very thoroughly.

"And in this wise, and with an incredible care, did I make my search
through the ship, fastening up each place behind me, so that I should
be certain that no Thing was playing some dread game of hide and seek
with me.

"Yet I found _nothing_, and had it not been for the grim evidence of
the dead and mutilated boar, I had been like to have thought nothing
more dreadful than an over vivid Imagination had roamed the decks in
the darkness of the past night.

"That I had reason to feel puzzled, may be the better understood, when
I explain that I had examined the whole of the great, tarred-canvas
screen, which I have built about the ship as a protection against the
sudden tentacles of any of the roaming giant octopi, without
discovering any torn place such as must have been made if any
conceivable monster had climbed aboard out of the weed. Also, it must
be borne in mind that the ship stands many feet out of the weed,
presenting only her smooth iron sides to anything that desires to
climb aboard.

"And yet there was the dead pig, lying brutally torn before its empty
sty! An undeniable proof that, to go out upon the decks after dark,
was to run the risk of meeting a horrible and mysterious death!

"Through all that day, I pondered over this new fear that had come
upon us, and particularly upon the monstrous and unearthly power that
had torn apart the stout iron bars of the sty, and so ferociously
wrenched off the head of the boar. The result of my pondering was that
I removed our sleeping belongings that evening from the cabin to the
iron half-deck--a little, four-bunked house, standing fore-side of the
stump of the main mast, and built entirely of iron, even to the single
door, which opens out of the after end.

"Along with our sleeping matters, I carried forrard to our new
lodgings, a lamp, and oil, also the dark-lantern, a couple of the
axes, two rifles, and all of the revolvers, as well as a good supply
of ammunition. Then I bade my wife forage out sufficient provisions to
last us for a week, if need be, and whilst she was so busied, I
cleaned out and filled the water breaker which belonged to the
half-deck.

"At half-past six, I sent my wife forrard to the little iron house,
with the baby, and then I locked up the saloon and all of the cabin
doors, finally locking after me the heavy, teak door that opened out
under the break of the poop.

"Then I went forrard to my wife and child, and shut and bolted the
iron door of the half-deck for the night. After that, I went round and
saw to it that all of the iron storm-doors, that shut over the eight
ports of the house, were in good working order, and so we sat down, as
it were, to await the night.

"By eight o'clock, the dusk was upon us, and before half-past, the
night hid the decks from my sight. Then I shut down all the iron
port-flaps, and screwed them up securely, and after that, I lit the
lamp.

"And so a space of waiting ensued, during which I whispered
reassuringly to my wife, from time to time, as she looked across at me
from her seat beside the sleeping child, with frightened eyes, and a
very white face; for somehow there had come upon us within the last
hour, a sense of chilly fright, that went straight to one's heart,
robbing one vilely of pluck.

"A little later, a sudden sound broke the impressive silence--a sudden
dull thud against the side of the ship; and, after that, there came a
succession of heavy blows, seeming to be struck all at once upon every
side of the vessel; after which there was quietness for maybe a
quarter of an hour.

"Then, suddenly, I heard, away forrard, a tap, tap, tap, and then a
loud rattling, slurring noise, and a loud crash. After that, I heard
many other sounds, and always that tap, tap, tap, repeated a hundred
times, as though an army of wooden-legged men were busied all about
the decks at the fore end of the ship.

"Presently, there came to me the sound of something coming down the
deck, tap, tap, tap, it came. It drew near to the house, paused for
nigh a minute; then continued away aft towards the saloon:--tap, tap,
tap. I shivered a little, and then, fell half consciously to thanking
God that I had been given wisdom to bring my wife and child forrard to
the security of the iron deck-house.

"About a minute later, I heard the sound of a heavy blow struck
somewhere away aft; and after that a second, and then a third, and
seeming by the sounds to have been against iron--the iron of the
bulkshead that runs across the break of the poop. There came the noise
of a fourth blow, and it blended into the crash of broken woodwork.
And therewith, I had a little tense quivering inside me; for the
little one and my wife might have been sleeping aft there at that
very moment, had it not been for the Providential thought which had
sent us forrard to the half-deck.

"With the crash of the broken door, away aft, there came, from forrard
of us, a great tumult of noises; and, directly, it sounded as though a
multitude of wooden-legged men were coming down the decks from
forrard. Tap, tap, tap; tap-a-tap, the noises came, and drew abreast
of where we sat in the house, crouched and holding our breaths, for
fear that we should make some noise to attract THAT which was without.
The sounds passed us, and went tapping away aft, and I let out a
little breath of sheer easement. Then, as a sudden thought came to me,
I rose and turned down the lamp, fearing that some ray from it might
be seen from beneath the door. And so, for the space of an hour, we
sat wordless, listening to the sounds which came from away aft, the
thud of heavy blows, the occasional crash of wood, and, presently, the
tap, tap, tap, again, coming forrard towards us.

"The sounds came to a stop, opposite the starboard side of the house,
and, for a full minute, there was quietness. Then suddenly, 'Boom!' a
tremendous blow had been struck against the side of the house. My wife
gave out a little gasping cry, and there came a second blow; and, at
that, the child awoke and began to wail, and my wife was put to it,
with trying to soothe her into immediate silence.

"A third blow was struck, filling the little house with a dull thunder
of sound, and then I heard the tap, tap, tap, move round to the after
end of the house. There came a pause, and then a great blow right upon
the door. I grasped the rifle, which I had leant against my chair, and
stood up; for I did not know but that the thing might be upon us in a
moment, so prodigious was the force of the blows it struck. Once
again it struck the door, and after that went tap, tap, tap, round to
the port side of the house, and there struck the house again; but now
I had more ease of mind; for it was its direct attack upon the door,
that had put such horrid dread into my heart.

"After the blows upon the port side of the house, there came a long
spell of silence, as though the thing outside were listening; but, by
the mercy of God, my wife had been able to soothe the child, so that
no sound from us, told of our presence.

"Then, at last, there came again the sounds:--tap, tap, tap, as the
voiceless thing moved away forrard. Presently, I heard the noises
cease aft; and, after that, there came a multitudinous tap-a-tapping,
coming along the decks. It passed the house without so much as a
pause, and receded away forrard.

"For a space of over two hours, there was an absolute silence; so that
I judged that we were now no longer in danger of being molested. An
hour later, I whispered to my wife; but, getting no reply, knew that
she had fallen into a doze, and so I sat on, listening tensely; yet
making no sort of noise that might attract attention.

"Presently, by the thin line of light from beneath the door, I saw
that the day was breaking; and, at that, I rose stiffly, and commenced
to unscrew the iron port-covers. I unscrewed the forrard ones first,
and looked out into the wan dawn; but could discover nothing unusual
about so much of the decks as I could see from there.

"After that, I went round and opened each, as I came to it, in its
turn; but it was not until I had uncovered the port which gave me a
view of the port side of the after maindeck, that I discovered
anything extraordinary. Then I saw, at first dimly, but more clearly
as the day brightened, that the door, leading from beneath the break
of the poop into the saloon, had been broken to flinders, some of
which lay scattered upon the deck, and some of which still hung from
the bent hinges; whilst more, no doubt, were strewed in the passage
beyond my sight.

"Turning from the port, I glanced towards my wife, and saw that she
lay half in and half out of the baby's bunk, sleeping with her head
beside the child's, both upon one pillow. At the sight, a great wave
of holy thankfulness took me, that we had been so wonderfully spared
from the terrible and mysterious danger that had stalked the decks in
the darkness of the preceding night. Feeling thus, I stole across the
floor of the house, and kissed them both very gently, being full of
tenderness, yet not minded to waken them. And, after that, I lay down
in one of the bunks, and slept until the sun was high in the heaven.

"When I awoke, my wife was about and had tended to the child and
prepared our breakfast, so that I had naught to do but tumble out and
set to, the which I did with a certain keenness of appetite, induced,
I doubt not, by the stress of the night. Whilst we ate, we discussed
the peril through which we had just passed; but without coming any the
nearer to a solution of the weird mystery of the Terror.

"Breakfast over, we took a long and final survey of the decks, from
the various ports, and then prepared to sally out. This we did with
instinctive caution and quietness, both of us armed as on the previous
day. The door of the half-deck we closed and locked behind us, thereby
ensuring that the child was open to no danger whilst we were in other
parts of the ship.

"After a quick look about us, we proceeded aft towards the shattered
door beneath the break of the poop. At the doorway, we stopped, not so
much with the intent to examine the broken door, as because of an
instinctive and natural hesitation to go forward into the saloon,
which but a few hours previous had been visited by some incredible
monster or monsters. Finally, we decided to go up upon the poop and
peer down through the skylight. This we did, lifting the sides of the
dome for that purpose; yet though we peered long and earnestly, we
could perceive no signs of any lurking thing. But broken woodwork
there appeared to be in plenty, to judge by the scattered pieces.

"After that, I unlocked the companion, and pushed back the big,
over-arching slide. Then, silently, we stole down the steps and into
the saloon. Here, being now able to see the big cabin through all its
length, we discovered a most extraordinary scene; the whole place
appeared to be wrecked from end to end; the six cabins that line each
side had their bulksheading driven into shards and slivers of broken
wood in places. Here, a door would be standing untouched, whilst the
bulkshead beside it was in a mass of flinders--There a door would be
driven completely from its hinges, whilst the surrounding woodwork was
untouched. And so it was, wherever we looked.

"My wife made to go towards our cabin; but I pulled her back, and went
forward myself. Here the desolation was almost as great. My wife's
bunk-board had been ripped out, whilst the supporting side-batten of
mine had been plucked forth, so that all the bottom-boards of the bunk
had descended to the floor in a cascade.

"But it was neither of these things that touched us so sharply, as
the fact that the child's little swing cot had been wrenched from its
standards, and flung in a tangled mass of white-painted iron-work
across the cabin. At the sight of that, I glanced across at my wife,
and she at me, her face grown very white. Then down she slid to her
knees, and fell to crying and thanking God together, so that I found
myself beside her in a moment, with a very humble and thankful heart.

"Presently, when we were more controlled, we left the cabin, and
finished our search. The pantry, we discovered to be entirely
untouched, which, somehow, I do not think was then a matter of great
surprise to me; for I had ever a feeling that the things which had
broken a way into our sleeping cabin, had been looking for us.

"In a little while, we left the wrecked saloon and cabins, and made
our way forrard to the pigsty; for I was anxious to see whether the
carcass of the pig had been touched. As we came round the corner of
the sty, I uttered a great cry; for there, lying upon the deck, on its
back, was a gigantic crab, so vast in size that I had not conceived so
huge a monster existed. Brown it was in colour, save for the belly
part, which was of a light yellow.

"One of its pincer-claws, or mandibles, had been torn off in the fight
in which it must have been slain (for it was all disembowelled). And
this one claw weighed so heavy that I had some to-do to lift it from
the deck; and by this you may have some idea of the size and
formidableness of the creature itself.

"Around the great crab, lay half a dozen smaller ones, no more than
from seven or eight to twenty inches across, and all white in colour,
save for an occasional mottling of brown. These had all been killed by
a single nip of an enormous mandible, which had in every case smashed
them almost into two halves. Of the carcass of the great boar, not a
fragment remained.

"And so was the mystery solved; and, with the solution, departed the
superstitious terror which had suffocated me through those three
nights, since the tapping had commenced. We had been attacked by a
wandering shoal of giant crabs, which, it is quite possible, roam
across the weed from place to place, devouring aught that comes in
their path.

"Whether they had ever boarded a ship before, and so, perhaps,
developed a monstrous lust for human flesh, or whether their attack
had been prompted by curiosity, I cannot possibly say. It may be that,
at first, they mistook the hull of the vessel for the body of some
dead marine monster, and hence their blows upon her sides, by which,
possibly, they were endeavouring to pierce through our somewhat
unusually tough hide!

"Or, again, it may be that they have some power of scent, by means of
which they were able to smell our presence aboard the ship; but this
(as they made no general attack upon us in the deck-house) I feel
disinclined to regard as probable. And yet--I do not know. Why their
attack upon the saloon, and our sleeping-cabin? As I say, I cannot
tell, and so must leave it there.

"The way in which they came aboard, I discovered that same day; for,
having learned what manner of creature it was that had attacked us, I
made a more intelligent survey of the sides of the ship; but it was
not until I came to the extreme bows, that I saw how they had managed.
Here, I found that some of the gear of the broken bowsprit and
jibboom, trailed down on to the weed, and as I had not extended the
canvas-screen across the heel of the bowsprit, the monsters had been
able to climb up the gear, and thence aboard, without the least
obstruction being opposed to their progress.

"This state of affairs, I very speedily remedied; for, with a few
strokes of my axe, I cut through the gear, allowing it to drop down
among the weed; and after that, I built a temporary breastwork of wood
across the gap, between the two ends of the screen; later on making it
more permanent.

"Since that time, we have been no more molested by the giant crabs;
though for several nights afterwards, we heard them knocking strangely
against our sides. Maybe, they are attracted by such refuse as we are
forced to dump overboard, and this would explain their first tappings
being aft, opposite to the lazarette; for it is from the openings in
this part of the canvas-screen that we cast our rubbish.

"Yet, it is weeks now since we heard aught of them, so that I have
reason to believe that they have betaken themselves elsewhere, maybe
to attack some other lonely humans, living out their short span of
life aboard some lone derelict, lost even to memory in the depth of
this vast sea of weed and deadly creatures.

"I shall send this message forth on its journey, as I have sent the
other four, within a well-pitched barrel, attached to a small fire
balloon. The shell of the severed claw of the monster crab, I shall
enclose,[2] as evidence of the terrors that beset us in this dreadful
place. Should this message, and the claw, ever fall into human hands,
let them, contemplating this vast mandible, try to imagine the size of
the other crab or crabs that could destroy so formidable a creature
as the one to which this claw belonged.

[Footnote 2: Captain Bolton makes no mention of the claw, in the
covering letter which he has enclosed with the MS.--W. H. H.]

"What other terrors does this hideous world hold for us?

"I had thought of inclosing, along with the claw, the shell of one of
the white smaller crabs. It must have been some of these moving in the
weed that night, that set my disordered fancy to imagining of ghouls
and the Un-Dead. But, on thinking it over, I shall not; for to do so
would be to illustrate nothing that needs illustration, and it would
but increase needlessly the weight which the balloon will have to
lift.

"And so I grow wearied of writing. The night is drawing near, and I
have little more to tell. I am writing this in the saloon, and, though
I have mended and carpentered so well as I am able, nothing I can do
will hide the traces of that night when the vast crabs raided through
these cabins, searching for--WHAT?

"There is nothing more to say. In health, I am well, and so is my wife
and the little one, but....

"I must have myself under control, and be patient. We are beyond all
help, and must bear that which is before us, with such bravery as we
are able. And with this, I end; fo
r my last word shall not be one of
complaint.

                     "ARTHUR SAMUEL PHILIPS."

"Christmas Eve, 1879."




THE CAPTAIN OF THE ONION BOAT


Big John Carlos, captain of the _Santa_, stood looking up at the long
tapered window in the otherwise great, grey blank of the convent wall,
a dozen yards away.

The wall formed the background of the quay, and between it and the
side of the vessel was a litter of unloaded gear and cargo. The
Captain's face, as he stared upward at that one lonesome window, had
an extraordinarily set expression; and his Mate, a little
lop-shouldered man, very brown and lean, watched him over the coaming
of the main hatchway, with a curious grimace of half-sympathy and
half-curiosity.

"Old Man's got it bad as ever," he muttered, in an accent and language
that spoke of the larger English. He transferred his gaze from the
silent form of the skipper, standing, in the stern, to the long taper
of the one window that broke the towering side of the convent.

Presently, the thing for which the two men watched, came into view, as
it did twice daily, at morning and evening--a long line of half-veiled
nuns, who were obviously ascending some stairway within the convent,
on to which this solitary window threw light.

Most of the women went by the window quietly, with faces composed, and
looking before them; but here and there a young nun would take this
opportunity to glance out into the Carnal World which they had
renounced for ever. Young, beautiful faces they were, that looked out
momentarily, showing doubly human, because of the cold ascetic garb of
renunciation which framed them; then were gone on from sight, in the
long, steadily moving procession of silent figures.

It was about the middle of the procession, after a weary line of
seeming mutes had gone past, that the mate saw that for which he
waited. For, suddenly, the great body of the Captain stiffened and
became rigid, as the head of one of the moving figures turned and
stared out on to the quay. The Mate saw her face clearly. It was still
young and lovely, but seemed very white and hopeless. He noted the
eager, hungry look in the eyes; and then the wonderful way in which
they lit up, as with a strange inward fire, at the sight of the big
man standing there; and the whole face seemed to quiver into living
emotion. Immediately afterwards, she was gone past, and more mutes
were making the grey, ascending line.

"Gord! that's 'er!" said the Mate, and glanced towards his master. The
face of the big skipper was still upturned and set with a fixed,
intense stare, as though even now he saw her face at the long window.
His body was yet rigid with intensity, and his great hands gripped
tightly the front of his slack jumper, straining it, unconsciously
down upon his hips. For some moments longer he stood like this, lost
to all knowledge except the tellings of his memory, and stunned with
his emotions. Then he relaxed abruptly, as if some string within him
had been loosed, and turned towards the open hatchway, where the Mate
bent once more to his work.

"W'y don't 'e get 'er out," the Mate remarked to himself. "They've bin
doin' that years 'n years, from wot I can see an' 'ear, an' breakin'
their blessed 'earts. W'y the 'ell don't 'e get 'er out! It's easy ter
see she's a woman, a sight more'n a bloomin' nun!" In all of which the
little crooked shouldered Mate showed a fund of common sense; but
likewise an insufficient ability to realise how thoroughly a religious
belief may sometimes prove a stumbling-block in the pathway to mere
human happiness.

How a man of the stamp of Big John Carlos came to be running an onion
boat, must be conjectured. His name is explained by his father having
been a Spaniard and his mother an Englishwoman. Originally, Big John
had been a merchant, of a kind, going to sea in his own ship, and
trading abroad.

As a youth, he had become engaged to Marvonna Della, whose father had
owned much property, farther up the coast. Her father had died, and
she had been an heiress, sought by all the youths about; but he--Big
John Carlos--had won her.

They were to have been married on his return from his next trading
voyage; but the report went home to his sweetheart that he had been
drowned at sea; and indeed he had truly fallen overboard; but had been
picked up by a China-bound sailing-ship, and had been a little over a
year lost to his friends, before he had managed to reach home, to
carry the news that he still lived. For this was before the days of
the telegraph, and his one letter had gone astray.

When, at last, he reached home, it was to find sad changes. His
sweetheart, broken-hearted, had become a nun at the great convent of
St. Sebastian's, and had endowed it with all her wealth and lands.
What attempts he made to have speech with her, I do not know; but if
his religious scruples had allowed her to beg her to renounce her vows
and retirement, and return to the world to be his wife, they had
certainly been unsuccessful; though it is quite conceivable that no
word had ever passed between them, since she had put the world behind
her.

