The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea
Page 21
“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 wonnerful, ’n I guess of ’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.
V
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 lookout, 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 tarned ter ’n etarnal fire w’en thar night comed.”
At four bells, the wheel and lookout were relieved, and a little later, Josh and Skipper Abe carne 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 lookout. 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 beyond 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 aeolian 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 water-spout 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 rnis’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.
Out of the Storm
Hush!” said my friend the scientist, as I walked into his laboratory. I had opened my lips to speak; but stood silent for a few minutes at his request.
He was sitting at his instrument, and the thing was tapping out a message in a curiously irregular fashion—stopping a few seconds, then going on at a furious pace.
It was during a somewhat longer than usual pause that, growing slightly impatient, I ventured to address him.
“Anything important?” I asked.
“For God’s sake, shut up!” he answered back in a high, strained voice.
I stared. I am used to pretty abrupt treatment from him at times when he is much engrossed in some particular experiment; but this was going a little too far, and I said so.
He was writing, and, for reply, he pushed several loosely written sheets over to me with the one curt word, “Read!”
With a sense half of anger, half of curiosity, I picked up the first and glanced at it. After a few lines, I was gripped and held securely by a morbid interest. I was reading a message from one in the last extremity. I will give it word for word:—
“John, we are sinking! I wonder if you really understand what I feel at the present time—you sitting comfortably in your laboratory, I out here upon the waters, already one among the dead. Yes, we are doomed. There is no such thing as help in our case. We are sinking—steadily, remorselessly. God! I must keep up and be a man! I need not tell you that I am in the operator’s room. All the rest are on deck—or dead in the hungry thing which is smashing the ship to pieces.
“I do not know where we are, and there is no one of whom I can ask. The last of the officers was drowned nearly an hour ago, and the vessel is now little more than a sort of breakwater for the giant seas.
“Once, about half an hour ago, I went out onto the deck. My God! the sight was terrible. It is a little after midday; but the sky is the colour of mud—do you understand?—grey mud! Down from it there hang vast lappets of clouds. Not such clouds as I have ever before seen; but monstrous, mildewed-looking hulls. They show solid, save where the frightful wind tears their lower edges into great feelers that swirl savagely above us, like the tentacles of some enormous Horror.
“Such a sight is difficult to describe to the living; though the Dead of the Sea know of it without words of mine. It is such a sight that none is allowed to see and live. It is a picture for the doomed and the dead; one of the sea’s hell-orgies—one of the Thing’s monstrous gloatings over the living—say the alive-in-death, those upon the brink. I have no right to tell of it to you; to speak of it to one of the living is to initiate innocence into one of the infernal mysteries—to talk of foul things to a child. Yet I care not! I will expose, in all its hideous nakedness, the death-side of the sea. The undoomed living shall know some of the things that death has hitherto so well guarded. Death knows not of this little instrument beneath my hands that connects me still with the quick, else would he haste to quiet me.
“Hark you, John! I have learnt undreamt of things in this little time of waiting. I know now why we are afraid of the dark. I had never imagined such secrets of the sea and the grave (which are one and the same).
“Listen! Ah, but I was forgetting you cannot hear! I can! The Sea is—Hush! the Sea is laughing, as though Hell cackled from the mouth of an ass. It is jeering. I can hear its voice echo like Satanic thunder amid the mud overhead—It is calling to me! call—I must go—The sea calls!
“Oh! God, art Thou indeed God? Canst Thou sit above and watch calmly that which I have just seen? Nay! Thou art no God! Thou art weak and puny beside this foul Thing which Thou didst create in Thy lusty youth. It is now God—and I am one of its children.
“Are you there, John? Why don’t you answer! Listen! I ignore God; for there is a stronger than He. My God is here, beside me, around me, and will be soon above me. You know what that means. It is merciless. The sea is now all the God there is! That is one of the things I have learnt.
“Listen! it, is laughing again. God is it, not He.
“It called, and I went out onto the decks. All was terrible. It is in the waist—everywhere. It has swamped the ship. Only the forecastle, bridge and poop stick up out from the bestial, reeking Thing, like three islands in the midst of shrieking foam. At times gigantic billows assail the ship from both sides. They form momentary arches above the vessel—arches of dull, curved water half a hundred feet towards the hideous sky. Then they descend—roaring. Think of it! You cannot.
“There is an infection of sin in the air: it is the exhalations from the Thing. Those left upon the drenched islets of shattered wood and iron are doing the most horrible things. The Thing is teaching them. Later, I felt the vile informing of its breath; but I have fled back here—to pray for death.
“On the forecastle, I saw a mother and her little son clinging to an iron rail. A great billow heaved up above them—descended in a falling mountain of brine. It passed, and they were still there. The Thing was only toying with them; yet, all the same, it had torn the hands of the child from the rail, and the child was clinging frantically to its Mother’s arm. I saw another vast hill hurl up to port and hover above them. Then the Mother stooped and bit like a foul beast at the hands of her wee son. She was afraid that his little additional weight would be more than she could hold. I heard his scream even where I stood—it drove to me upon that wild laughter. It told me again that God is not He, but It. Then the hill thundered down upon those two. It seemed to me that the Thing gave a bellow as it leapt. It roared about them churning and growling; then surged away, and there was only one—the Mother. There appeared to me to be blood as well as water upon her face, especially about her mouth; but the distance was too great, and I cannot be sure. I looked away. Close to me, I saw something further—a beautiful young girl (her soul hideous with the breath of the
Thing) struggling with her sweetheart for the shelter of the chart-house side. He threw her off; but she came back at him. I saw her hand come from her head, where still clung the wreckage of some form of headgear. She struck at him. He shouted and fell away to leeward, and she—smiled, showing her teeth. So much for that. I turned elsewhere.
“Out upon the Thing, I saw gleams, horrid and suggestive, below the crests of the waves. I have never seen them until this time. I saw a rough sailorman washed away from the vessel. One of the huge breakers snapped at him! —Those things were teeth. It has teeth. I heard them clash. I heard his yell. It was no more than a mosquito’s shrilling amid all that laughter; but it was very terrible. There is worse than death.
“The ship is lurching very queerly with a sort of sickening heave—
“I fancy I have been asleep. No—I remember now. I hit my head when she rolled so strangely. My leg is doubled under me. I think it is broken; but it does not matter—
“I have been praying. I—I—What was it? I feel calmer, more resigned, now. I think I have been mad. What was it that I was saying? I cannot remember. It was something about—about—God. I—I believe I blasphemed. May He forgive me! Thou knowest, God, that I was not in my right mind. Thou knowest that I am very weak. Be with me in the coming time! I have sinned; but Thou art all merciful.
“Are you there, John? It is very near the end now. I had so much to say; but it all slips from me. What was it that I said? I take it all back. I was mad, and—and God knows. He is merciful, and I have very little pain now. I feel a bit drowsy.
“I wonder whether you are there, John. Perhaps, after all, no one has heard the things I have said. It is better so. The Living are not meant—and yet, I do not know. If you are there, John, you will—you will tell her how it was; but not—not—Hark! there was such a thunder of water overhead just then. I fancy two vast seas have met in mid-air across the top of the bridge and burst all over the vessel. It must be soon now—and there was such a number of things I had to say! I can hear voices in the wind. They are singing. It is like an enormous dirge—