The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea

by William Hope Hodgson

  The big officer never stirred, and the passenger began backing to get the skylight between him and the Second Mate. He reached the weather side and paused nervously. Then, and not till then, the officer turned his back upon him, and, without vouchsafing a glance in the direction of the girl, walked forward toward the break of the poop.

  As she made to go below, she heard the little steersman mutter something to the defeated man; and he, now that he was in no instant danger of annihilation, raised his voice to a blusterous growl. But the big man?

  III

  The fore-hands of the big steel barque Carlyle were a new lot who had been signed on in ’Frisco, in place of the outward-bound crew of Scotch and Welsh sailormen, who had deserted on account of the high pay ruling in ’Frisco. The present crowd was composed chiefly of “Dutchmen,” and in each watch, consisting eight men and a boy, there were only two Americans, one Englishman, and a German. The remainder were dagos and mixed breeds.

  The two Americans were in the First Mate’s watch, the Englishman and the German being with the Second’s crowd, and the whole lot of them, white, olive and mixed, were about as hard a “rough-house” crew, scraped up from the water-front, as one could find, and acceptable only because of the aforementioned high wages and shortage of men.

  And, to complete the number of undesirable aboard, there was Mr. Pathan, the half-breed passenger.

  Finally, Mr. Dunn, the First Mate, was a nervous little man, totally unfitted to handle anything more than an orderly crew of respectable Scandinavians. The result was that already his own watch had been once so out of hand he had been forced to call upon the Second Officer to help him maintain authority; since when, automatically, as it were, the Second Mate had taken, though unofficially, the reins of authority into his own hands.

  Thus the situation five days after leaving port, on the homeward passage.

  A week had passed.

  “If you please, Sir, I’d like a word with you.”

  It was the big Boatswain who spoke. He had come halfway up the poop ladder, and his request was put in a low voice, yet with an apparently casual air.

  “Certainly, Barton! Come up here if you have anything about which you wish to speak.”

  “It’s about the men, Sir. There’s something up, an’ I can’t just put me finger on it.”

  “How do you mean, something up?”

  “Well, Sir, they’re gettin’ a bit at a loose end, an’ they’re gettin’ a bit too free-like with their lip if I tells ’em to do anythin’.”

  “Well, you know, Barton, I can not help you in that. If you can not keep them in hand without aid, you’ll never do it with.”

  “ ’Tisn’t exactly that, Sir. I can handle a crowd right enough along with any man; savin’ it be yourself, Sir—” with an acknowledging glance at his officer’s gigantic proportions “—but there’s somethin’ in the wind, as is makin’ ’em too ikey. It’s only since the Cap’n went, an’ it’s my belief as yon passenger’s at the bottom of it!”

  “Ah!”

  “You noticed somethin’ then, Sir?” asked the Boatswain quickly.

  “Tell me what makes you think the passenger may be in anything that is brewing?” said the Second Mate, ignoring the man’s question.

  “Well, for one thing, Sir, he’s too familiar with the men. An’ I’ve seen him go forrard to the fo’cas’le of a night when ’twas dark. Once I went up to the door on the quiet, thinkin’ as I’d get to see what it was as he was up to; but the chap on the lookout spotted me an’ started talkin’. I reckoned he meant headin’ me off; so I asked him to pass me down the end of me clothes-line, for a bluff, an’ then I made tracks.”

  “But didn’t you get any idea of what the fellow was doing in the fo’cas’le?”

  “Well, Sir, it seemed to me as he was palaverin’ to ’em like a father; but as I was sayin’ I hadn’t time to get the bearin’s of what was goin’ forrard. Then there’s another matter, Sir, as—”

  “And you might tell the man, while he’s up, to take a look at the chafing gear on the fore swifter,” interjected the Second Mate calmly.

  The irrelevancy of this remark seemed to bring the Boatswain up all standing, as the saying goes. He glanced up at the officer’s face, and in so doing the field of his vision included something else—the very one of whom they were talking. He understood now the reason of the Second’s apparently causeless remark; for that keen-sensed officer had detected the almost cat-like tread approaching them along the poop-deck, and changed the conversation on the instant.

  For a couple of minutes the Boatswain and the Second Mate kept up a talk upon certain technical details of ship work, until Mr. Pathan was out of hearing.

  “I reckon as he thought he’d like to know what it was we’re talkin’ about, Sir,” remarked the Boatswain, eyeing the broad back of the stout passenger.

  “What is this other matter that you want to speak to me about?”

  “Well, Sir, some of the hand ’as got hold of booze somehow. I keeps smellin’ of ’em whenever one of ’em comes near me, and I reckon as he—” jerking his head in the direction of Mr. Pathan “—is the one as is givin’ it to ’em.”