From then onward, through nine long years, Big John Carlos had traded
along the coast. His former business, he had dropped, and now he
wandered from port to port in his small craft. And twice in every
year, he would come alongside of the little wharf opposite to the
great, grey wall of the convent, and there lie for a week, watching
year by year that long narrow window for the two brief glimpses daily
of his lost sweetheart.

After a week, he would go. It was always a week that he stayed there
by the old wharf. Then, as if that had exhausted his strength--as if
the pain of the thing had grown in that time to be too dreadful to
continue, he would haul out, and away, whatever the weather or the
state of trade. All of this the little twisted Mate knew, more or less
clearly in detail, having learned it in the previous visits, which he
had made with Big John Carlos to the insignificant port where the
convent stood.

And she--what can the young nun have thought and felt? How she must
have fought to endure the grey weary months between the far-apart
visits; and day by day glanced out of the tall stair-window, as she
passed in the long, mute procession, for a sight of the little onion
boat and the big man standing in the stern, watching--tense and
silent--for that one brief glimpse of her, as she passed in the
remorseless line of figures. And something of this also, the little
crooked-shouldered Mate had realised, vaguely, and had achieved an
instant though angry sympathy. But his point of view was limited and
definite:--"Why the 'ell don't 'e get 'er out!" was his brief
formula. And that marked the limit of his imagination, and therefore
of his understanding.

His own religious beliefs were of the kind that are bred in the docks
(London docks, in his case), and fostered in dirty fo'cas'les; and now
he was "come down to this onion shuntin'," as he would have worded it.
Yet, whatever his religious lack, or even his carelessness on a point
of ethics, he was thoroughly and masculinely human.

"W'y the 'ell----" he began again, in his continual grumble to
himself; and had no power to conceive that the woman, having taken a
certain step, might believe that step to be unretraceable--that usage,
belief, and finally (bred of these two) Conscience might forbid even
the thought, stamping it as a crime that would shut her out from the
Joy of the Everlasting.

The Joy of the Everlasting! The little twisted man would have grinned
at you, had you mentioned it. "W'y the 'ell don't 'e get 'er out!"
would have been his reply, accompanied by a profuseness of
tobacco-juice.

And yet, it is conceivable that the heart of the woman was, even this
long while, grown strong to do battle for dear Happiness--her heart
that had known, silently and secretly and dumbly, all along, the
unnatural wickedness of her outrage of her Womanhood. Visit by visit,
through the long years, her heart must have grown fiercely strong to
end this torture which her brain (darkened with the Clouds of Belief)
had put upon her, to endure through all her life.

And so, all unknowingly, because of the loyal brain _that would not be
aware_ of the growing victory of her heart, she was come to a
condition in which her beliefs held her no more than if they had been
cords that had rotted upon her, as indeed they might be said to have
done. That she was free to come, the little Mate had seen, using his
eyes and his heart and his wit. To him, it was merely a matter of ways
and means--physical. "W'y the 'ell----!" that was his puzzle.

Why? With an angry impatience, that came near to verging upon the
borderland of scorn, the little Mate would question inwardly. Was Big
John Carlos bit wiv them religious notions, same as the other dagoes!
He did not understand the complaint, or how it was achieved; but he
knew, as an outside fact, that there was something of that kind which
infected the peoples along the coasts he travelled. If Big John were
not troubled in this way, "why the 'ell----" And so he would return to
his accustomed formula, working furiously, in sheer irritation of
mind:--"If 'e ain't religious, _wot_ is it? Carn't 'e see the way 'er
eyes blessed well looks at 'im! Carn't 'e see she's mad an' double mad
to be out wiv 'im!"

Why did not John Carlos attempt to win back for himself the one thing
that he desired in all the world? Maybe (and I think that it is very
possible) in the early years of his return, he had so striven; but the
young nun, shaken with the enormousness of the thought, hopelessly
weighted with her vows, had not dared to think upon it--had retreated
with horror from the suggestion; had turned with an intention of
double ardour to seek in her religious duties, the calm and sweetness,
the peace and joy, which she felt to be lost to her forever in any
more earthly way.

And then had followed the long years, with her heart fighting silently
and secretly--_secretly almost from herself_--unto victory. And the
man (having lost the force of that first fierce unpenting of his
intention to win her--and mayhap having been repulsed, as it would
seem to his masculine mind, _hopelessly_) had fallen back under the
sway of the religious beliefs, which ruled him in his more normal
hours; and so, year by year, had withheld from any further attempt to
win her; striving to content his soul with those two brief visits each
year to the old wharf; each time to endure a mad week of those futile
watchings for his beloved.

Yet, in him, as in the woman, there had been going forward, without
his knowledge, that steady disruption of religious belief--the rotting
and decaying of all arbitrary things, before the primal need of the
human heart; so that the olden barriers of "Impossibility," were now
but as shadows, that would be gone in a moment, when next the Force of
his Need should urge him to take his heart's desire.

His first attempt--if there had ever been such--had been the outcome
of his natural want--his Love--; but lacking the foundations of
Sureness of Himself and of his Power to withstand the Future. Indeed,
it is conceivable that had he succeeded at the first, and gained his
desire, the two of them would have wilted in the afterblast of thought
and fear-of-the-hereafter, and in the Fires of Scruples which would
have burned in their path through all the years.

But now, whatever they might do, they would do--if it ever came to
pass--with a calm and determined Intention; having done their thinking
first, and weighed all known costs, and proved their strength, and
learned the utterness of their need to be truly greater than all else
that might be set as balance against it. And because of this, they
were ripe--wanting only the final stimulus to set into action the
ready Force that had concentrated through the years.

Yet, strangely, neither the man nor the woman _knew_, as I have shown,
that they had developed to this. Their brains refused to know; their
Consciences looked, each with its blind eye, at their hearts, and saw
nothing to give cause of offence to the ethical in them; or, did
Conscience catch an odd glimpse, with its seeing eye, of impossible
wickedness, there followed hours of imagined repentance, deep and
painful, resulting in a double assuredness, within the brain (and
"Manufactured" Parts) of a conquered and chastened heart, and of
fiercer resolutions for the future Torture of Salvation. But always,
deep within, the unconquerable heart fought for victory that was each
year more assured.

And so, as you have already seen, these two, the man and the woman,
were but waiting--the man for some outward stimulus, to put into
action all the long-pent force in him, revealing to him his actual
nature, developed and changed in the course of the long years of pain,
until he should be scarcely likely to recognise himself in the first
moments of his awakening to this reality. And the woman, waiting,
subconsciously, for the action of the man to bring her to knowledge of
the realities--to an awaredness of the woman she had become, of the
woman into which she had developed, unable any more to endure the
bondage of aught save her heart that leaped to the ordering of Mother
Nature. Nay, more, fiercely and steadfastly eager to take with both
hands the forbidden joy of her Natural Birthright, and calm and
resolute and unblinking to face the future, with its unsolvable
problem of the Joy of the Everlasting.

And thus were these two standing, as it might be said, on the brink
of their destinies; waiting, with blinded eyes, and as that they
listened unknowingly for the coming of the unknown one who should give
the little push forward, and so cause them to step over the borderland
into all natural and long craved for happiness.

Who would be That One?

"W'y the 'ell don't 'e get 'er out?" the Mate had asked the First
Hand, who knew all the story, having sailed years with big John
Carlos. But the First Hand had raised his arms in horror, and made
plain in broken English his opinion of the sacrilege, though that was
not how he had pronounced it.

"Sacrilege be jiggered!" the Mate had replied, humping his twisted
shoulders. "I s'pose though there'd be a 'oly rumpus, hey?"

The First Hand had intimated very definitely that there would be a
"rumpus," which, the Mate ferreted out, might involve some very
unpleasant issues both for the man and the woman guilty of such a
thing. The First Hand spoke (in broken English) as if he were the
Religious Conscience of his nation. Such things could not be
tolerated. His phraseology did not include such words; but he was
sufficiently definite.

"Nice 'ealthy lot o' savages, _you_!" the Mate had explained, after
listening to much intolerant jabbering. "Strike me! If you ain't
canniballs!" And straightway saddled on to the unfortunate Catholic
Faith the sins peculiar to a hot-blooded and emotional People, whose
enthusiasms and prejudices would have been just as apparent, had they
been called forth by some other force than their Faith, or by a Faith
differently shaped and Denominated.

It was the little crooked Mate who was speaking to Big John Carlos,
in the evening of the sixth day of their stay beside the old wharf.
And the big man was listening, in a stunned kind of silence. Through
those six days the little man had watched the morning and evening
tragedy, and the sanity of his free thoughts had been as a yeast in
him. Now he was speaking, unlading all the things that he _had_ to
say.

"W'y the 'ell don't you take 'er out?" he had asked in so many words.
And to him it had seemed, that very evening, that the woman's eyes had
been saying the same thing to the Captain, as she looked her brief,
dumb agony of longing across the little space that had lain between;
yet which, as it were, was in verity the whole width of Eternity. And
now the little Mate was putting it all into definite words--standing
there, an implement of Fate or Providence or the Devil, according to
the way that you may look at it, his twisted shoulder heaving with the
vehemence of his speech:--

"You didn't orter do it, Capting," he said. "You're breakin' 'er up,
an' you're breakin' _you_ up; an' no good to it. W'y the 'ell don't
you do somefink! Rescue 'er, or keep away. If it's 'ell for you, it's
just 's much 'ell for 'er! She'll come like a little bloomin' bird.
See 'ow she looks at you. She's fair askin' you to come an' take 'er
out of it all--an' you just standin' there! My Gord!"

"What can I do," said the Captain, hoarsely; and put his hands
suddenly to his head. He did not ask a question, or voice any
hopelessness; but just gave out the words, as so many sounds,
mechanically; for he was choked, suffocating during those first few
moments, with the vast surge of hope that rose and beat upward in him,
as the little twisted Mate's words crashed ruthlessly through the
shrouding films of Belief.

And suddenly he _knew_. He knew that he could do this thing; that all
scruples, all bonds of belief, of usage, of blind fears for the
future, and _of_ the Hereafter, were all fallen from him, as so much
futile dust. Until that moment, as I have shown to you before, he had
_not_ known that he could do it--had not known of his steady and
silent development. But now, suddenly, all his soul and being, lighted
with Hope, he looked inward, and saw himself, as the man he was--the
man to which he had grown and come to be. He knew. _He knew._

"Would she ... would she?" The question came unconsciously from his
lips; but the little twisted man took it up.

"Arsk 'er! Arsk 'er!" he said, vehemently. "I knows she'll come. I
seen it in 'er eyes to-night w'en she looked out at you. She was
sayin' as plain as your 'at, 'W'y the 'ell don't you take me out? W'y
the 'ell don't you?' You arsk 'er, an' she'll come like a bird."

The little Mate spoke with the eagerness of conviction, and indulged
in no depressing knowledge of incongruities. "Arsk 'er!" was his
refrain. "You arsk 'er!"

"How?" said the Captain, coming suddenly to realities.

The little man halted, and stumbled over his unreadiness. He had no
plan; nothing but his feelings. He sought around in his mind, and
grasped at an idea.

"Write it on an 'atch cover, wiv chalk," he said, triumphant. "Lean
the 'atch cover by you. W'en she comes, point to it, 'n she'll read
it."

"Ha!" said the Captain, in a strange voice, as if he both approved,
and, at the same time, had remembered something.

"Then she'll nod," continued the little man. "No one else ever looks
outer that winder, scarcely, not to think to read writin', anyway. An'
you can cover it, till she's due to show. Then we'll plan 'ow to get
'er out."

All that night, Big John Carlos paced the deck of his little craft,
alone, thinking, and thrilling with great surges of hope and maddened
determination.

In the morning, he put the plan to the test; only that he wrote the
question on the hatch-cover in peculiar words, that he had not used
all those long grey years; for he made use of a quaint but simple
transposition of letters, which had been a kind of love-language
between them, in the olden days. This was why he had called "Ha!" so
strangely, being minded suddenly of it, and to have the sweetness of
using it to that one particular purpose.

Slowly, the line of grey moving figures came into view, descending.
Big John Carlos kept the hatch-cover turned to him, and counted; for
well he knew just when she would appear. The one hundred and ninth
mute would pass, and the one hundred and tenth would show the face of
his Beloved. The order never changed through the years, in that
changeless world within.

As the hundred and seventh figure passed the narrow window, he turned
the hatch-cover, so that the writing was exposed, and pointed down to
it, so that his whole attitude should direct her glance instantly to
his question, that she might have some small chance to read it, in the
brief moment that was hers as she went slowly past the narrow panes.
The hundred and ninth figure passed down from sight, and then he was
looking dumbly into her face, as she moved into view, her eyes already
strained to meet his. His heart was beating with a dull, sickening
thudding, and there seemed just the faintest of mists before his
vision; but he knew that her glance had flown eagerly to the message,
and that her white face had flashed suddenly to a greater whiteness,
disturbed by the battle of scores of emotions loosed in one second of
time. Then she was gone downward out of his sight, and he let the
hatch-cover fall, gripping the shrouds with his left hand.

The little twisted man stole up to him.

"She _saw_, Capting! She 'adn't time to answer. Not to know if she was
on 'er 'ead or 'er 'eels. Look out to-night. She'll nod then." He
brought it all out in little whispered jerks, and the big man, wiping
his forehead, nodded.

Within the convent, a woman (outwardly a nun) was even then descending
the stairs, with shaking knees, and a brain that had become in a few
brief instants a raging gulf of hope. Before she had descended three
steps below the level of the window, even whilst her sight-memory
still held the message out for her brain to read and comprehend, she
had realised that spiritually she was clothed only with the ashes of
Belief and Fear and Faith. The original garment had become charred to
nothing in the Fire of Love and Pain, with which the years had
enveloped her. No bond held her; no fear held her; nothing in all the
world mattered, except to be his for all the rest of her life. She
took and realised the change in her character, in a moment of time.
Eight long years had the yeast of love been working in her, which had
bred the chemistry of pain; but only in that instant did she _know_
and comprehend that she was developed so extensively, as to be changed
utterly from the maid of eight years gone. Yet, in the next few steps
she took, she had adapted herself to the new standpoint of her fresh
knowledge of herself. She had no pause or doubt; but acknowledged with
an utter startled joyfulness that she would go--that all was as
nothing to her, now, except that she go to him. Willing, beyond all
words that might express her willingness, to risk (aye, even to
_exchange_) the unknown Joy of the Everlasting for this _certain_
"mess of pottage" that was so desired of her hungry heart. And having
acknowledged to _herself_ that she was utterly _willing_, she had no
thought of anything but to pass on the knowledge of her altered state
to the man who would be waiting there in the little onion boat at
sunset.

That evening, just before the dusk, Big John Carlos saw the hundred
and tenth grey figure nod swiftly to him, in passing; and he held
tightly to the shroud, until the suffocation of his emotion passed
from him.

After all, the Rescue--if it can be named by a term so heroic--proved
a ridiculously easy matter. It was the spiritual prison that had held
the woman so long--the Physical expression of the same, was easily
made to give up its occupant.

In the morning, expectant, she read in her fleeting glance at the
onion boat, a message written on the hatch-cover. She was to be at the
window at midnight. That evening, as she ascended in the long grey
line of mutes for the last weary time, she nodded her utter agreement
and assent.

After night had fallen thickly on the small, deserted wharf, the
little twisted Mate and the Captain reared a ladder against the
convent side. By midnight, they had cut out entirely the lead framing
of all the lower part of the window.

A few minutes later, the woman came. The Captain held out his big
hands, in an absolute silence, and lifted the trembling figure gently
down on to the ladder. He steadied her firmly, and they climbed down
to the wharf, and were presently aboard the vessel, with no word yet
between them to break the ten years of loneliness and silence; for it
was ten years, as you will remember, since Big John Carlos had sailed
on that voyage of dismay.

And now, full grown man and woman, they stood near to each other, in a
dream-quietness, who had lived on the two sides of Eternity so long.
And still they had no word. Youth and Maiden they had parted with
tears; Man and Woman they met in a great silence--too grown and
developed to have words over-easily at such a moment-of-life. Yet
their very quiet, held a speech too full and subtle, aye and subtile,
for made-words of sound. It came from them, almost as it were a
soul-fragrance, diffused around them, and made visible only in the
quiet trembling of hands--that reached unknowing unto the hands of the
other. For the two were full-grown, as I have said, and had come nigh
to the complete _awaredness_ of life, and the taste of the brine of
sorrow was yet in them. They had been ripened in the strange twin Suns
of Love and Pain--that ripen the unseen fruit of the soul. Their hands
met, trembling, and gripped a long, long while, till the little
twisted Mate came stumbling aft, uneasy to be gone. Then the big man
and the fragile woman stood apart, the woman dreaming, while the big
man went to give the little Mate a hand.

Together, the two men worked to get the sail upon the small vessel,
and the ropes cast off. They left the First and Second Hands sleeping.
Presently, with light airs from the land, they moved outward to the
sea.

There was no pursuit. All the remainder of that night, the small onion
boat went outward into the mystery of the dark, the big man steering,
and the woman close beside him; and for a long while the constant
silence of communion.

As I have said, there was no pursuit, and at dawn the little twisted
man wandered. He searched the empty sea, and found only their own
shadow upon the almost calm waters. Perhaps the First Hand had held a
wrong impression. The Peoples of the Coast may have been shocked, when
they learned. Maybe they never learned. Convents, like other
institutions, can keep their secrets, odd whiles. Possibly this was
one of those times. Perhaps they remembered, with something of worldly
wisdom, that they held the Substance; wherefore trouble overmuch
concerning the shadow--of a lost nun. Certainly, not to the bringing
of an ill-name upon their long holiness. Surely, Satan can be trusted,
etc. We can all finish the well-hackneyed thought. Or, maybe, there
were natural human hearts in diverse places, that--knowing something
of the history of this love-tale--held sympathy in silence, and
silence in sympathy. Is this too much to hope?

That evening, the man and the woman stood in the stern, looking into
the wake, whilst the Second-Hand steered. Forrard, in the growing
dusk, there was a noise of scuffling. The little humped Mate was
having a slight difference of opinion with the First Hand, who had
incautiously made use of a parallel word for "Sacrilege," for the
second time. The scuffling continued; for the little twisted man was
emphatic:--

"Sacrilege be jiggered! Wot the 'ell----"

The physical sounds of his opinion, drowned the monotonous
accompaniment of his speech. The small craft sailed on into the
sunset, and the two in the stern stared blindly into distances,
holding hands like two little children.




THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT


It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the Northern
Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for the sun had been hidden
during the course of a weary, breathless week, by a thin haze which
had seemed to float above us, about the height of our mastheads, at
whiles descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.

With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the
only man on deck. The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were
sleeping forrard in their den; while Will--my friend, and the master
of our little craft--was aft in his bunk on the port side of the
little cabin.

Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there came a hail:--

"Schooner, ahoy!"

The cry was so unexpected that I gave no immediate answer, because of
my surprise.

It came again--a voice curiously throaty and inhuman, calling from
somewhere upon the dark sea away on our port broadside:--

"Schooner, ahoy!"

"Hullo!" I sung out, having gathered my wits somewhat. "What are you?
What do you want?"

"You need not be afraid," answered the queer voice, having probably
noticed some trace of confusion in my tone. "I am only an old--man."

The pause sounded oddly; but it was only afterwards that it came back
to me with any significance.

"Why don't you come alongside, then?" I queried somewhat snappishly;
for I liked not his hinting at my having been a trifle shaken.

"I--I--can't. It wouldn't be safe. I----" The voice broke off, and
there was silence.

"What do you mean?" I asked, growing more and more astonished. "Why
not safe? Where are you?"

I listened for a moment; but there came no answer. And then, a sudden
indefinite suspicion, of I knew not what, coming to me, I stepped
swiftly to the binnacle, and took out the lighted lamp. At the same
time, I knocked on the deck with my heel to waken Will. Then I was
back at the side, throwing the yellow funnel of light out into the
silent immensity beyond our rail. As I did so, I heard a slight,
muffled cry, and then the sound of a splash, as though some one had
dipped oars abruptly. Yet I cannot say that I saw anything with
certainty; save, it seemed to me, that with the first flash of the
light, there had been something upon the waters, where now there was
nothing.

"Hullo, there!" I called. "What foolery is this!"

But there came only the indistinct sounds of a boat being pulled away
into the night.

Then I heard Will's voice, from the direction of the after scuttle:--

"What's up, George?"

"Come here, Will!" I said.

"What is it?" he asked, coming across the deck.

I told him the queer thing which had happened. He put several
questions; then, after a moment's silence, he raised his hands to his
lips, and hailed:--

"Boat, ahoy!"

From a long distance away, there came back to us a faint reply, and my
companion repeated his call. Presently, after a short period of
silence, there grew on our hearing the muffled sound of oars; at which
Will hailed again.

This time there was a reply:--

"Put away the light."

"I'm damned if I will," I muttered; but Will told me to do as the
voice bade, and I shoved it down under the bulwarks.

"Come nearer," he said, and the oar-strokes continued. Then, when
apparently some half-dozen fathoms distant, they again ceased.

"Come alongside," exclaimed Will. "There's nothing to be frightened of
aboard here!"

"Promise that you will not show the light?"

"What's to do with you," I burst out, "that you're so infernally
afraid of the light?"

"Because----" began the voice, and stopped short.

"Because what?" I asked, quickly.

Will put his hand on my shoulder.

"Shut up a minute, old man," he said, in a low voice. "Let me tackle
him."

He leant more over the rail.

"See here, Mister," he said, "this is a pretty queer business, you
coming upon us like this, right out in the middle of the blessed
Pacific. How are we to know what sort of a hanky-panky trick you're up
to? You say there's only one of you. How are we to know, unless we get
a squint at you--eh? What's your objection to the light, anyway?"

As he finished, I heard the noise of the oars again, and then the
voice came; but now from a greater distance, and sounding extremely
hopeless and pathetic.

"I am sorry--sorry! I would not have troubled you, only I am hungry,
and--so is she."

The voice died away, and the sound of the oars, dipping irregularly,
was borne to us.

"Stop!" sung out Will. "I don't want to drive you away. Come back!
We'll keep the light hidden, if you don't like it."

He turned to me:--

"It's a damned queer rig, this; but I think there's nothing to be
afraid of?"

There was a question in his tone, and I replied.

"No, I think the poor devil's been wrecked around here, and gone
crazy."

The sound of the oars drew nearer.

"Shove that lamp back in the binnacle," said Will; then he leaned over
the rail, and listened. I replaced the lamp, and came back to his
side. The dipping of the oars ceased some dozen yards distant.

"Won't you come alongside now?" asked Will in an even voice. "I have
had the lamp put back in the binnacle."

"I--I cannot," replied the voice. "I dare not come nearer. I dare not
even pay you for the--the provisions."

"That's all right," said Will, and hesitated. "You're welcome to as
much grub as you can take----" Again he hesitated.

"You are very good," exclaimed the voice. "May God, Who understands
everything, reward you----" It broke off huskily.

"The--the lady?" said Will, abruptly. "Is she----"

"I have left her behind upon the island," came the voice.

"What island?" I cut in.

"I know not its name," returned the voice. "I would to God----!" it
began, and checked itself as suddenly.

"Could we not send a boat for her?" asked Will at this point.

"No!" said the voice, with extraordinary emphasis. "My God! No!" There
was a moment's pause; then it added, in a tone which seemed a merited
reproach:--

"It was because of our want I ventured--Because her agony tortured
me."

"I am a forgetful brute," exclaimed Will. "Just wait a minute, whoever
you are, and I will bring you up something at once."

In a couple of minutes he was back again, and his arms were full of
various edibles. He paused at the rail.

"Can't you come alongside for them?" he asked.

"No--I _dare not_," replied the voice, and it seemed to me that in its
tones I detected a note of stifled craving--as though the owner hushed
a mortal desire. It came to me then in a flash, that the poor old
creature out there in the darkness, was _suffering_ for actual need of
that which Will held in his arms; and yet, because of some
unintelligible dread, refraining from dashing to the side of our
little schooner, and receiving it. And with the lightning-like
conviction, there came the knowledge that the Invisible was not mad;
but sanely facing some intolerable horror.

"Damn it, Will!" I said, full of many feelings, over which
predominated a vast sympathy. "Get a box. We must float off the stuff
to him in it."

This we did--propelling it away from the vessel, out into the
darkness, by means of a boathook. In a minute, a slight cry from the
Invisible came to us, and we knew that he had secured the box.

A little later, he called out a farewell to us, and so heartful a
blessing, that I am sure we were the better for it. Then, without more
ado, we heard the ply of oars across the darkness.

"Pretty soon off," remarked Will, with perhaps just a little sense of
injury.

"Wait," I replied. "I think somehow he'll come back. He must have been
badly needing that food."

"And the lady," said Will. For a moment he was silent; then he
continued:--

"It's the queerest thing ever I've tumbled across, since I've been
fishing."

"Yes," I said, and fell to pondering.

And so the time slipped away--an hour, another, and still Will stayed
with me; for the queer adventure had knocked all desire for sleep out
of him.

The third hour was three parts through, when we heard again the sound
of oars across the silent ocean.

"Listen!" said Will, a low note of excitement in his voice.

"He's coming, just as I thought," I muttered.

The dipping of the oars grew nearer, and I noted that the strokes were
firmer and longer. The food had been needed.

They came to a stop a little distance off the broadside, and the queer
voice came again to us through the darkness:--

"Schooner, ahoy!"

"That you?" asked Will.

"Yes," replied the voice. "I left you suddenly; but--but there was
great need."

"The lady?" questioned Will.

"The--lady is grateful now on earth. She will be more grateful soon
in--in heaven."

Will began to make some reply, in a puzzled voice; but became
confused, and broke off short. I said nothing. I was wondering at the
curious pauses, and, apart from my wonder, I was full of a great
sympathy.

The voice continued:--

"We--she and I, have talked, as we shared the result of God's
tenderness and yours----"

Will interposed; but without coherence.

"I beg of you not to--to belittle your deed of Christian charity this
night," said the voice. "Be sure that it has not escaped His notice."

It stopped, and there was a full minute's silence. Then it came
again:--

"We have spoken together upon that which--which has befallen us. We
had thought to go out, without telling any, of the terror which has
come into our--lives. She is with me in believing that to-night's
happenings are under a special ruling, and that it is God's wish that
we should tell to you all that we have suffered since--since----"

"Yes?" said Will, softly.

"Since the sinking of the 'Albatross.'"

"Ah!" I exclaimed, involuntarily. "She left Newcastle for 'Frisco some
six months ago, and hasn't been heard of since."

"Yes," answered the voice. "But some few degrees to the North of the
line she was caught in a terrible storm, and dismasted. When the day
came, it was found that she was leaking badly, and, presently, it
falling to a calm, the sailors took to the boats, leaving--leaving a
young lady--my fiance--and myself upon the wreck.

"We were below, gathering together a few of our belongings, when they
left. They were entirely callous, through fear, and when we came up
upon the decks, we saw them only as small shapes afar off upon the
horizon. Yet we did not despair, but set to work and constructed a
small raft. Upon this we put such few matters as it would hold,
including a quantity of water and some ship's biscuit. Then, the
vessel being very deep in the water, we got ourselves on to the raft,
and pushed off.

"It was later, when I observed that we seemed to be in the way of some
tide or current, which bore us from the ship at an angle; so that in
the course of three hours, by my watch, her hull became invisible to
our sight, her broken masts remaining in view for a somewhat longer
period. Then, towards evening, it grew misty, and so through the
night. The next day we were still encompassed by the mist, the weather
remaining quiet.

"For four days, we drifted through this strange haze, until, on the
evening of the fourth day, there grew upon our ears the murmur of
breakers at a distance. Gradually it became plainer, and, somewhat
after midnight, it appeared to sound upon either hand at no very great
space. The raft was raised upon a swell several times, and then we
were in smooth water, and the noise of the breakers was behind.

"When the morning came, we found that we were in a sort of great
lagoon; but of this we noticed little at the time; for close before
us, through the enshrouding mist, loomed the hull of a large
sailing-vessel. With one accord, we fell upon our knees and thanked
God; for we thought that here was an end to our perils. We had much to
learn.

"The raft drew near to the ship, and we shouted on them, to take us
aboard; but none answered. Presently, the raft touched against the
side of the vessel, and, seeing a rope hanging downwards, I seized it
and began to climb. Yet I had much ado to make my way up, because of a
kind of grey, lichenous fungus, which had seized upon the rope, and
which blotched the side of the ship, lividly.

"I reached the rail, and clambered over it, on to the deck. Here, I
saw that the decks were covered, in great patches, with the grey
masses, some of them rising into nodules several feet in height; but
at the time, I thought less of this matter than of the possibility of
there being people aboard the ship. I shouted; but none answered. Then
I went to the door below the poop deck. I opened it, and peered in.
There was a great smell of staleness, so that I knew in a moment that
nothing living was within, and with the knowledge, I shut the door
quickly; for I felt suddenly lonely.

"I went back to the side, where I had scrambled up. My--my sweetheart
was still sitting quietly upon the raft. Seeing me look down, she
called up to know whether there were any aboard of the ship. I replied
that the vessel had the appearance of having been long deserted; but
that if she would wait a little, I would see whether there was
anything in the shape of a ladder, by which she could ascend to the
deck. Then we would make a search through the vessel together. A
little later, on the opposite side of the decks, I found a rope
side-ladder. This I carried across, and a minute afterwards, she was
beside me.

"Together, we explored the cabins and apartments in the after-part of
the ship; but nowhere was there any sign of life. Here and there,
within the cabins themselves, we came across odd patches of that
queer fungus; but this, as my sweetheart said, could be cleansed away.

"In the end, having assured ourselves that the after portion of the
vessel was empty, we picked our ways to the bows, between the ugly
grey nodules of that strange growth; and here we made a further
search, which told us that there was indeed none aboard but ourselves.

"This being now beyond any doubt, we returned to the stern of the
ship, and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as possible.
Together, we cleared out and cleaned two of the cabins; and, after
that, I made examination whether there was anything eatable in the
ship. This I soon found was so, and thanked God in my heart for His
goodness. In addition to this, I discovered the whereabouts of the
freshwater pump, and having fixed it, I found the water drinkable,
though somewhat unpleasant to the taste.

"For several days, we stayed aboard the ship, without attempting to
get to the shore. We were busily engaged in making the place
habitable. Yet even thus early, we became aware that our lot was even
less to be desired than might have been imagined; for though, as a
first step, we scraped away the odd patches of growth that studded the
floors and walls of the cabins and saloon, yet they returned almost to
their original size within the space of twenty-four hours, which not
only discouraged us, but gave us a feeling of vague unease.

"Still, we would not admit ourselves beaten, so set to work afresh,
and not only scraped away the fungus, but soaked the places where it
had been, with carbolic, a can-full of which I had found in the
pantry. Yet, by the end of the week, the growth had returned in full
strength, and, in addition, it had spread to other places, as though
our touching it had allowed germs from it to travel elsewhere.

"On the seventh morning, my sweetheart woke to find a small patch of
it growing on her pillow, close to her face. At that, she came to me,
so soon as she could get her garments upon her. I was in the galley at
the time, lighting the fire for breakfast.

"'Come here, John,' she said, and led me aft. When I saw the thing
upon her pillow, I shuddered, and then and there we agreed to go right
out of the ship, and see whether we could not fare to make ourselves
more comfortable ashore.

"Hurriedly, we gathered together our few belongings, and even among
these, I found that the fungus had been at work; for one of her shawls
had a little lump of it growing near one edge. I threw the whole thing
over the side, without saying anything to her.

"The raft was still alongside; but it was too clumsy to guide, and I
lowered down a small boat that hung across the stern, and in this we
made our way to the shore. Yet, as we drew near to it, I became
gradually aware that here the vile fungus, which had driven us from
the ship, was growing riot. In places it rose into horrible, fantastic
mounds, which seemed almost to quiver, as with a quiet life, when the
wind blew across them. Here and there, it took on the forms of vast
fingers, and in others it just spread out flat and smooth and
treacherous. Odd places, it appeared as grotesque stunted trees,
seeming extraordinarily kinked and gnarled---- The whole quaking
vilely at times.

"At first, it seemed to us that there was no single portion of the
surrounding shore which was not hidden beneath the masses of the
hideous lichen; yet, in this, I found we were mistaken; for somewhat
later, coasting along the shore at a little distance, we descried a
smooth white patch of what appeared to be find sand, and there we
landed. It was not sand. What it was, I do not know. All that I have
observed, is that upon it, the fungus will not grow; while everywhere
else, save where the sand-like earth wanders oddly, path-wise, amid
the grey desolation of the lichen, there is nothing but that loathsome
greyness.

"It is difficult to make you understand how cheered we were to find
one place that was absolutely free from the growth, and here we
deposited our belongings. Then we went back to the ship for such
things as it seemed to us we should need. Among other matters, I
managed to bring ashore with me one of the ship's sails, with which I
constructed two small tents, which, though exceedingly rough-shaped,
served the purposes for which they were intended. In these, we lived
and stored our various necessities, and thus for a matter of some four
weeks, all went smoothly and without particular unhappiness. Indeed, I
may say with much of happiness----for--for we were together.

"It was on the thumb of her right hand, that the growth first showed.
It was only a small circular spot, much like a little grey mole. My
God! how the fear leapt to my heart when she showed me the place. We
cleansed it, between us, washing it with carbolic and water. In the
morning of the following day, she showed her hand to me again. The
grey warty thing had returned. For a little while, we looked at one
another in silence. Then, still wordless, we started again to remove
it. In the midst of the operation, she spoke suddenly.

"What's that on the side of your face, Dear!" Her voice was sharp with
anxiety. I put my hand up to feel.

"'There! Under the hair by your ear.--A little to the front a bit.' My
finger rested upon the place, and then I knew.

"'Let us get your thumb done first,' I said. And she submitted, only
because she was afraid to touch me until it was cleansed. I finished
washing and disinfecting her thumb, and then she turned to my face.
After it was finished, we sat together and talked awhile of many
things; for there had come into our lives sudden, very terrible
thoughts. We were, all at once, afraid of something worse than death.
We spoke of loading the boat with provisions and water, and making our
way out on to the sea; yet we were helpless, for many causes, and--and
the growth had attacked us already. We decided to stay. God would do
with us what was His will. We would wait.

"A month, two months, three months passed, and the places grew
somewhat, and there had come others. Yet we fought so strenuously with
the fear, that its headway was but slow, comparatively speaking.

"Occasionally, we ventured off to the ship for such stores as we
needed. There, we found that the fungus grew persistently. One of the
nodules on the maindeck became soon as high as my head.

"We had now given up all thought or hope of leaving the island. We had
realised that it would be unallowable to go among healthy humans, with
the thing from which we were suffering.

"With this determination and knowledge in our minds, we knew that we
should have to husband our food and water; for we did not know, at
that time, but that we should possibly live for many years.

"This reminds me that I have told you that I am an old man. Judged by
years this is not so. But--but----"

He broke off; then continued somewhat abruptly:--

"As I was saying, we knew that we should have to use care in the
matter of food. But we had no idea then how little food there was
left, of which to take care. It was a week later, that I made the
discovery that all the other bread tanks--which I had supposed
full--were empty, and that (beyond odd tins of vegetables and meat,
and some other matters) we had nothing on which to depend, but the
bread in the tank which I had already opened.

"After learning this, I bestirred myself to do what I could, and set
to work at fishing in the lagoon; but with no success. At this, I was
somewhat inclined to feel desperate, until the thought came to me to
try outside the lagoon, in the open sea.

"Here, at times, I caught odd fish; but, so infrequently, that they
proved of but little help in keeping us from the hunger which
threatened. It seemed to me that our deaths were likely to come by
hunger, and not by the growth of the thing which had seized upon our
bodies.

"We were in this state of mind when the fourth month wore out. Then I
made a very horrible discovery. One morning, a little before midday, I
came off from the ship, with a portion of the biscuits which were
left. In the mouth of her tent, I saw my sweetheart sitting, eating
something.

"'What is it, my Dear?' I called out as I leapt ashore. Yet, on
hearing my voice, she seemed confused, and, turning, slyly threw
something towards the edge of the little clearing. It fell short, and,
a vague suspicion having arisen within me, I walked across and picked
it up. It was a piece of the grey fungus.

"As I went to her, with it in my hand, she turned deadly pale; then a
rose red.

"I felt strangely dazed and frightened.

"'My Dear! My Dear!' I said, and could say no more. Yet, at my words,
she broke down and cried bitterly. Gradually, as she calmed, I got
from her the news that she had tried it the preceding day, and--and
liked it. I got her to promise on her knees not to touch it again,
however great our hunger. After she had promised, she told me that the
desire for it had come suddenly, and that, until the moment of desire,
she had experienced nothing towards it, but the most extreme
repulsion.

"Later in the day, feeling strangely restless, and much shaken with
the thing which I had discovered, I made my way along one of the
twisted paths--formed by the white, sand-like substance--which led
among the fungoid growth. I had, once before, ventured along there;
but not to any great distance. This time, being involved in perplexing
thought, I went much further than hitherto.

"Suddenly, I was called to myself, by a queer hoarse sound on my left.
Turning quickly, I saw that there was movement among an
extraordinarily shaped mass of fungus, close to my elbow. It was
swaying uneasily, as though it possessed life of its own. Abruptly, as
I stared, the thought came to me that the thing had a grotesque
resemblance to the figure of a distorted human creature. Even as the
fancy flashed into my brain, there was a slight, sickening noise of
tearing, and I saw that one of the branch-like arms was detaching
itself from the surrounding grey masses, and coming towards me. The
head of the thing--a shapeless grey ball, inclined in my direction. I
stood stupidly, and the vile arm brushed across my face. I gave out a
frightened cry, and ran back a few paces. There was a sweetish taste
upon my lips, where the thing had touched me. I licked them, and was
immediately filled with an inhuman desire. I turned and seized a mass
of the fungus. Then more, and--more. I was insatiable. In the midst of
devouring, the remembrance of the morning's discovery swept into my
mazed brain. It was sent by God. I dashed the fragment I held, to the
ground. Then, utterly wretched and feeling a dreadful guiltiness, I
made my way back to the little encampment.

"I think she knew, by some marvellous intuition which love must have
given, so soon as she set eyes on me. Her quiet sympathy made it
easier for me, and I told her of my sudden weakness; yet omitted to
mention the extraordinary thing which had gone before. I desired to
spare her all unnecessary terror.

"But, for myself, I had added an intolerable knowledge, to breed an
incessant terror in my brain; for I doubted not but that I had seen
the end of one of those men who had come to the island in the ship in
the lagoon; and in that monstrous ending, I had seen our own.

"Thereafter, we kept from the abominable food, though the desire for
it had entered into our blood. Yet, our drear punishment was upon us;
for, day by day, with monstrous rapidity, the fungoid growth took hold
of our poor bodies. Nothing we could do would check it materially, and
so--and so--we who had been human, became--Well, it matters less each
day. Only--only we had been man and maid!

"And day by day, the fight is more dreadful, to withstand the
hunger-lust for the terrible lichen.

"A week ago we ate the last of the biscuit, and since that time I
have caught three fish. I was out here fishing to-night, when your
schooner drifted upon me out of the mist. I hailed you. You know the
rest, and may God, out of His great heart, bless you for your goodness
to a--a couple of poor outcast souls."

There was the dip of an oar--another. Then the voice came again, and
for the last time, sounding through the slight surrounding mist,
ghostly and mournful.

"God bless you! Good-bye!"

"Good-bye," we shouted together, hoarsely, our hearts full of many
emotions.

I glanced about me. I became aware that the dawn was upon us.

The sun flung a stray beam across the hidden sea; pierced the mist
dully, and lit up the receding boat with a gloomy fire. Indistinctly,
I saw something nodding between the oars. I thought of a sponge--a
great, grey nodding sponge---- The oars continued to ply. They were
grey--as was the boat--and my eyes searched a moment vainly for the
conjunction of hand and oar. My gaze flashed back to the--head. It
nodded forward as the oars went backward for the stroke. Then the oars
were dipped, the boat shot out of the patch of light, and the--the
thing went nodding into the mist.




THROUGH THE VORTEX OF A CYCLONE

(The Cyclone--"The most fearful enemy which the
mariner's perilous calling obliges him to encounter.")


It was in the middle of November that the four-masted barque,
_Golconda_, came down from Crockett and anchored off Telegraph Hill,
San Francisco. She was loaded with grain, and was homeward bound round
Cape Horn. Five days later she was towed out through the Golden Gates,
and cast loose off the Heads, and so set sail upon the voyage that was
to come so near to being her last.

For a fortnight we had baffling winds; but after that time, got a good
slant that carried us down to within a couple of degrees of the Line.
Here it left us, and over a week passed before we managed to tack and
drift our way into the Southern Hemisphere.

About five degrees South of the Line, we met with a fair wind that
helped us Southward another ten or twelve degrees, and there, early
one morning, it dropped us, ending with a short, but violent, thunder
storm, in which, so frequent were the lightning flashes, that I
managed to secure a picture of one, whilst in the act of snapshotting
the sea and clouds upon our port side.

During the day, the wind, as I have remarked, left us entirely, and we
lay becalmed under a blazing hot sun. We hauled up the lower sails to
prevent them from chafing as the vessel rolled lazily on the scarce
perceptible swells, and busied ourselves, as is customary on such
occasions, with much swabbing and cleaning of paint-work.

As the day proceeded, so did the heat seem to increase; the atmosphere
lost its clear look, and a low haze seemed to lie about the ship at a
great distance. At times, the air seemed to have about it a queer,
unbreathable quality; so that one caught oneself breathing with a
sense of distress.

And, hour by hour, as the day moved steadily onward, the sense of
oppression grew ever more acute.

Then, it was, I should think, about three-thirty in the afternoon, I
became conscious of the fact that a strange, unnatural, dull,
brick-red glare was in the sky. Very subtle it was, and I could not
say that it came from any particular place; but rather it seemed to
shine _in_ the atmosphere. As I stood looking at it, the Mate came up
beside me. After about half a minute, he gave out a sudden
exclamation:--

"Hark!" he said. "Did you hear that?"

"No, Mr. Jackson," I replied. "What was it like?"

"Listen!" was all his reply, and I obeyed; and so perhaps for a couple
of minutes we stood there in silence.

"There!----There it is again!" he exclaimed, suddenly; and in the same
instant I heard it ... a sound like low, strange growling far away in
the North-East. It lasted for about fifteen seconds, and then died
away in a low, hollow, moaning noise, that sounded indescribably dree.

After that, for a space longer, we stood listening; and so, at last,
it came again ... a far, faint, wild-beast growling, away over the
North-Eastern horizon. As it died away, with that strange hollow note,
the Mate touched my arm:--

"Go and call the Old Man," he said, meaning the Captain. "And while
you're down, have a look at the barometer."

In both of these matters I obeyed him, and in a few moments the
Captain was on deck, standing beside the Mate--listening.

"How's the glass?" asked the Mate, as I came up.

"Steady," I answered, and at that, he nodded his head, and resumed his
expectant attitude. Yet, though we stood silent, maybe for the better
part of half an hour, there came no further repetition of that weird,
far-off growling, and so, as the glass was steady, no serious notice
was taken of the matter.

That evening, we experienced a sunset of quite indescribable
gorgeousness, which had, to me, an unnatural glow about it, especially
in the way in which it lit up the surface of the sea, which was, at
this time, stirred by a slight evening breeze. Evidently, the Mate was
of the opinion that it foreboded something in the way of ill weather;
for he gave orders for the watch on deck to take the three royals off
her.

By the time the men had got down from aloft, the sun had set, and the
evening was fading into dusk; yet, despite that, all the sky to the
North-East was full of the most vivid red and orange; this being, it
will be remembered, the direction from which we had heard earlier that
sullen growling.

It was somewhat later, I remember, that I heard the Mate remark to the
Captain that we were in for bad weather, and that it was his belief a
Cyclone was coming down upon us; but this, the Captain--who was quite
a young fellow--poo-poohed; telling him that he pinned _his_ faith to
the barometer, which was perfectly steady. Yet, I could see that the
Mate was by no means so sure; but forebore to press further his
opinion against his superior's.

Presently, as the night came down upon the world, the orange tints
went out of the sky, and only a sombre, threatening red was left, with
a strangely bright rift of white light running horizontally across it,
about twenty degrees above the North-_Eastern_ horizon.

This lasted for nigh on to half an hour, and so did it impress the
crew with a sense of something impending, that many of them crouched,
staring over the port rail, until long after it had faded into the
general greyness.

That night, I recollect, it was my watch on deck from midnight until
four in the morning. When the boy came down to wake me, he told me
that it had been lightning during the past watch. Even as he spoke, a
bright, bluish glare lit up the port-hole; but there was no succeeding
thunder.

I sprang hastily from my bunk, and dressed; then, seizing my camera,
ran out on deck. I opened the shutter, and the next instant--flash! a
great stream of electricity sprang out of the zenith.

Directly afterwards, the Mate called to me from the break of the poop
to know whether I had managed to secure _that_ one. I replied, Yes, I
thought I had, and he told me to come up on to the poop, beside him,
and have a further try from there; for he, the Captain and the Second
Mate were much interested in my photographic hobby, and did all in
their power to aid me in the securing of successful snaps.

That the Mate was uneasy, I very soon perceived; for, presently, a
little while after he had relieved the Second Mate, he ceased his
pacing of the poop deck, and came and leant over the rail, alongside
of me.

"I wish to goodness the Old Man would have her shortened right down to
lower topsails," he said, a moment later, in a low voice. "There's
some rotten, dirty weather knocking around. I can smell it." And he
raised his head, and sniffed at the air.

"Why not shorten her down, on your own?" I asked him.

"Can't!" he replied. "The Old Man's left orders not to touch anything;
but to call him if any change occurs. He goes _too_ d----n much by the
barometer, to suit me, and won't budge a rope's end, because it's
steady."

All this time, the lightning had been playing at frequent intervals
across the sky; but now there came several gigantic flashes, seeming
extraordinarily near to the vessel, pouring down out of a great rift
in the clouds--veritable torrents of electric fluid. I switched open
the shutter of my camera, and pointed the lens upward; and the
following instant, I secured a magnificent photograph of a great
flash, which, bursting down from the same rift, divided to the East
and West in a sort of vast electric arch.

For perhaps a minute afterwards, we waited, thinking that such a flash
_must_ be followed by thunder; but none came. Instead, from the
darkness to the North-East, there sounded a faint, far-drawn-out
wailing noise, that seemed to echo queerly across the quiet sea. And
after that, silence.

The Mate stood upright, and faced round at me.

"Do you know," he said, "only once before in my life have I heard
anything like that, and that was before the Cyclone in which the
_Lancing_, and the _Eurasian_ were lost, in the Indian Ocean."

"Do you think then there's _really_ any danger of a Cyclone now?" I
asked him, with something of a little thrill of excitement.

"I think----" he began, and then stopped, and swore suddenly. "Look!"
he said, in a loud voice. "Look! 'Stalk' lightning, as I'm a living
man!" And he pointed to the North-East. "Photograph that, while you've
got the chance; you'll never have another as long as you live!"

I looked in the direction which he indicated, and there, sure enough,
were great, pale, flickering streaks and tongues of flame _rising
apparently out of the sea_. They remained steady for some ten or
fifteen seconds, and in that time I was able to take a snap of them.

This photograph, as I discovered when I came to develop the negative,
has not, I regret to say, taken regard of a strange, indefinable
dull-red glare that lit up the horizon at the same time; but, as it
is, it remains to me a treasured record of a form of electrical
phenomenon but seldom seen, even by those whose good, or ill, fortune
has allowed them to come face to face with a Cyclonic Storm. Before
leaving this incident, I would once more impress upon the reader that
this strange lightning was _not_ descending from the atmosphere; but
_rising from the sea_.

It was after I had secured this last snap, that the Mate declared it
to be his conviction that a great Cyclonic Storm was coming down upon
us from the North-East, and, with that--for about the twentieth time
that watch--he went below to consult the barometer.

He came back in about ten minutes, to say that it was still steady;
but that he had called the Old Man, and told him about the upward
"Stalk" lightning; yet the Captain, upon hearing from him that the
glass was still steady, had refused to be alarmed, but had promised to
come up and take a look round. This, in a while, he did; but, as Fate
would have it, there was no further display of the "Stalk" lightning,
and, as the other kind had now become no more than an occasional dull
glare behind the clouds to the North-East, he retired once more,
leaving orders to be called if there were any change either in the
glass or the weather.

With the sunrise there came a change, a low, slow-moving scud driving
down from the North-East, and drifting across the face of the
newly-risen sun, which was shining with a queer, unnatural glare.
Indeed, so stormy and be-burred looked the sun, that I could have
applied to it with truth the line:--

"And the red Sun all bearded with the Storm,"

to describe its threatening aspect.

The glass also showed a change at last, rising a little for a short
while, and then dropping about a tenth, and, at that, the Mate hurried
down to inform the Skipper, who was speedily up on deck.

He had the fore and mizzen t'gallants taken off her; but nothing more;
for he declared that he wasn't going to throw away a fine fair wind
for any Old Woman's fancies.

Presently, the wind began to freshen; but the orange-red burr about
the sun remained, and also it seemed to me that the tint of the water
had a "bad weather" look about it. I mentioned this to the Mate, and
he nodded agreement; but said nothing in so many words, for the
Captain was standing near.

By eight bells (4 a.m.) the wind had freshened so much that we were
lying over to it, with a big cant of the decks, and making a good
twelve knots, under nothing higher than the main t'gallant.

We were relieved by the other watch, and went below for a short sleep.
At eight o'clock, when again I came on deck, I found that the sea had
begun to rise somewhat; but that otherwise the weather was much as it
had been when I left the decks; save that the sun was hidden by a
heavy squall to windward, which was coming down upon us.

Some fifteen minutes later, it struck the ship, making the foam fly,
and carrying away the main topsail sheet. Immediately upon this, the
heavy iron ring in the clew of the sail began to thrash and beat
about, as the sail flapped in the wind, striking great blows against
the steel yard; but the clewline was manned, and some of the men went
aloft to repair the damage, after which the sail was once more sheeted
home, and we continued to carry on.

About this time, the Mate sent me down into the saloon to take another
look at the glass, and I found that it had fallen a further tenth.
When I reported this to him, he had the main t'gallant taken in; but
hung on to the mainsail, waiting for eight bells, when the whole crowd
would be on deck to give a hand.

By that time, we had begun to ship water, and most of us were speedily
very thoroughly soused; yet, we got the sail off her, and she rode the
easier for the relief.

A little after one o'clock in the afternoon, I went out on deck to
have a final "squint" at the weather, before turning-in for a short
sleep, and found that the wind had freshened considerably, the seas
striking the counter of the vessel at times, and flying to a
considerable height in foam.

At four o'clock, when once more I appeared on deck, I discovered the
spray flying over us with a good deal of freedom, and the solid water
coming aboard occasionally in odd tons.

Yet, so far there was, _to a sailorman_, nothing worthy of note, in
the severity of the weather. It was merely blowing a moderately heavy
gale, before which, under our six topsails and foresail, we were
making a good twelve knots an hour to the Southward. Indeed, it seemed
to me, at this time, that the Captain was right in his belief that we
were not in for any very dirty weather, and I said as much to the
Mate; whereat he laughed somewhat bitterly.

"Don't you make any sort of mistake!" he said, and pointed to leeward,
where continual flashes of lightning darted down from a dark bank of
cloud. "We're already within the borders of the Cyclone. We are
travelling, so I take it, about a knot slower an hour to the South
than the bodily forward movement of the Storm; so that you may reckon
it's overtaking us at the rate of something like a mile an hour. Later
on, I expect, it'll get a move on it, and then a torpedo boat wouldn't
catch it! This bit of a breeze that we're having now"--and he gestured
to windward with his elbow--"is only fluff--nothing more than the
outer fringe of the advancing Cyclone! Keep your eye lifting to the
North-East, and keep your ears open. Wait until you hear the thing
yelling at you as loud as a million mad tigers!"

He came to a pause, and knocked the ashes out of his pipe; then he
slid the empty "weapon" into the side pocket of his long oilskin coat.
And all the time, I could see that he was ruminating.

"Mark my words," he said, at last, and speaking with great
deliberation. "Within twelve hours it'll be upon us!"

He shook his head at me. Then he added:--

"Within twelve hours, my boy, you and I and every other soul in this
blessed packet may be down there in the cold!" And the brute pointed
downward into the sea, and grinned cheerfully at me.

It was our watch that night from eight to twelve; but, except that the
wind freshened a trifle, hourly, nothing of note occurred during our
watch. The wind was just blowing a good fresh gale, and giving us all
we wanted, to keep the ship doing her best under topsails and
foresail.

At midnight, I went below for a sleep. When I was called at four
o'clock, I found a very different state of affairs. The day had
broken, and showed the sea in a very confused state, with a tendency
to run up into heaps, and there was a good deal less wind; but what
struck me as most remarkable, and brought home with uncomfortable
force the Mate's warning of the previous day, was the colour of the
sky, which seemed to be everywhere one great glare of gloomy,
orange-coloured light, streaked here and there with red. So intense
was this glare that the seas, as they rose clumsily into heaps, caught
and reflected the light in an extraordinary manner, shining and
glittering gloomily, like vast moving mounds of liquid flame. The
whole presenting an effect of astounding and uncanny grandeur.

I made my way up on to the poop, carrying my camera. There, I met the
Mate.

"You'll not want that pretty little box of yours," he remarked, and
tapped my camera. "I guess you'll find a coffin more useful."

"Then it's coming?" I said.

"Look!" was all his reply, and he pointed into the North-East.

I saw in an instant what it was at which he pointed. It was a great
black wall of cloud that seemed to cover about seven points of the
horizon, extending almost from North to East, and reaching upward some
fifteen degrees towards the zenith. The intense, solid blackness of
this cloud was astonishing, and threatening to the beholder, seeming,
indeed, to be more like a line of great black cliffs standing out of
the sea, than a mass of thick vapour.

I glanced aloft, and saw that the other watch were securing the mizzen
upper topsail. At the same moment, the Captain appeared on deck, and
walked over to the Mate.

"Glass has dropped another tenth, Mr. Jackson," he remarked, and
glanced to windward. "I think we'd better have the fore and main upper
topsails off her."

Scarcely had he given the order, before the Mate was down on the
maindeck, shouting:--"Fore and main topsail hal'yards! Lower away! Man
clewlines and spillinglines!" So eager was he to have the sail off
her.

By the time that the upper topsails were furled, I noted that the red
glare had gone out of the greater part of the sky to windward, and a
stiffish looking squall was bearing down upon us. Away more to the
North, I saw that the black rampart of cloud had disappeared, and, in
place thereof, it seemed to me that the clouds in that quarter were
assuming a hard, tufted appearance, and changing their shapes with
surprising rapidity.

The sea also at this time was remarkable, acting uneasily, and hurling
up queer little mounds of foam, which the passing squall caught and
spread.

All these points, the Mate noted; for I heard him urging the Captain
to take in the foresail and mizzen lower topsail. Yet, this, the
Skipper seemed unwilling to do; but finally agreed to have the mizzen
topsail off her. Whilst the men were up at this, the wind dropped
abruptly in the tail of the squall, the vessel rolling heavily, and
taking water and spray with every roll.

Now, I want the Reader to try and understand exactly how matters were
at this particular and crucial moment. The wind had dropped entirely,
and, with the dropping of the wind, a thousand different sounds broke
harshly upon the ear, sounding almost unnatural in their distinctness,
and impressing the ear with a sense of discomfort. With each roll of
the ship, there came a chorus of creaks and groans from the swaying
masts and gear, and the sails slatted with a damp, disagreeable sound.
Beyond the ship, there was the constant, harsh murmur of the seas,
occasionally changing to a low roar, as one broke near us. One other
sound there was that punctuated all these, and that was the loud,
slapping blows of the seas, as they hove themselves clumsily against
the ship; and, for the rest, there was a strange sense of silence.