  The Second Mate swore quietly.

  “What’s his game, Sir? That’s what’s foozlin’ me. I thinks it’s time as you looked inter the matter!”

  “If I thought—”

  “Yes, Sir?” encouraged the Boatswain.

  But whatever the Second Mate thought, he did not put it into words. Instead, he asked the Boatswain if he were of the opinion that nay of the forecastle crowd were to be depended upon.

  “Not one of ’em, Sir! There isn’t one as wouldn’t put a knife inter you if he got half a chanst!”

  The second nodded, as if the man’s summing-up of the crew were in accordance with his own ideas. Then he spoke.

  “Well, Barton, I cannot do anything till we know more definitely what is in the wind. You must keep your eyes open and report to me anything that seems likely to help.”

  Behind them they heard again the pad of Mr. Pathan’s deck shoes.

  “You had better overhaul the sheaves in those main lower top-sail brace blocks,” he remarked for the benefit of the listening passenger. “That will do for the present.”

  “Very good, Sir,” said the Boatswain, and went down the ladder onto the main-deck.

  IV

  It was in the afternoon watch, and Miss Eversley was sitting with a book in her lap, staring thoughtfully out across the sea.

  Forward of her, the Second Mate tramped across the break of the poop. When she had appeared on deck, he had been pacing fore and aft along the poop, but had kept since then to the fore part of the deck.

  Of the male passenger there was no sign. Indeed, since the big officer’s “handling” of him, he had kept quite away from her, so that at last she was beginning to find her stay aboard not at all unpleasant. Occasionally the girl’s glance would stray inboard to the great silent man, smoking and meditating as he paced across the planks.

  It was curious (she recognised the fact) how often of late she had found her thoughts dwelling upon him. He was no longer a nonentity—something below the line of her horizon—but a man, and a man in whom she was beginning to be interested. She remembered now—what at the time she had scarcely noticed—her casual ignoring of his proffered aid as she stepped aboard. It had seemed nothing then to her, no more than if she had casually rejected the aid of a footman; but now she could not comprehend how she had done it.

  From this her memory led her to that distinctly-to-be-regretted remark about his smoking. She watched him, and realised the more completely as she did so that she would be vitally afraid to do such a thing again; for, all unaware to herself, the manhood of the man was mastering her. Yet, at this time, she had no realisation of the fact; nothing beyond that she was interested in him, perhaps somewhat afraid and certainly a little desirous of knowing him.

  On the Second Mate’s part, he was thinking of o
ther things than her. The preceding day he had been obliged to step down on the main-deck to exert authority, and had succeeded only by laying out a couple of the crew. That the disaffection was due, in part at least, to Mr. Pathan he had very little doubt; but no proof that would justify him in putting the man in irons, as he had determined to do the very moment such was forthcoming. Also, he knew that the Captain’s death had unsettled them, and that there were vague ideas among them that now they were under no obligation to obey order. It was doubtless, along these lines that Pathan was working with them, and the thought made the big officer grit his teeth.

  “Look out, Mr. Grey!”

  The words came shrill and sudden in the voice of Miss Eversley, and the Second Officer turned sharply from where he had stopped a moment to lean upon the rail. He saw that she was on her feet, her arm extended toward him, while her gaze flickered between him and aloft. In the same instant, there was a sort of sogging thud behind him.

  His stare had followed the girl’s, and for an instant he had seen the dark face of one of the crew over the belly of the mizzen top-sail; then he had twisted quickly to see the reason for that noise, though already half comprehending the cause. In that portion of the rail over which he had just been leaning was struck a heavy steel marlinspike, the sharp point thereof appearing below, for it had penetrated right through the thick teak.

  For a moment he looked at it, while his face grew quietly grim. Then he turned and walked toward the mizzen rigging. From here he could look up abaft the mast. Thus he saw the man who had dropped the spike making his way rapidly from aloft.

  Getting into the lower rigging, the man—who proved to be one of those the Second Mate had floored the previous day—called out in broken English his regret for the accident; but the officer, knowing how little of an accident there had been about the affair, said nothing. Then, as soon as the creature put foot on the deck, he caught him by the nape of the neck and walked him forward to where the spike stood up in the rail.

  Below on the main-deck stood several of the crew, watching what would happen, and fully prepared to make trouble if they got the half of a chance. They saw the Second Officer grasp the embedded spike with one great hand, then with apparent ease bend it from side to side till it broke, leaving in the rail that portion which had penetrated.

  Immediately afterward, quite coolly, and calculating the force of the blow, he struck the man with it upon the side of the head, so that he went limp in his grasp; then he laid him down gently on the hencoop and bade a couple of them come up and carry him to his bunk. And this, being thoroughly cowed, as was the Second Mate’s intention, they did without so much as a murmur.