Then, as sudden as the report of a heavy gun, a great bellowing came
out of the North and East, and died away into a series of monstrous
grumbles of sound. It was not thunder. _It was the Voice of the
approaching Cyclone._

In the same instant, the Mate nudged my shoulder, and pointed, and I
saw, with an enormous feeling of surprise, that a large waterspout had
formed about four hundred yards astern, and was coming towards us. All
about the base of it, the sea was foaming in a strange manner, and the
whole thing seemed to have a curious luminous quality.

Thinking about it now, I cannot say that I perceived it to be in
rotation; but nevertheless, I had the impression that it was revolving
swiftly. Its general onward motion seemed to be about as fast as would
be attained by a well-manned gig.

I remember, in the first moments of astonishment, as I watched it,
hearing the Mate shout something to the Skipper about the foresail,
then I realised suddenly that the spout was coming straight for the
ship. I ran hastily to the taffrail, raised my camera, and snapped it,
and then, as it seemed to tower right up above me, gigantic, I ran
backwards in sudden fright. In the same instant, there came a blinding
flash of lightning, almost in my face, followed instantaneously by a
tremendous roar of thunder, and I saw that the thing had burst within
about fifty yards of the ship. The sea, immediately beneath where it
had been, leapt up in a great hummock of solid water, and foam, as
though something as great as a house had been cast into the ocean.
Then, rushing towards us, it struck the stern of the vessel, flying as
high as our topsail yards in spray, and knocking me backwards on to
the deck.

As I stood up, and wiped the water hurriedly from my camera, I heard
the Mate shout out to know if I were hurt, and then, in the same
moment, and before I could reply, he cried out:--

"It's coming! Up hellum! Up hellum! Look out everybody! Hold on for
your lives!"

Directly afterwards, a shrill, yelling noise seemed to fill the whole
sky with a deafening, piercing sound. I glanced hastily over the port
quarter. _In that direction the whole surface of the ocean seemed to
be torn up into the air in monstrous clouds of spray._ The yelling
sound passed into a vast scream, and the next instant the Cyclone was
upon us.

Immediately, the air was so full of flying spray that I could not see
a yard before me, and the wind slapped me back against the teak
companion, pinning me there for a few moments, helpless. The ship
heeled over to a terrible angle, so that, for some seconds, I thought
we were going to capsize. Then, with a sudden lurch, she hove herself
upright, and I became able to see about me a little, by switching the
water from my face, and shielding my eyes. Near to me, the helmsman--a
little Dago--was clinging to the wheel, looking like nothing so much
as a drowned monkey, and palpably frightened to such an extent that he
could hardly stand upright.

From him, I looked round at so much of the vessel as I could see, and
up at the spars, and so, presently, I discovered how it was that she
had righted. The mizzen topmast was gone just below the heel of the
t'gallantmast, and the fore topmast a little above the cap. The main
topmast alone stood. It was the losing of these spars which had eased
her, and allowed her to right so suddenly. Marvellously enough, the
foresail--a small, new, No. 1 canvas stormsail--had stood the strain,
and was now bellying out, with a high foot, the sheets evidently
having surged under the wind pressure. What was more extraordinary,
was that the fore and main lower topsails were standing,[3] and this,
despite the fact that the bare upper spars on both the fore and mizzen
masts, had been carried away.

[Footnote 3: I suggest the existence of smaller air vortices within
the Cyclone. By air vortices, I mean vorticular air whorls--as it
might be the upper portions of uncompleted waterspouts. How else
explain the _naked_ mizzen and fore topmasts and t'gallant masts being
_twisted_ off (as later appeared to have been the case), and yet the
great spread of the lower topsails and the foresail not suffering? I
am convinced that the unequal force of the first wind-burst is only
thus to be explained.]

And now, the first awful burst of the Cyclone having passed with the
righting of the vessel, the three sails stood, though tested to their
utmost, and the ship, under the tremendous urging force of the Storm,
was tearing forward at a high speed through the seas.

I glanced down now at myself and camera. Both were soaked; yet, as I
discovered later, the latter would still take photographs. I struggled
forward to the break of the poop, and stared down on to the maindeck.
The seas were breaking aboard every moment, and the spray flying over
us continually in huge white clouds. And in my ears was the incessant,
wild, roaring-scream of the monster Whirl-Storm.

Then I saw the Mate. He was up against the lee rail, chopping at
something with a hatchet. At times the water left him visible to his
knees; anon he was completely submerged; but ever there was the whirl
of his weapon amid the chaos of water, as he hacked and cut at the
gear that held the mizzen t'gallant mast crashing against the side.

I saw him glance round once, and he beckoned with the hatchet to a
couple of his watch who were fighting their way aft along the
streaming decks. He did not attempt to shout, for no shout could have
been heard in the incredible roaring of the wind. Indeed, so vastly
loud was the noise made by this element, that I had not heard even the
topmasts carry away; though the sound of a large spar breaking will
make as great a noise as the report of a big gun. The next instant, I
had thrust my camera into one of the hencoops upon the poop, and
turned to struggle aft to the companionway; for I knew it was no use
going to the Mate's aid without axes.

Presently, I was at the companion, and had the fastenings undone; then
I opened the door, and sprang in on to the stairs. I slammed-to the
door, bolted it, and made my way below, and so, in a minute, had
possessed myself of a couple of axes. With these, I returned to the
poop, fastening the companion doors carefully behind me, and, in a
little, was up to my neck in water on the maindeck, helping to clear
away the wreckage. The second axe, I had pushed into the hands of one
of the men.

Presently, we had the gear cleared away.

Then we scrambled away forrard along the decks, through the boiling
swirls of water and foam that swept the vessel, as the seas thundered
aboard; and so we came to the assistance of the Second Mate, who was
desperately busied, along with some of his watch, in clearing away the
broken fore-topmast and yards that were held by their gear, thundering
against the side of the ship.

Yet, it must not be supposed that we were to manage this piece of
work, without coming to some harm; for, just as we made an end of it,
an enormous sea swept aboard, and dashed one of the men against the
spare topmast that was lashed along, inside the bulwarks, below the
pin-rail. When we managed to pull the poor senseless fellow out from
underneath the spar, where the sea had jammed him, we found that his
left arm and collar-bone were broken. We took him forrard to the
fo'cas'le, and there, with rough surgery, made him so comfortable as
we could; after which we left him, but half conscious, in his bunk.

After that, several wet, weary hours were spent in rigging rough
preventer-stays. Then the rest of us, men as well as officers, made
our way aft to the poop; there to wait, desperately ready to cope with
any emergency where our poor, futile human strength might aid to our
salvation.

With great difficulty, the Carpenter had managed to sound the well,
and, to our delight, had found that we were not making any water; so
that the blows of the broken spars had done us no vital harm.

By midday, the following seas had risen to a truly formidable height,
and two hands were working half naked at the wheel; for any
carelessness in steering would, most certainly, have had horrible
consequences.

In the course of the afternoon, the Mate and I went down into the
saloon to get something to eat, and here, out of the deafening roar of
the wind, I managed to get a short chat with my senior officer.

Talking about the waterspout which had so immediately preceded the
first rush of the Cyclone, I made mention of its luminous appearance;
to which he replied that it was due probably to a vast electric action
going on between the clouds and the sea.

After that, I asked him why the Captain did not heave to, and ride the
Storm out, instead of running before it, and risking being pooped, or
broaching to.

To this, the Mate made reply that we were right in the line of
translation; in other words, that we were directly in the track of the
vortex, or centre, of the Cyclone, and that the Skipper was doing his
best to edge the ship to leeward, before the centre, with the awful
Pyramidal Sea, should overtake us.

"If we can't manage to get out of the way," he concluded, grimly,
"you'll probably have a chance to photograph something that you'll
never have time to develop!"

I asked him how he knew that the ship was directly in the track of the
vortex, and he replied that the facts that the wind was not hauling,
but getting steadily worse, with the barometer constantly falling,
were sure signs.

And soon after that we returned to the deck.

As I have said, at midday, the seas were truly formidable; but by four
p.m. they were so much worse that it was impossible to pass fore or
aft along the decks, the water breaking aboard, as much as a hundred
tons at a time, and sweeping all before it.

All this time, the roaring and _howling_ of the Cyclone was so
incredibly loud, that no word spoken, or shouted, out on deck--even
though right into one's ear--could be heard distinctly, so that the
utmost we could do to convey ideas to one another, was to make signs.
And so, because of this, and to get for a little out of the painful
and exhausting pressure of the wind, each of the officers would, in
turn (sometimes singly and sometimes two at once), go down to the
saloon, for a short rest and smoke.

It was in one of those brief "smoke-ohs" that the Mate told me the
vortex of the Cyclone was probably within about eighty or a hundred
miles of us, and coming down on us at something like twenty or thirty
knots an hour, which--as this speed enormously exceeded ours--made it
probable that it would be upon us before midnight.

"Is there no chance of getting out of the way?" I asked. "Couldn't we
haul her up a trifle, and cut across the track a bit quicker than we
are doing?"

"No," replied the Mate, and shook his head, thoughtfully. "The seas
would make a clean breach over us, if we tried that. It's a case of
'run till you're blind, and pray till you bust'!" he concluded with a
certain despondent brutalness.

I nodded assent; for I knew that it was true. And after that we were
silent. A few minutes later, we went up on deck. There we found that,
the wind had increased, and blown the foresail bodily away; yet,
despite the greater weight of the wind, there had come a rift in the
clouds, through which the sun was shining with a queer brightness.

I glanced at the Mate, and smiled; for it seemed to me a good omen;
but he shook his head, as one who should say: "It is no good omen; but
a sign of something worse coming."

That he was right in refusing to be assured, I had speedy proof; for
within ten minutes the sun had vanished, and the clouds seemed to be
right down upon our mastheads--great bellying webs of black vapour,
that seemed almost to mingle with the flying clouds of foam and spray.
The wind appeared to gain strength minute by minute, rising into an
abominable scream, so piercing at times as to seem to pain the ear
drums.

In this wise an hour passed, the ship racing onward under her two
topsails, seeming to have lost no speed with the losing of the
foresail; though it is possible that she was more under water forrard
than she had been.

Then, about five-thirty p.m., I heard a louder roar in the air above
us, so deep and tremendous that it seemed to daze and stun one; and,
in the same instant, the two topsails were blown out of the
bolt-ropes, and one of the hencoops was lifted bodily off the poop,
and hurled into the air, descending with an _inaudible_ crash on to
the maindeck. Luckily, it was not the one into which I had thrust my
camera.

With the losing of the topsails, we might be very truly described as
running under bare poles; for now we had not a single stitch of sail
set anywhere. Yet, so furious was the increasing wind, so tremendous
the weight of it, that the vessel, though urged forward only by the
pressure of the element upon her naked spars and hull, managed to keep
ahead of the monstrous following seas, which now were grown to truly
awesome proportions.

The next hour or two, I remember only as a time that spread out
monotonously. A time miserable and dazing, and dominated always by the
deafening, roaring scream of the Storm. A time of wetness and
dismalness, in which I knew, more than saw, that the ship wallowed on
and on through the interminable seas. And so, hour by hour, the wind
increased as the Vortex of the Cyclone--the "Death-Patch"--drew nearer
and ever nearer.

Night came on early, or, if not night, a darkness that was fully its
equivalent. And now I was able to see how tremendous was the electric
action that was going on all about us. There seemed to be no lightning
flashes; but, instead, there came at times across the darkness, queer
luminous shudders of light. I am not acquainted with any word that
better describes this extraordinary electrical phenomenon, than
"shudders" of light--broad, dull shudders of light, that came in
undefined belts across the black, thunderous canopy of clouds, which
seemed so low that our main-truck must have "puddled" them with every
roll of the ship.

A further sign of electric action was to be seen in the "corpse
candles," which ornamented every yard-arm. Not only were they upon the
yard-arms; but occasionally several at a time would glide up and down
one or more of the fore and aft stays, at whiles swinging off to one
side or the other, as the ship rolled. The sight having in it a
distinct touch of weirdness.

It was an hour or so later, I believe a little after nine p.m., that I
witnessed the most striking manifestation of electrical action that I
have ever seen; this being neither more nor less than a display of
Aurora Borealis lightning--a sight dree and almost frightening, with
the sense of unearthliness and mystery that it brings.

I want you to be very clear that I am _not_ talking about the Northern
Lights--which, indeed, could never be seen at that distance to the
Southward--; but of an extraordinary electrical phenomenon which
occurred when the vortex of the Cyclone was within some twenty or
thirty miles of the ship. It occurred suddenly. First, a ripple of
"Stalk" lightning showed right away over the oncoming seas to the
Northward; then, abruptly, a red glare shone out in the sky, and,
immediately afterwards, vast streamers of greenish flame appeared
above the red glare. These lasted, perhaps, half a minute, expanding
and contracting over the sky with a curious quivering motion. The
whole forming a truly awe-inspiring spectacle.

And then, slowly, the whole thing faded, and only the blackness of the
night remained, slit in all directions by the phosphorescent crests of
the seas.

I don't know whether I can convey to you any vivid impression of our
case and chances at this time. It is so difficult--unless one had been
through a similar experience--even to comprehend fully the incredible
loudness of the wind. Imagine a noise as loud as the loudest thunder
you have ever heard; then imagine this noise to last hour after hour,
without intermission, and to have in it a hideously threatening hoarse
note, and, blending with this, a constant yelling scream that rises at
times to such a pitch that the very ear drums seem to experience pain,
and then, perhaps, you will be able to comprehend merely the amount of
_sound_ that has to be endured during the passage of one of these
Storms. And then, the _force_ of the wind! Have you ever faced a wind
so powerful that it splayed your lips apart, whether you would or
not, laying your teeth bare to view? This is only a little thing; but
it may help you to conceive something of the strength of a wind that
will play such antics with one's mouth. The sensation it gives is
extremely disagreeable--a sense of foolish impotence, is how I can
best describe it.

Another thing; I learned that, with my face to the wind, I could not
breathe. This is a statement baldly put; but it should help me
somewhat in my endeavour to bring home to you the force of the wind,
as exemplified in the minor details of my experience.

To give some idea of the wind's power, as shown in a larger way, one
of the lifeboats on the after skids was up-ended against the mizzen
mast, and there crushed flat by the wind, as though a monstrous
invisible hand had pinched it. Does this help you a little to gain an
idea of wind-force never met with in a thousand ordinary lives?

Apart from the wind, it must be borne in mind that the gigantic seas
pitch the ship about in a most abominable manner. Indeed, I have seen
the stern of a ship hove up to such a height that I could see the seas
ahead over the fore topsail yards, and when I explain that these will
be something like seventy to eighty feet above the deck, you may be
able to imagine what manner of Sea is to be met with in a great
Cyclonic Storm.

Regarding this matter of the size and ferocity of the seas, I possess
a photograph that was taken about ten o'clock at night. This was
photographed by the aid of flashlight, an operation in which the
Captain assisted me. We filled an old, percussion pistol with
flashlight powder, with an air-cone of paper down the centre. Then,
when I was ready, I opened the shutter of the camera, and pointed it
over the stern into the darkness. The Captain fired the pistol, and,
in the instantaneous great blaze of light that followed, I saw what
manner of sea it was that pursued us. To say it was a mountain, is to
be futile. _It was like a moving cliff._

As I snapped-to the shutter of my camera, the question flashed into my
brain: "Are we going to live it out, after all?" And, suddenly, it
came home to me that I was a little man in a little ship, in the midst
of a very great sea.

And then fresh knowledge came to me; I knew, abruptly, that it would
not be a difficult thing to be very much afraid. The knowledge was
new, and took me more in the stomach than the heart. Afraid! I had
been in so many storms that I had forgotten they might be things to
fear. Hitherto, my sensation at the thought of bad weather had been
chiefly a feeling of annoyed repugnance, due to many memories of
dismal wet nights, in wetter oilskins; with everything about the
vessel reeking with damp and cheerless discomfort. But _fear_----No! A
sailor has no more normal fear of bad weather, than a steeple-jack
fears height. It is, as you might say, his vocation. And now this
hateful sense of insecurity!

I turned from the taffrail, and hurried below to wipe the lens and
cover of my camera; for the whole air was full of driving spray, that
soaked everything, and hurt the face intolerably; being driven with
such force by the storm.

Whilst I was drying my camera, the Mate came down for a minute's
breathing space.

"Still at it?" he said.

"Yes," I replied, and I noticed, half-consciously, that he made no
effort to light his pipe, as he stood with his arm crooked over an
empty, brass candle bracket.

"You'll never develop them," he remarked.

"Of course I shall!" I replied, half-irritably; but with a horrid
little sense of chilliness at his words, which came so unaptly upon my
mind, so lately perturbed by uncomfortable thoughts.

"You'll see," he replied, with a sort of brutal terseness. "We shan't
be above water by midnight!"

"You _can't_ tell," I said. "What's the use of meeting trouble!
Vessels have lived through worse than this?"

"Have they?" he said, very quietly. "Not many vessels have lived
through worse than what's to come. I suppose you realise we expect to
meet the Centre in less than an hour?"

"Well," I replied, "anyway, I shall go on taking photos. I guess if we
come through all right, I shall have something to show people ashore."

He laughed, a queer, little, bitter laugh.

"You may as well do that as anything else," he said. "We can't do
anything to help ourselves. If we're not pooped before the Centre
reaches us, _IT_'ll finish us in quick time!"

Then that cheerful officer of mine turned slowly, and made his way on
deck, leaving me, as may be imagined, particularly exhilarated by his
assurances. Presently, I followed, and, having barred the companionway
behind me, struggled forward to the break of the poop, clutching
blindly at any holdfast in the darkness.

And so, for a space, we waited in the Storm--the wind bellowing
fiendishly, and our maindecks one chaos of broken water, swirling and
roaring to and fro in the darkness.

It was a little later that some one plucked me hard by the sleeve,
and, turning, I made out with difficulty that it was the Captain,
trying to attract my attention. I caught his wrist, to show that I
comprehended what he desired, and, at that, he dropped on his hands
and knees, and crawled aft along the streaming poop deck, I following,
my camera held between my teeth by the handle.

He reached the companionway, and unbarred the starboard door; then
crawled through, and I followed after him. I fastened the door, and
made my way, in his wake, to the saloon. Here he turned to me. He was
a curiously devil-may-care sort of man, and I found that he had
brought me down to explain that the Vortex would be upon us very soon,
and that I should have the chance of a life-time to get a snap of the
much talked of Pyramidal Sea. And, in short, that he wished me to have
everything prepared, and the pistol ready loaded with flashlight
powder; for, as he remarked:

"_If_ we get through, it'll be a rare curiosity to show some of those
unbelieving devils ashore."

In a little, we had everything ready, and then we made our way once
more up on deck; the Captain placing the pistol in the pocket of his
silk oilskin coat.

There, together, under the after weather-cloth, we waited. The Second
Mate, I could not see; but occasionally I caught a vague sight of the
First Mate, standing near the after binnacle,[4] and obviously
watching the steering. Apart from the puny halo that emanated from
the binnacle, all else was blind darkness, save for the phosphorescent
lights of the overhanging crests of the seas.

[Footnote 4: It occurs to me here, as showing in another way the
unusual wind-strength, to mention that, having tried in vain every
usual method of keeping the wind from blowing out the binnacle lamps;
such as stuffing all the crevices with rags, and making temporary
shields for the chimneys, the Skipper had at last resorted to a tiny
electric watch light, which he fixed in the binnacle, and which now
enabled me to get an odd vague glimpse of the Mate, as he hovered near
the compass.]

And above us and around us, filling all the sky with sound, was the
incessant mad yowling of the Cyclone; the noise so vast, and the
volume and mass of the wind so enormous that I am impressed now,
looking back, with a sense of having been in a semi-stunned condition
through those last minutes.

I am conscious now that a vague time passed. A time of noise and
wetness and lethargy and immense tiredness. Abruptly, a tremendous
flash of lightning burst through the clouds. It was followed, almost
directly, by another, which seemed to rive the sky apart. Then, so
quickly that the succeeding thunder-clap was _audible_ to our
wind-deafened ears, the wind ceased, and, in the comparative, but
hideously unnatural, silence, I caught the Captain's voice shouting:

"The Vortex--quick!"

Even as I pointed my camera over the rail, and opened the shutter, my
brain was working with a preternatural avidity, drinking in a thousand
uncanny sounds and echoes that seemed to come upon me from every
quarter, brutally distinct against the background of the Cyclone's
distant howling. There were the harsh, bursting, frightening,
intermittent noises of the seas, making tremendous, slopping crashes
of sound; and, mingling with these, the shrill, hissing scream of the
foam;[5] the dismal sounds, that suggested dankness, of water swirling
over our decks; and oddly, the faintly-heard creaking of the gear and
shattered spars; and then--_Flash_, in the same instant in which I had
taken in these varied impressions, the Captain had fired the pistol,
and I saw the Pyramidal Sea.... A sight never to be forgotten. A sight
rather for the Dead than the Living. A sea such as I could never have
imagined. Boiling and bursting upward in monstrous hillocks of water
and foam as big as houses. I heard, without knowing I heard, the
Captain's expression of amazement. Then a thunderous roar was in my
ears. One of those vast, flying hills of water had struck the ship,
and, for some moments, I had a sickening feeling that she was sinking
beneath me. The water cleared, and I found myself clinging to the iron
weather-cloth staunchion; the weather-cloth itself had gone. I wiped
my eyes, and coughed dizzily for a little; then I stared round for the
Captain. I could see something dimly up against the rail; something
that moved and stood upright. I sung out to know whether it was the
Captain, and whether he was all right? To which he replied, heartily
enough, but with a gasp, that he was all right so far.

[Footnote 5: A description absolute and without exaggeration. Who that
has ever heard the weird, crisp screaming of the foam, in some
momentary lull in a great storm, when a big sea has reared itself
within a few fathoms of one, can ever forget it?]

From him, I glanced across to the wheel. There was no light in the
binnacle, and, later, I found that it had been washed away, and with
it one of the helmsmen. The other man also was gone; but we discovered
him, nigh an hour later, jammed half through the rail that ran round
the poop. To leeward, I heard the Mate singing out to know whether we
were safe; to which both the Captain and I shouted a reply, so as to
assure him. It was then I became aware that my camera had been washed
out of my hands. I found it eventually among a tangle of ropes and
gear to leeward.

Again and again the great hills of water struck the vessel, seeming to
rise up on every side at once--towering, live pyramids of brine, in
the darkness, hurling upward with a harsh unceasing roaring.

From her taffrail to her knight-heads, the ship was swept, fore and
aft, so that no living thing could have existed for a moment down upon
the maindeck, which was practically submerged. Indeed, the whole
vessel seemed at times to be lost beneath the chaos of water that
thundered down and over her in clouds and cataracts of brine and foam,
so that each moment seemed like to be our last.

Occasionally, I would hear the hoarse voice of the Captain or the
Mate, calling through the gloom to one another, or to the figures of
the clinging men. And then again would come the thunder of water, as
the seas burst over us. And all this in an almost impenetrable
darkness, save when some unnatural glare of lightning sundered the
clouds, and lit up the thirty-mile cauldron that had engulfed us.

And, anon, all this while, round about, seeming to come from every
point of the horizon, sounded a vast, but distant, bellowing and
screaming noise, that I caught sometimes above the harsh, slopping
roarings of the bursting water-hills all about us. The sound appeared
now to be growing louder upon our port beam. It was the Storm circling
far round us.

Some time later, there sounded an intense roar in the air above the
ship, and then came a far-off shrieking, that grew rapidly into a
mighty whistling-scream, and a minute afterwards a most tremendous
gust of wind struck the ship on her port side, hurling her over on to
her starboard broadside. For many minutes she lay there, her decks
under water almost up to the coamings of the hatches.[6] Then she
righted, sullenly and slowly, freeing herself from, maybe, half a
thousand tons of water.

Again there came a short period of windlessness, and then once more
the yelling of an approaching gust. It struck us; but now the vessel
had paid off before the wind, and she was not again forced over on to
her side.

From now onward, we drove forward over vast seas, with the Cyclone
bellowing and wailing over us in one unbroken roar.... _The Vortex had
passed_, and, could we but last out a few more hours, then might we
hope to win through.

With the return of the wind, the Mate and one of the men had taken the
wheel; but, despite the most careful steering, we were pooped several
times;[7] for the seas were hideously broken and confused, we being
still in the wake of the Vortex, and the wind not having had time as
yet to smash the Pyramidal Sea into the more regular storm waves,
which, though huge in size, give a vessel a chance to rise to them.

It was later that some of us, headed by the Mate--who had relinquished
his place at the wheel to one of the men--ventured down on to the
maindeck with axes and knives, to clear away the wreckage of some of
the spars which we had lost in the Vortex. Many a grim risk was run in
that hour; but we cleared the wreck, and after that, scrambled back,
dripping, to the poop, where the Steward, looking woefully white and
scared, served out rum to us from a wooden deck-bucket.

[Footnote 6: The Second Mate, who was holding to the rail across the
break of the poop, gave me this information later; he being in a
position to see the maindecks at the time.]

[Footnote 7: Possibly, our being pooped at this time, was due chiefly
to the fact that our speed through the water had diminished, owing to
our having lost more of our spars whilst in the Vortex, and some of
the gear still towing. And a Mercy our sides were not stove a thousand
times!]

It was decided now that we should bring her head to the seas, so as to
make better weather of it. To reduce the risk as much as possible, we
had already put out two fresh oil-bags, which we had prepared, and
which, indeed, we ought to have done earlier; for though they were
being constantly washed aboard again, we had begun at once to take
less water.

Now, we took a hawser from the bows, outside of everything, and right
away aft to the poop, where we bent on our sea-anchor, which was like
an enormous log-bag, or drogue, made of triple canvas.

We bent on our two oil-bags to the sea-anchor, and then dropped the
whole business over the side. When the vessel took the pull of it, we
put down our helm, and came up into the wind, very quick, and without
taking any great water. And a risk it was; but a deal less than some
we had come through already.

Slowly, with an undreamt of slowness, the remainder of the night
passed, minute by minute, and at last the day broke in a weary dawn;
the sky full of a stormy, sickly light. On every side tumbled an
interminable chaos of seas. And the vessel herself----! A wreck, she
appeared. The mizzenmast had gone, some dozen feet above the deck; the
main topmast had gone, and so had the jigger-topmast. I struggled
forrard to the break of the poop, and glanced along the decks. The
boats had gone. All the iron scupper-doors were either bent, or had
disappeared. On the starboard side, opposite to the stump of the
mizzenmast, was a great ragged gap in the steel bulwarks, where the
mast must have struck, when it carried away. In several other places,
the t'gallant rail was smashed or bent, where it had been struck by
falling spars. The side of the teak deck-house had been stove, and the
water was roaring in and out with each roll of the ship. The sheep-pen
had vanished, and so--as I discovered later--had the pigsty.

Further forrard, my glance went, and I saw that the sea had breached
the bulkshead, across the after end of the fo'cas'le, and, with each
biggish sea that we shipped, a torrent of water drove in, and then
flowed out, sometimes bearing with it an odd board, or perhaps a man's
boot, or some article of wearing apparel. In two places on the
maindeck, I saw men's sea-chests, washing to and fro in the water that
streamed over the deck. And, suddenly, there came into my mind a
memory of the poor fellow who had broken his arm when we were cutting
loose the wreck of the fore-topmast.

Already, the strength of the Cyclone was spent, so far, at least, as
we were concerned; and I was thinking of making a try for the
fo'cas'le, when, close beside me, I heard the Mate's voice. I turned,
with a little start. He had evidently noticed the breach in the
bulkshead; for he told me to watch a chance, and see if we could get
forrard.

This, we did; though not without a further thorough sousing; as we
were still shipping water by the score of tons. Moreover, the risk was
considerably greater than might be conceived; for the doorless
scupper-ports offered uncomfortable facilities for gurgling out into
the ocean, along with a ton or two of brine from the decks.

We reached the fo'cas'le, and pulled open the lee door. We stepped
inside. It was like stepping into a dank, gloomy cavern. Water was
dripping from every beam and staunchion. We struggled across the
slippery deck, to where we had left the sick man in his bunk. In the
dim light, we saw that man and bunk, everything, had vanished; only
the bare steel sides of the vessel remained. Every bunk and fitting in
the place had been swept away, and all of the men's sea-chests.
Nothing remained, save, it might be, an odd soaked rag of clothing, or
a sodden bunk-board.

The Mate and I looked at one another, in silence.

"Poor devil!" he said. He repeated his expression of pity, staring at
the place where had been the bunk. Then, grave of face, he turned to
go out on deck. As he did so, a heavier sea than usual broke aboard;
flooded roaring along the decks, and swept in through the broken
bulkshead and the lee doorway. It swirled round the sides, caught us,
and threw us down in a heap; then swept out through the breach and the
doorway, carrying the Mate with it. He managed to grasp the lintel of
the doorway, else, I do believe, he would have gone out through one of
the open scupper traps. A doubly hard fate, after having come safely
through the Cyclone.

Outside of the fo'cas'le, I saw that the ladders leading up to the
fo'cas'le head had both gone; but I managed to scramble up. Here, I
found that both anchors had been washed away, and the rails all round;
only the bare staunchions remaining.

Beyond the bows, the jibboom had gone, and all the gear was draggled
inboard over the fo'cas'le head, or trailing in the sea.

We made our way aft, and reported; then the roll was called, and we
found that no one else was missing, besides the two I have already
mentioned, and the man we found jammed half through the poop rails,
who was now under the Steward's care.

From that time on, the sea went down steadily, until, presently, it
ceased to threaten us, and we proceeded to get the ship cleared up a
bit; after which, one watch turned-in on the floor of the saloon, and
the other was told to "stand easy."

Hour by hour, through that day and the next, the sea went down, until
it was difficult to believe that we had so lately despaired for our
lives. And so the second evening came, calm and restful, the wind no
more than a light summer's breeze, and the sea calming steadily.

About seven bells that second night, a big steamer crossed our stern,
and slowed down to ask us if we were in need of help; for, even by
moonlight, it was easy to see our dismantled condition. This offer,
however, the Captain refused; and with many good wishes, the big
vessel swung off into the moon-wake, and so, presently, we were left
alone in the quiet night; safe at last, and rich in a completed
experience.




THE MYSTERY OF THE DERELICT


All the night had the four-masted ship, _Tarawak_, lain motionless in
the drift of the Gulf Stream; for she had run into a "calm
patch"--into a stark calm which had lasted now for two days and
nights.

On every side, had it been light, might have been seen dense masses of
floating gulf-weed, studding the ocean even to the distant horizon. In
places, so large were the weed-masses that they formed long, low
banks, that by daylight, might have been mistaken for low-lying land.

Upon the lee side of the poop, Duthie, one of the 'prentices, leaned
with his elbows upon the rail, and stared out across the hidden sea,
to where in the Eastern horizon showed the first pink and lemon
streamers of the dawn--faint, delicate streaks and washes of colour.

A period of time passed, and the surface of the leeward sea began to
show--a great expanse of grey, touched with odd, wavering belts of
silver. And everywhere the black specks and islets of the weed.

Presently, the red dome of the sun protruded itself into sight above
the dark rim of the horizon; and, abruptly, the watching Duthie saw
something--a great, shapeless bulk that lay some miles away to
starboard, and showed black and distinct against the gloomy red mass
of the rising sun.

"Something in sight to looard, Sir," he informed the Mate, who was
leaning, smoking, over the rail that ran across the break of the poop.
"I can't just make out what it is."

The Mate rose from his easy position, stretched himself, yawned, and
came across to the boy.

"Whereabouts, Toby?" he asked, wearily, and yawning again.

"There, Sir," said Duthie--alias Toby--"broad away on the beam, and
right in the track of the sun. It looks something like a big
houseboat, or a hay-stack."

The Mate stared in the direction indicated, and saw the thing which
puzzled the boy, and immediately the tiredness went out of his eyes
and face.

"Pass me the glasses off the skylight, Toby," he commanded, and the
youth obeyed.

After the Mate had examined the strange object through his binoculars
for, maybe, a minute, he passed them to Toby, telling him to take a
"squint," and say what he made of it.

"Looks like an old powder-hulk, Sir," exclaimed the lad, after awhile,
and to this description the Mate nodded agreement.

Later, when the sun had risen somewhat, they were able to study the
derelict with more exactness. She appeared to be a vessel of an
exceedingly old type, mastless, and upon the hull of which had been
built a roof-like superstructure; the use of which they could not
determine. She was lying just within the borders of one of the
weed-banks, and all her side was splotched with a greenish growth.

It was her position, within the borders of the weed, that suggested to
the puzzled Mate, how so strange and unseaworthy looking a craft had
come so far abroad into the greatness of the ocean. For, suddenly, it
occurred to him that she was neither more nor less than a derelict
from the vast Sargasso Sea--a vessel that had, possibly, been lost to
the world, scores and scores of years gone, perhaps hundreds. The
suggestion touched the Mate's thoughts with solemnity, and he fell to
examining the ancient hulk with an even greater interest, and
pondering on all the lonesome and awful years that must have passed
over her, as she had lain desolate and forgotten in that grim cemetery
of the ocean.

Through all that day, the derelict was an object of the most intense
interest to those aboard the _Tarawak_, every glass in the ship being
brought into use to examine her. Yet, though within no more than some
six or seven miles of her, the Captain refused to listen to the Mate's
suggestions that they should put a boat into the water, and pay the
stranger a visit; for he was a cautious man, and the glass warned him
that a sudden change might be expected in the weather; so that he
would have no one leave the ship on any unnecessary business. But, for
all that he had caution, curiosity was by no means lacking in him, and
his telescope, at intervals, was turned on the ancient hulk through
all the day.

Then, it would be about six bells in the second dog watch, a sail was
sighted astern, coming up steadily but slowly. By eight bells they
were able to make out that a small barque was bringing the wind with
her; her yards squared, and every stitch set. Yet the night had
advanced apace, and it was nigh to eleven o'clock before the wind
reached those aboard the _Tarawak_. When at last it arrived, there was
a slight rustling and quaking of canvas, and odd creaks here and
there in the darkness amid the gear, as each portion of the running
and standing rigging took up the strain.

Beneath the bows, and alongside, there came gentle rippling noises, as
the vessel gathered way; and so, for the better part of the next hour,
they slid through the water at something less than a couple of knots
in the sixty minutes.

To starboard of them, they could see the red light of the little
barque, which had brought up the wind with her, and was now forging
slowly ahead, being better able evidently than the big, heavy
_Tarawak_ to take advantage of so slight a breeze.

About a quarter to twelve, just after the relieving watch had been
roused, lights were observed to be moving to and fro upon the small
barque, and by midnight it was palpable that, through some cause or
other, she was dropping astern.

When the Mate arrived on deck to relieve the Second, the latter
officer informed him of the possibility that something unusual had
occurred aboard the barque, telling of the lights about her decks,[8]
and how that, in the last quarter of an hour, she had begun to drop
astern.

[Footnote 8: Unshaded lights are never allowed about the decks at
night, as they are likely to blind the vision of the officer of the
watch.--W.H.H.]

On hearing the Second Mate's account, the First sent one of the
'prentices for his night-glasses, and, when they were brought, studied
the other vessel intently, that is, so well as he was able through the
darkness; for, even through the night-glasses, she showed only as a
vague shape, surmounted by the three dim towers of her masts and
sails.

Suddenly, the Mate gave out a sharp exclamation; for, beyond the
barque, there was something else shown dimly in the field of vision.
He studied it with great intentness, ignoring for the instant, the
Second's queries as to what it was that had caused him to exclaim.

All at once, he said, with a little note of excitement in his voice:--

"The derelict! The barque's run into the weed around that old hooker!"

The Second Mate gave a mutter of surprised assent, and slapped the
rail.

"That's it!" he said. "That's why we're passing her. And that explains
the lights. If they're not fast in the weed, they've probably run slap
into the blessed derelict!"

"One thing," said the Mate, lowering his glasses, and beginning to
fumble for his pipe, "she won't have had enough way on her to do much
damage."

The Second Mate, who was still peering through his binoculars,
murmured an absent agreement, and continued to peer. The Mate, for his
part, filled and lit his pipe, remarking meanwhile to the unhearing
Second, that the light breeze was dropping.

Abruptly, the Second Mate called his superior's attention, and in the
same instant, so it seemed, the failing wind died entirely away, the
sails settling down into runkles, with little rustles and flutters of
sagging canvas.

"What's up?" asked the Mate, and raised his glasses.

"There's something queer going on over yonder," said the Second. "Look
at the lights moving about, and----Did you see _that_?"

The last portion of his remark came out swiftly, with a sharp
accentuation of the last word.

"What?" asked the Mate, staring hard.

"They're shooting," replied the Second. "Look! There again!"

"Rubbish!" said the Mate, a mixture of unbelief and doubt in his
voice.

With the falling of the wind, there had come a great silence upon the
sea. And, abruptly, from far across the water, sounded the distant,
dullish thud of a gun, followed almost instantly by several minute,
but sharply defined, reports, like the cracking of a whip out in the
darkness.

"Jove!" cried the Mate, "I believe you're right." He paused and
stared. "There!" he said. "I saw the flashes then. They're firing from
the poop, I believe.... I must call the Old Man."

He turned and ran hastily down into the saloon, knocked on the door of
the Captain's cabin, and entered. He turned up the lamp, and, shaking
his superior into wakefulness, told him of the thing he believed to be
happening aboard the barque:--

"It's mutiny, Sir; they're shooting from the poop. We ought to do
something----" The Mate said many things, breathlessly; for he was a
young man; but the Captain stopped him, with a quietly lifted hand.

"I'll be up with you in a minute, Mr. Johnson," he said, and the Mate
took the hint, and ran up on deck.

Before the minute had passed, the Skipper was on the poop, and staring
through his night-glasses at the barque and the derelict. Yet now,
aboard of the barque, the lights had vanished, and there showed no
more the flashes of discharging weapons--only there remained the dull,
steady red glow of the port sidelight; and, behind it, the
night-glasses showed the shadowy outline of the vessel.

The Captain put questions to the Mates, asking for further details.

"It all stopped while the Mate was calling you, Sir," explained the
Second. "We could hear the shots quite plainly."

"They seemed to be using a gun as well as their revolvers,"
interjected the Mate, without ceasing to stare into the darkness.

For awhile the three of them continued to discuss the matter, whilst
down on the maindeck the two watches clustered along the starboard
rail, and a low hum of talk rose, fore and aft.

Presently, the Captain and the Mates came to a decision. If there had
been a mutiny, it had been brought to its conclusion, whatever that
conclusion might be, and no interference from those aboard the
_Tarawak_, at that period, would be likely to do good. They were
utterly in the dark--in more ways than one--and, for all they knew,
there might not even have been any mutiny. If there had been a mutiny,
and the mutineers had won, then they had done their worst; whilst if
the officers had won well and good. They had managed to do so without
help. Of course, if the _Tarawak_ had been a man-of-war with a large
crew, capable of mastering any situation, it would have been a simple
matter to send a powerful, armed boat's crew to inquire; but as she
was merely a merchant vessel, under-manned, as is the modern fashion,
they must go warily. They would wait for the morning, and signal. In a
couple of hours it would be light. Then they would be guided by
circumstances.

The Mate walked to the break of the poop, and sang out to the men:--

"Now then, my lads, you'd better turn in, the watch below, and have a
sleep; we may be wanting you by five bells."

There was a muttered chorus of "i, i, Sir," and some of the men began
to go forrard to the fo'cas'le; but others of the watch below
remained, their curiosity overmastering their desire for sleep.

On the poop, the three officers leaned over the starboard rail,
chatting in a desultory fashion, as they waited for the dawn. At some
little distance hovered Duthie, who, as eldest 'prentice just out of
his time, had been given the post of acting Third Mate.

Presently, the sky to starboard began to lighten with the solemn
coming of the dawn. The light grew and strengthened, and the eyes of
those in the _Tarawak_ scanned with growing intentness that portion of
the horizon where showed the red and dwindling glow of the barque's
sidelight.

Then, it was in that moment when all the world is full of the silence
of the dawn, something passed over the quiet sea, coming out of the
East--a very faint, long-drawn-out, screaming, piping noise. It might
almost have been the cry of a little wind wandering out of the dawn
across the sea--a ghostly, piping skirl, so attenuated and elusive was
it; but there was in it a weird, almost threatening note, that told
the three on the poop it was no wind that made so dree and inhuman a
sound.

The noise ceased, dying out in an indefinite, mosquito-like shrilling,
far and vague and minutely shrill. And so came the silence again.

"I heard that, last night, when they were shooting," said the Second
Mate, speaking very slowly, and looking first at the Skipper and then
at the Mate. "It was when you were below, calling the Captain," he
added.

"Ssh!" said the Mate, and held up a warning hand; but though they
listened, there came no further sound; and so they fell to disjointed
questionings, and guessed their answers, as puzzled men will. And ever
and anon, they examined the barque through their glasses; but without
discovering anything of note, save that, when the light grew stronger,
they perceived that her jibboom had struck through the superstructure
of the derelict, tearing a considerable gap therein.

Presently, when the day had sufficiently advanced, the Mate sung out
to the Third, to take a couple of the 'prentices, and pass up the
signal flags and the code book. This was done, and a "hoist" made; but
those in the barque took not the slightest heed; so that finally the
Captain bade them make up the flags and return them to the locker.

After that, he went down to consult the glass, and when he reappeared,
he and the Mates had a short discussion, after which, orders were
given to hoist out the starboard life-boat. This, in the course of
half an hour, they managed; and, after that, six of the men and two of
the 'prentices were ordered into her.

Then half a dozen rifles were passed down, with ammunition, and the
same number of cutlasses. These were all apportioned among the men,
much to the disgust of the two apprentices, who were aggrieved that
they should be passed over; but their feelings altered when the Mate
descended into the boat, and handed them each a loaded revolver,
warning them, however, to play no "monkey tricks" with the weapons.

Just as the boat was about to push off, Duthie, the eldest 'prentice,
came scrambling down the side ladder, and jumped for the after
thwart. He landed, and sat down, laying the rifle which he had
brought, in the stern; and, after that, the boat put off for the
barque.

There were now ten in the boat, and all well armed, so that the Mate
had a certain feeling of comfort that he would be able to meet any
situation that was likely to arise.

After nearly an hour's hard pulling, the heavy boat had been brought
within some two hundred yards of the barque, and the Mate sung out to
the men to lie on their oars for a minute. Then he stood up and
shouted to the people on the barque; but though he repeated his cry of
"Ship ahoy!" several times, there came no reply.

He sat down, and motioned to the men to give way again, and so brought
the boat nearer the barque by another hundred yards. Here, he hailed
again; but still receiving no reply, he stooped for his binoculars,
and peered for awhile through them at the two vessels--the ancient
derelict, and the modern sailing-vessel.

The latter had driven clean in over the weed, her stern being perhaps
some two score yards from the edge of the bank. Her jibboom, as I have
already mentioned, had pierced the green-blotched superstructure of
the derelict, so that her cutwater had come very close to the
grass-grown side of the hulk.

That the derelict was indeed a very ancient vessel, it was now easy to
see; for at this distance the Mate could distinguish which was hull,
and which superstructure. Her stern rose up to a height considerably
above her bows, and possessed galleries, coming round the counter. In
the window frames some of the glass still remained; but others were
securely shuttered, and some missing, frames and all, leaving dark
holes in the stern. And everywhere grew the dank, green growth, giving
to the beholder a queer sense of repulsion. Indeed, there was that
about the whole of the ancient craft, that repelled in a curious
way--something elusive--a remoteness from humanity, that was vaguely
abominable.

The Mate put down his binoculars, and drew his revolver, and, at the
action, each one in the boat gave an instinctive glance to his own
weapon. Then he sung out to them to give-way, and steered straight for
the weed. The boat struck it, with something of a sog; and, after
that, they advanced slowly, yard by yard, only with considerable
labour.

They reached the counter of the barque, and the Mate held out his hand
for an oar. This, he leaned up against the side of the vessel, and a
moment later was swarming quickly up it. He grasped the rail, and
swung himself aboard; then, after a swift glance fore and aft, gripped
the blade of the oar, to steady it, and bade the rest follow as
quickly as possible, which they did, the last man bringing up the
painter with him, and making it fast to a cleat.

Then commenced a rapid search through the ship. In several places
about the maindeck they found broken lamps, and aft on the poop, a
shot-gun, three revolvers, and several capstan-bars lying about the
poop-deck. But though they pried into every possible corner, lifting
the hatches, and examining the lazarette, not a human creature was to
be found--the barque was absolutely deserted.

After the first rapid search, the Mate called his men together; for
there was an uncomfortable sense of danger in the air, and he felt
that it would be better not to straggle. Then, he led the way
forrard, and went up on to the t'gallant fo'cas'le head. Here, finding
the port sidelight still burning, he bent over the screen, as it were
mechanically, lifted the lamp, opened it, and blew out the flame; then
replaced the affair on its socket.

After that, he climbed into the bows, and out along the jibboom,
beckoning to the others to follow, which they did, no man saying a
word, and all holding their weapons handily; for each felt the
oppressiveness of the Incomprehensible about them.

The Mate reached the hole in the great superstructure, and passed
inside, the rest following. Here they found themselves in what looked
something like a great, gloomy barracks, the floor of which was the
deck of the ancient craft. The superstructure, as seen from the
inside, was a very wonderful piece of work, being beautifully shored
and fixed; so that at one time it must have possessed immense
strength; though now it was all rotted, and showed many a gape and
rip. In one place, near the centre, or midships part, was a sort of
platform, high up, which the Mate conjectured might have been used as
a "look-out"; though the reason for the prodigious superstructure
itself, he could not imagine.

Having searched the decks of this craft, he was preparing to go below,
when, suddenly, Duthie caught him by the sleeve, and whispered to him,
tensely, to listen. He did so, and heard the thing that had attracted
the attention of the youth--it was a low, continuous shrill whining
that was rising from out of the dark hull beneath their feet, and,
abruptly, the Mate was aware that there was an intensely disagreeable
animal-like smell in the air. He had noticed it, in a subconscious
fashion, when entering through the broken superstructure; but now,
suddenly, he was _aware_ of it.

Then, as he stood there hesitating, the whining noise rose all at once
into a piping, screaming squeal, that filled all the space in which
they were inclosed, with an awful, inhuman and threatening clamour.
The Mate turned and shouted at the top of his voice to the rest, to
retreat to the barque, and he, himself, after a further quick nervous
glance round, hurried towards the place where the end of the barque's
jibboom protruded in across the decks.

He waited, with strained impatience, glancing ever behind him, until
all were off the derelict, and then sprang swiftly on to the spar that
was their bridge to the other vessel. Even as he did so, the squealing
died away into a tiny shrilling, twittering sound, that made him
glance back; for the suddenness of the quiet was as effective as
though it had been a loud noise. What he saw, seemed to him in that
first instant so incredible and monstrous, that he was almost too
shaken to cry out. Then he raised his voice in a shout of warning to
the men, and a frenzy of haste shook him in every fibre, as he
scrambled back to the barque, shouting ever to the men to get into the
boat. For in that backward glance, he had seen the whole decks of the
derelict a-move with living things--giant rats, thousands and tens of
thousands of them; and so in a flash had come to an understanding of
the disappearance of the crew of the barque.

He had reached the fo'cas'le head now, and was running for the steps,
and behind him, making all the long slanting length of the jibboom
black, were the rats, racing after him. He made one leap to the
maindeck, and ran. Behind, sounded a queer, multitudinous pattering
noise, swiftly surging upon him. He reached the poop steps, and as he
sprang up them, felt a savage bite in his left calf. He was on the
poop deck now, and running with a stagger. A score of great rats leapt
around him, and half a dozen hung grimly to his back, whilst the one
that had gripped his calf, flogged madly from side to side as he raced
on. He reached the rail, gripped it, and vaulted clean over and down
into the weed.

The rest were already in the boat, and strong hands and arms hove him
aboard, whilst the others of the crew sweated in getting their little
craft round from the ship. The rats still clung to the Mate; but a few
blows with a cutlass eased him of his murderous burden. Above them,
making the rails and half-round of the poop black and alive, raced
thousands of rats.

The boat was now about an oar's length from the barque, and, suddenly,
Duthie screamed out that _they_ were coming. In the same instant,
nearly a hundred of the largest rats launched themselves at the boat.
Most fell short, into the weed; but over a score reached the boat, and
sprang savagely at the men, and there was a minute's hard slashing and
smiting, before the brutes were destroyed.

Once more the men resumed their task of urging their way through the
weed, and so in a minute or two, had come to within some fathoms of
the edge, working desperately. Then a fresh terror broke upon them.
Those rats which had missed their leap, were now all about the boat,
and leaping in from the weed, running up the oars, and scrambling in
over the sides, and, as each one got inboard, straight for one of the
crew it went; so that they were all bitten and be-bled in a score of
places.

There ensued a short but desperate fight, and then, when the last of
the beasts had been hacked to death, the men lay once more to the
task of heaving the boat clear of the weed.

A minute passed, and they had come almost to the edge, when Duthie
cried out, to look; and at that, all turned to stare at the barque,
and perceived the thing that had caused the 'prentice to cry out; for
the rats were leaping down into the weed in black multitudes, making
the great weed-fronds quiver, as they hurled themselves in the
direction of the boat. In an incredibly short space of time, all the
weed between the boat and the barque, was alive with the little
monsters, coming at breakneck speed.

The Mate let out a shout, and, snatching an oar from one of the men,
leapt into the stern of the boat, and commenced to thrash the weed
with it, whilst the rest laboured infernally to pluck the boat forth
into the open sea. Yet, despite their mad efforts, and the
death-dealing blows of the Mate's great fourteen-foot oar, the black,
living mass were all about the boat, and scrambling aboard in scores,
before she was free of the weed. As the boat shot into the clear
water, the Mate gave out a great curse, and, dropping his oar, began
to pluck the brutes from his body with his bare hands, casting them
into the sea. Yet, fast almost as he freed himself, others sprang upon
him, so that in another minute he was like to have been pulled down,
for the boat was alive and swarming with the pests, but that some of
the men got to work with their cutlasses, and literally slashed the
brutes to pieces, sometimes killing several with a single blow. And
thus, in a while, the boat was freed once more; though it was a sorely
wounded and frightened lot of men that manned her.

The Mate himself took an oar, as did all those who were able. And so
they rowed slowly and painfully away from that hateful derelict,
whose crew of monsters even then made the weed all of a-heave with
hideous life.

From the _Tarawak_ came urgent signals for them to haste; by which the
Mate knew that the storm, which the Captain had feared, must be coming
down upon the ship, and so he spurred each one to greater endeavour,
until, at last, they were under the shadow of their own vessel, with
very thankful hearts, and bodies, bleeding, tired and faint.

Slowly and painfully, the boat's crew scrambled up the side-ladder,
and the boat was hoisted aboard; but they had no time then to tell
their tale; for the storm was upon them.

It came half an hour later, sweeping down in a cloud of white fury
from the Eastward, and blotting out all vestiges of the mysterious
derelict and the little barque which had proved her victim. And after
that, for a weary day and night, they battled with the storm. When it
passed, nothing was to be seen, either of the two vessels or of the
weed which had studded the sea before the storm; for they had been
blown many a score of leagues to the Westward of the spot, and so had
no further chance--nor, I ween, inclination--to investigate further
the mystery of that strange old derelict of a past time, and her
habitants of rats.

Yet, many a time, and in many fo'cas'les has this story been told; and
many a conjecture has been passed as to how came that ancient craft
abroad there in the ocean. Some have suggested--as indeed I have made
bold to put forth as fact--that she must have drifted out of the
lonesome Sargasso Sea. And, in truth, I cannot but think this the most
reasonable supposition. Yet, of the rats that evidently dwelt in her,
I have no reasonable explanation to offer. Whether they were true
ship's rats, or a species that is to be found in the weed-haunted
plains and islets of the Sargasso Sea, I cannot say. It may be that
they are the descendants of rats that lived in ships long centuries
lost in the Weed Sea, and which have learned to live among the weed,
forming new characteristics, and developing fresh powers and
instincts. Yet, I cannot say; for I speak entirely without authority,
and do but tell this story as it is told in the fo'cas'le of many an
old-time sailing ship--that dark, brine-tainted place where the young
men learn somewhat of the mysteries of the all mysterious sea.




THE SHAMRAKEN HOMEWARD-BOUNDER


The old _Shamraken_, sailing-ship, had been many days upon the waters.
She was old--older than her masters, and that was saying a good deal.
She seemed in no hurry, as she lifted her bulging, old, wooden sides
through the seas. What need for hurry! She would arrive some time, in
some fashion, as had been her habit heretofore.

Two matters were especially noticeable among her crew--who were also
her masters--; the first the agedness of each and everyone; the second
the _family_ sense which appeared to bind them, so that the ship
seemed manned by a crew, all of whom were related one to the other;
yet it was not so.

A strange company were they, each man bearded, aged and grizzled; yet
there was nothing of the inhumanity of old age about them, save it
might be in their freedom from grumbling, and the calm content which
comes only to those in whom the more violent passions have died.

Had anything to be done, there was nothing of the growling,
inseparable from the average run of sailor men. They went aloft to the
"job"--whatever it might be--with the wise submission which is brought
only by age and experience. Their work was gone through with a certain
slow pertinacity--a sort of tired steadfastness, born of the
knowledge that such work _had_ to be done. Moreover, their hands
possessed the ripe skill which comes only from exceeding practice, and
which went far to make amends for the feebleness of age. Above all,
their movements, slow as they might be, were remorseless in their lack
of faltering. They had so often performed the same kind of work, that
they had arrived, by the selection of utility, at the shortest and
most simple methods of doing it.

They had, as I have said, been many days upon the water, though I am
not sure that any man in her knew to a nicety the number of those
days. Though Skipper Abe Tombes--addressed usually as Skipper Abe--may
have had some notion; for he might be seen at times gravely adjusting
a prodigious quadrant, which suggests that he kept some sort of record
of time and place.

Of the crew of the _Shamraken_, some half dozen were seated, working
placidly at such matters of seamanship as were necessary. Besides
these, there were others about the decks. A couple who paced the lee
side of the main deck, smoking, and exchanging an occasional word. One
who sat by the side of a worker, and made odd remarks between draws at
his pipe. Another, out upon the jibboom, who fished, with a line, hook
and white rag, for bonito. This last was Nuzzie, the ship's boy. He
was grey-bearded, and his years numbered five and fifty. A boy of
fifteen he had been, when he joined the _Shamraken_, and "boy" he was
still, though forty years had passed into eternity, since the day of
his "signing on"; for the men of the _Shamraken_ lived in the past,
and thought of him only as the "boy" of that past.

It was Nuzzie's watch below--his time for sleeping. This might have
been said also of the other three men who talked and smoked; but for
themselves they had scarce a thought of sleep. Healthy age sleeps
little, and they were in health, though so ancient.

Presently, one of those who walked the lee side of the main deck,
chancing to cast a glance forrard, observed Nuzzie still to be out
upon the jibboom, jerking his line so as to delude some foolish bonito
into the belief that the white rag was a flying-fish.

The smoker nudged his companion.

"Time thet b'y 'ad 'is sleep."

"i, i, mate," returned the other, withdrawing his pipe, and giving a
steadfast look at the figure seated out upon the jibboom.

For the half of a minute they stood there, very effigies of Age's
implacable determination to rule rash Youth. Their pipes were held in
their hands, and the smoke rose up in little eddies from the
smouldering contents of the bowls.

"Thar's no tamin' of thet b'y!" said the first man, looking very stern
and determined. Then he remembered his pipe, and took a draw.

"B'ys is tur'ble queer critters," remarked the second man, and
remembered his pipe in turn.

"Fishin' w'en 'e orter be sleepin'," snorted the first man.

"B'ys needs a tur'ble lot er sleep," said the second man. "I 'member
w'en I wor a b'y. I reckon it's ther growin'."

And all the time poor Nuzzie fished on.

"Guess I'll jest step up an' tell 'im ter come in outer thet,"
exclaimed the first man, and commenced to walk towards the steps
leading up on to the fo'cas'le head.

"B'y!" he shouted, as soon as his head was above the level of the
fo'cas'le deck. "B'y!"

Nuzzie looked round, at the second call.

"Eh?" he sung out.

"Yew come in outer thet," shouted the older man, in the somewhat
shrill tone which age had brought to his voice. "Reckon we'll be
'avin' yer sleepin' at the wheel ter night."

"i," joined in the second man, who had followed his companion up on to
the fo'cas'le head. "Come in, b'y, an' get ter yer bunk."

"Right," called Nuzzie, and commenced to coil up his line. It was
evident that he had no thought of disobeying. He came in off the spar,
and went past them without a word, on the way to turn in.

They, on their part, went down slowly off the fo'cas'le head, and
resumed their walk fore and aft along the lee side of the main deck.


2

"I reckon, Zeph," said the man who sat upon the hatch and smoked, "I
reckon as Skipper Abe's 'bout right. We've made a trifle o' dollars
outer the old 'ooker, an' we don't get no younger."

"Ay, thet's so, right 'nuff," returned the man who sat beside him,
working at the stropping of a block.

"An' it's 'bout time's we got inter the use o' bein' ashore," went on
the first man, who was named Job.

Zeph gripped the block between his knees, and fumbled in his hip
pocket for a plug. He bit off a chew and replaced the plug.

"Seems cur'ous this is ther last trip, w'en yer comes ter think uv
it," he remarked, chewing steadily, his chin resting on his hand.

Job took two or three deep draws at his pipe before he spoke.

"Reckon it had ter come sumtime," he said, at length. "I've a purty
leetle place in me mind w'er' I'm goin' ter tie up. 'Ave yer thought
erbout it, Zeph?"

The man who held the block between his knees, shook his head, and
stared away moodily over the sea.

"Dunno, Job, as I know what I'll do w'en ther old 'ooker's sold," he
muttered. "Sence M'ria went, I don't seem nohow ter care 'bout bein'
'shore."

"I never 'ad no wife," said Job, pressing down the burning tobacco in
the bowl of his pipe. "I reckon seafarin' men don't ought ter have no
truck with wives."

"Thet's right 'nuff, Job, fer yew. Each man ter 'is taste. I wer'
tur'ble fond uv M'ria----" he broke off short, and continued to stare
out over the sea.

"I've allus thought I'd like ter settle down on er farm o' me own. I
guess the dollars I've arned 'll do the trick," said Job.

Zeph made no reply, and, for a time, they sat there, neither speaking.

Presently, from the door of the fo'cas'le, on the starboard side, two
figures emerged. They were also of the "watch below." If anything,
they seemed older than the rest of those about the decks; their
beards, white, save for the stain of tobacco juice, came nearly to
their waists. For the rest, they had been big vigorous men; but were
now sorely bent by the burden of their years. They came aft, walking
slowly. As they came opposite to the main hatch, Job looked up and
spoke--

"Say, Nehemiah, thar's Zeph here's been thinkin' 'bout M'ria, an' I
ain't bin able ter peek 'im up nohow."

The smaller of the two newcomers shook his head slowly.

"We hev oor trubbles," he said. "We hev oor trubbles. I hed mine w'en
I lost my datter's gell. I wor powerful took wi' thet gell, she wor
that winsome; but it wor like ter be--it wor like ter be, an' Zeph's
hed his trubble sence then."

"M'ria wer' a good wife ter me, she wer'," said Zeph, speaking slowly.
"An' now th' old 'ooker's goin', I'm feared as I'll find it mighty
lonesome ashore yon," and he waved his hand, as though suggesting
vaguely that the shore lay anywhere beyond the starboard rail.

"Ay," remarked the second of the newcomers. "It's er weary thing tu me
as th' old packet's goin'. Six and sixty year hev I sailed in her. Six
and sixty year!" He nodded his head, mournfully, and struck a match
with shaky hands.

"It's like ter be," said the smaller man. "It's like ter be."

And, with that, he and his companion moved over to the spar that lay
along under the starboard bulwarks, and there seated themselves, to
smoke and meditate.


3

Skipper Abe, and Josh Matthews, the First Mate, were standing together
beside the rail which ran across the break of the poop. Like the rest
of the men of the _Shamraken_, their age had come upon them, and the
frost of eternity had touched their beards and hair.

Skipper Abe was speaking:--

"It's harder 'n I'd thought," he said, and looked away from the Mate,
staring hard along the worn, white-scoured decks.

"Dunno w'at I'll du, Abe, w'en she's gone," returned the old Mate.
"She's been a 'ome fer us these sixty years an' more." He knocked out
the old tobacco from his pipe, as he spoke, and began to cut a
bowl-full of fresh.

"It's them durned freights!" exclaimed the Skipper. "We're jest losin'
dollars every trip. It's them steam packets as hes knocked us out."

He sighed wearily, and bit tenderly at his plug.

"She's been a mighty comfertable ship," muttered Josh, in soliloquy.
"An' sence thet b'y o' mine went, I sumhow thinks less o' goin' ashore
'n I used ter. I ain't no folk left on all thar 'arth."

He came to an end, and began with his old trembling fingers to fill
his pipe.

Skipper Abe said nothing. He appeared to be occupied with his own
thoughts. He was leaning over the rail across the break of the poop,
and chewing steadily. Presently, he straightened himself up and walked
over to leeward. He expectorated, after which he stood there for a few
moments, taking a short look round--the result of half a century of
habit. Abruptly, he sung out to the Mate....

"Wat d'yer make outer it?" he queried, after they had stood awhile,
peering.

"Dunno, Abe, less'n it's some sort o' mist, riz up by ther 'eat."

Skipper Abe shook his head; but having nothing better to suggest, held
his peace for awhile.

Presently, Josh spoke again:--

"Mighty cur'us, Abe. These are strange parts."

Skipper Abe nodded his assent, and continued to stare at that which
had come into sight upon the lee bow. To them, as they looked, it
seemed that a vast wall of rose-coloured mist was rising towards the
zenith. It showed nearly ahead, and at first had seemed no more than a
bright cloud upon the horizon; but already had reached a great way
into the air, and the upper edge had taken on wondrous flame-tints.

"It's powerful nice-lookin'," said Josh. "I've allus 'eard as things
was diff'rent out 'n these parts."

Presently, as the _Shamraken_ drew near to the mist, it appeared to
those aboard that it filled all the sky ahead of them, being spread
out now far on either bow. And so in a while they entered into it,
and, at once, the aspect of all things was changed.... The mist, in
great rosy wreaths, floated all about them, seeming to soften and
beautify every rope and spar, so that the old ship had become, as it
were, a fairy craft in an unknown world.

"Never seen nothin' like it, Abe--nothin'!" said Josh. "Ey! but it's
fine! It's fine! Like 's ef we'd run inter ther sunset."

"I'm mazed, just mazed!" exclaimed Skipper Abe, "but I'm 'gree'ble as
it's purty, mighty purty."

For a further while, the two old fellows stood without speech, just
gazing and gazing. With their entering into the mist, they had come
into a greater quietness than had been theirs out upon the open sea.
It was as though the mist muffled and toned down the creak, creak, of
the spars and gear; and the big, foamless seas that rolled past them,
seemed to have lost something of their harsh whispering roar of
greeting.

"Sort o' unarthly, Abe," said Josh, later, and speaking but little
above a whisper. "Like as ef yew was in church."

"Ay," replied Skipper Abe. "It don't seem nat'rel."

"Shouldn't think as 'eaven was all thet diff'rent," whispered Josh.
And Skipper Abe said nothing in contradiction.

4

Sometime later, the wind began to fail, and it was decided that, when
eight-bells was struck, all hands should set the main t'gallant.
Presently, Nuzzie having been called (for he was the only one aboard
who had turned in) eight bells went, and all hands put aside their
pipes, and prepared to tail on to the ha'lyards; yet no one of them
made to go up to loose the sail. That was the b'y's job, and Nuzzie
was a little late in coming out on deck. When, in a minute, he
appeared, Skipper Abe spoke sternly to him.

"Up now, b'y, an' loose thet sail. D'y think to let er grown man dew
suchlike work! Shame on yew!"

And Nuzzie, the grey-bearded "b'y" of five and fifty years, went aloft
humbly, as he was bidden.

Five minutes later, he sung out that all was ready for hoisting, and
the string of ancient Ones took a strain on the ha'lyards. Then
Nehemiah, being the chaunty man, struck up in his shrill quaver:--

"Thar wor an ole farmer in Yorkshire did dwell."

And the shrill piping of the ancient throats took up the refrain:--

"Wi' me ay, ay, blow thar lan' down."

Nehemiah caught up the story:--

"'e 'ad 'n ole wife, 'n 'e wished 'er in 'ell."

"Give us some time ter blow thar lan' down," came the quavering chorus
of old voices.

"O, thar divvel come to 'im one day at thar plough," continued old
Nehemiah; and the crowd of ancients followed up with the
refrain:--"Wi' me ay, ay, blow thar lan' down."

"I've comed fer th' ole woman, I mun 'ave 'er now," sang Nehemiah. And
again the refrain:--"Give us some time ter blow thar lan' down,"
shrilled out.

And so on to the last couple of stanzas. And all about them, as they
chaunteyed, was that extraordinary, rose-tinted mist; which, above,
blent into a marvellous radiance of flame-colour, as though, just a
little higher than their mastheads, the sky was one red ocean of
silent fire.

"Thar wor three leetle divvels chained up ter thar wall," sang
Nehemiah, shrilly.

" Wi' me ay, ay, blow thar lan' down," came the piping chorus.

"She tuk off 'er clog, 'n she walloped 'em all," chaunted old
Nehemiah, and again followed the wheezy, age-old refrain.

"These three leetle divvels fer marcy did bawl," quavered Nehemiah,
cocking one eye upward to see whether the yard was nearly mast-headed.

"Wi' me ay, ay, blow thar lan' down," came the chorus.

"Chuck out this ole hag, or she'll mur----"

"Belay," sung out Josh, cutting across the old sea song, with the
sharp command. The chaunty had ceased with the first note of the
Mate's voice, and a couple of minutes later, the ropes were coiled up,
and the old fellows back to their occupations.

It is true that eight bells had gone, and that the watch was supposed
to be changed; and changed it was, so far as the wheel and look-out
were concerned; but otherwise little enough difference did it make to
those sleep-proof ancients. The only change visible in the men about
the deck, was that those who had previously only smoked, now smoked
and worked; while those who had hitherto worked and smoked, now only
smoked. Thus matters went on in all amity; while the old _Shamraken_
passed onward like a rose-tinted shadow through the shining mist, and
only the great, silent, lazy seas that came at her, out from the
enshrouding redness, seemed aware that she was anything more than the
shadow she appeared.

Presently, Zeph sung out to Nuzzie to get their tea from the galley,
and so, in a little, the watch below were making their evening meal.
They ate it as they sat upon the hatch or spar, as the chance might
be; and, as they ate, they talked with their mates, of the watch on
deck, upon the matter of the shining mist into which they had plunged.
It was obvious, from their talk, that the extraordinary phenomenon had
impressed them vastly, and all the superstition in them seemed to have
been waked to fuller life. Zeph, indeed, made no bones of declaring
his belief that they were nigh to something more than earthly. He said
that he had a feeling that "M'ria' was somewhere near to him.

"Meanin' ter say as we've come purty near ter 'eaven?" said Nehemiah,
who was busy thrumming a paunch mat, for chafing gear.

"Dunno," replied Zeph; "but"--making a gesture towards the hidden
sky--"yew'll 'low as it's mighty wonderful, 'n I guess ef 'tis 'eaven,
thar's some uv us as is growin' powerful wearied uv 'arth. I guess I'm
feelin' peeky fer a sight uv M'ria."

Nehemiah nodded his head slowly, and the nod seemed to run round the
group of white-haired ancients.

"Reckon my datter's gell 'll be thar," he said, after a space of
pondering. "Be s'prisin' ef she 'n M'ria 'd made et up ter know one
anuther."

"M'ria wer' great on makin' friends," remarked Zeph, meditatively, "an
gells wus awful friendly wi' 'er. Seemed as she hed er power thet
way."

"I never 'ad no wife," said Job, at this point, somewhat irrelevantly.
It was a fact of which he was proud, and he made a frequent boast of
it.

"Thet's naught ter cocker thysel on, lad," exclaimed one of the
white-beards, who, until this time, had been silent. "Thou'lt find
less folk in heaven t' greet thee."

"Thet's trewth, sure 'nuff, Jock," assented Nehemiah, and fixed a
stern look on Job; whereat Job retired into silence.

Presently, at three bells, Josh came along and told them to put away
their work for the day.


5

The second dog watch came, and Nehemiah and the rest of his side, made
their tea out upon the main hatch, along with their mates. When this
was finished, as though by common agreement, they went every one and
sat themselves upon the pin-rail running along under the t'gallant
bulwarks; there, with their elbows upon the rail, they faced outward
to gaze their full at the mystery of colour which had wrapped them
about. From time to time, a pipe would be removed, and some slowly
evolved thought given an utterance.

Eight bells came and went; but, save for the changing of the wheel and
look-out, none moved from his place.

Nine o'clock, and the night came down upon the sea; but to those
within the mist, the only result was a deepening of the rose colour
into an intense red, which seemed to shine with a light of its own
creating. Above them, the unseen sky seemed to be one vast blaze of
silent, blood-tinted flame.

"Piller uv cloud by day, 'n er piller uv fire by night," muttered Zeph
to Nehemiah, who crouched near.

"I reckon's them's Bible words," said Nehemiah.

"Dunno," replied Zeph; "but them's thar very words as I heerd passon
Myles a sayin' w'en thar timber wor afire down our way. 'Twer' mostly
smoke 'n daylight; but et tamed ter 'n etarnal fire w'en thar night
comed."

At four bells, the wheel and look-out were relieved, and a little
later, Josh and Skipper Abe came down on to the main deck.

"Tur'ble queer," said Skipper Abe, with an affectation of
indifference.

"Aye, 'tes, sure," said Nehemiah.

And after that, the two old men sat among the others, and watched.

At five bells, half-past ten, there was a murmur from those who sat
nearest to the bows, and a cry from the man on the look-out. At that,
the attention of all was turned to a point nearly right ahead. At this
particular spot, the mist seemed to be glowing with a curious,
unearthly red brilliance; and, a minute later, there burst upon their
vision a vast arch, formed of blazing red clouds.

At the sight, each and every one cried out their amazement, and
immediately began to run towards the fo'cas'le head. Here they
congregated in a clump, the Skipper and the Mate among them. The arch
appeared now to extend its arc far beyond either bow, so that the ship
was heading to pass right beneath it.

"Tis 'eaven fer sure," murmured Josh to himself; but Zeph heard him.

"Reckon's them's ther Gates uv Glory thet M'ria wus allus talkin'
'bout," he replied.

"Guess I'll see thet b'y er mine in er little," muttered Josh, and he
craned forward, his eyes very bright and eager.

All about the ship was a great quietness. The wind was no more now
than a light steady breath upon the port quarter; but from right
ahead, as though issuing from the mouth of the radiant arch, the
long-backed, foamless seas rolled up, black and oily.

Suddenly, amid the silence, there came a low musical note, rising and
falling like the moan of a distant olian harp. The sound appeared to
come from the direction of the arch, and the surrounding mist seemed
to catch it up and send it sobbing and sobbing in low echoes away into
the redness far beyond sight.

"They'm singin'," cried Zeph. "M'ria wer' allus tur'ble fond uv
singin'. Hark ter----"

"'Sh!" interrupted Josh. "Thet's my b'y!" His shrill old voice had
risen almost to a scream.

"It's wunnerful--wunnerful; just mazin'!" exclaimed Skipper Abe.

Zeph had gone a little forrard of the crowd. He was shading his eyes
with his hands, and staring intently, his expression denoting the most
intense excitement.

"B'lieve I see 'er. B'lieve I see 'er," he was muttering to himself,
over and over again.

Behind him, two of the old men were steadying Nehemiah, who felt, as
he put it, "a bit mazy at thar thought o' seein' thet gell."

Away aft, Nuzzie, the "b'y," was at the wheel. He had heard the
moaning; but, being no more than a boy, it must be supposed that he
knew nothing of the _nearness_ of the next world, which was so evident
to the men, his masters.

A matter of some minutes passed, and Job, who had in mind that farm
upon which he had set his heart, ventured to suggest that heaven was
less near than his mates supposed; but no one seemed to hear him, and
he subsided into silence.

It was the better part of an hour later, and near to midnight, when a
murmur among the watchers announced that a fresh matter had come to
sight. They were yet a great way off from the arch; but still the
thing showed clearly--a prodigious umbel, of a deep, burning red; but
the crest of it was black, save for the very apex which shone with an
angry red glitter.

'Thar Throne uv God!" cried out Zeph, in a loud voice, and went down
upon his knees. The rest of the old men followed his example, and even
old Nehemiah made a great effort to get to that position.

'Simly we'm a'most 'n 'eaven," he muttered huskily.

Skipper Abe got to his feet, with an abrupt movement. He had never
heard of that extraordinary electrical phenomenon, seen once perhaps
in a hundred years--the "Fiery Tempest" which precedes certain great
Cyclonic Storms; but his experienced eye had suddenly discovered that
the red-shining umbel was truly a low, whirling water-hill, reflecting
the red light. He had no theoretical knowledge to tell him that the
thing was produced by an enormous air-vortice; but he had often seen a
waterspout form. Yet, he was still undecided. It was all so beyond
him; though, certainly, that monstrous gyrating hill of water, sending
out a reflected glitter of burning red, appealed to him as having no
place in his ideas of Heaven. And then, even as he hesitated, came the
first, wild-beast bellow of the coming Cyclone. As the sound smote
upon their ears, the old men looked at one another with bewildered,
frightened eyes.

"Reck'n thet's God speakin'," whispered Zeph. "Guess we're on'y
mis'rable sinners."

The next instant, the breath of the Cyclone was in their throats, and
the _Shamraken_, homeward-bounder, passed in through the everlasting
portals.




GREY SEAS ARE DREAMING OF MY DEATH


    I know grey seas are dreaming of my death,
    Out on grey plains where foam is lost in sleep,
    Where one damp wind wails on continually,
    And no life lives in the forgotten air.
    Ayhie! Yoi! but oh! the mood doth change,
    The sea doth lift me high on living mountains;
    As a mother guards her babe
    So the fierce hills round me range,
    And a Voice goes on and on in mighty laughter--
    The joyous call of Strength which doth enguard me.
    Ayhie! Yoi! All the splendour of the sea
    Doth guard me from the slaughter.
    Oh! Men in weary lands
    Lift up your hearts and hands,
    And weep ye are not me,
    Child of all the sea
    Out upon the foam among the fountains
    And the glory
    And the magic of this water world
    Where in childhood I was hurled,
    Weep, for I am dying in my glory;
    And the foam swings round and sings,
    And the great seas chaunt; and the whitened hills are falling;
    And I am dying in my glory, dying----
    Dying, dying, dying----


PRINTED AT
THE CHAPEL RIVER PRESS,
KINGSTON, SURREY.




[End of _Men of the Deep Waters_ by William Hope Hodgson]