  As soon as the men were gone with their burden, he walked aft to where the girl stood.

  “Thank you, Miss Eversley,” he said simply. “I should have been spitted like a frog if you had not called.”

  She made no pretense of replying, and he looked at her more particularly. She was extraordinarily pale, and staring at him out of frightened eyes. He noticed also that she held to the edge of the skylight as if for support.

  “You are not well?” he said, and made as if to support her.

  But she warded him off with a gesture.

  “What a brute you are!” she said in a voice that would have been cold had it been less intense.

  He looked at her a moment before he replied, as if weighing the use of speech.

  “You don’t understand,” he remarked at last, calmly. “We have a rough crowd to handle, and half measure would be worse than useless. Won’t you sit down?” And he indicated the chair behind her.

  “It—it was butchery!” she remarked with a sort of cold anger, and ignoring his suggestion.

  “Very nearly—if you hadn’t called.” There had come a suggestion of humour about the corners of his mouth.

  “I—”

  She groped backward vaguely for the chair, and seemed unconscious that it was his hands which guided her there.

  “Now, see here, Miss Eversley. You must really allow me to be the better judge in a matter of this sort. I can not afford to sign for the long trip, in only for your sake.”

  “For my sake!” Her voice sounded scornful. “In what way does it concern me?”

  The grimness crept back into his face and chased away the scarcely perceptible humour.

  “In this way,” he replied in a voice as nearly cold as her own but for a certain almost savage intensity. “I, and I alone, am keeping matters quiet aboard here; for I may as well tell you at once that the First Mate does not count for this much—” and he snapped his finger and thumb “—among the crowd we’ve got in this packet. They’re quiet at present only because they’re afraid of me.”

  “What do you mean?” She asked the question with a brave assumption of indifference, to which her frightened eyes gave no support. “How does it matter to me whether your men are quiet or not?”

  He looked at her a moment quietly and with something in the expression of his face that would have been contempt had it not been tempered by a deeper emotion.

  “Listen!” he said, and she quailed before his masterfulness. “If that spike had done its work just now, you had been better dead than here. Do you think—”

  He did not finish but turned from her and walked along the deck, leaving her gazing at the nakedness of a hideous possibility.

  V

  A week passed in quietness, and, though the Second Mate and the Boatswain between them had kept a strict watch upon the male passenger’s movements, there had been nothing that could be looked upon with suspicion; for they had no knowledge of the tightly folded notes flipped to the Helmsman, and by him conveyed forward, and read for the delectation of the mutinous crowd in the forecastle.

  It was extraordinary that Pathan should discontinue so abruptly his nocturnal visits to the men. Possibly he had caught a stray word or two of the Boatswain’s confabulation with the Second Mate, and so taken fright. Whatever it was; the fact remained that it was impossible to come upon anything which would justify their putting him out of the way of doing mischief. Even the Boatswain’s complaints about the men’s behavoiur seemed to be lacking foundation during this time, and altogether the ship appeared to be quieting down nicely.

  Though there had seemed of late little need for anticipating trouble, yet the Second Mate had his doubts but that there was something under his apparent calm, and, having his doubts, took the precaution to carry a companionable weapon in his side pocket.

  In the end, events proved that he was right; for, one afternoon on watch, the Boatswain, chancing to have physical trouble with one of the men, the rest of the watch closed in upon him in a mob. At that the Second Mate went down to take a turn, which turn he took to such a tune that he had three of them stretched out before they were well aware that he was among them. They were beginning to give before his onslaught when suddenly he heard Pathan’s voice, away aft, singing out:

  “Get onto him, lads! Now’s your time! Give the bully a taste of his own sort!”

  At that the rest of them turned upon him with a rush, leaving the sadly mauled Boatswain to himself. And now the Second Mate showed of what he was made. They were clinging onto him like a lot of weasels—gripping his legs to trip him, grasping at his hands and arms, and climbing on his back. One of these latter having clasped hands under his chin, was doing his utmost to throttle him.

  This the Second Mate foiled by unclasping the fellow’s dirty paws and pulling him bodily over his head, bringing him, with a continuation of the movement, crashing down upon those of his attackers immediately in front. At the same instant, the Boatswain, being by now somewhat recovered, lain hold upon one of those in the rear and hauled him off. Even as he did so, there came the sound of a pistol shot.

  The Second Mate hove himself round carrying the mass of clinging men with him. He saw Pathan coming along the decks toward them at a run. In his hand was a pistol, with the smoke still rising from it. Upon the deck lay the Boatswain. H
e was kicking and twitching; for it was he whom the passenger had shot.

  “You—skunk!” roared the Second Mate. He caught two of his attackers by the hair of their heads and beat their skulls together so they became immediately senseless.

  He saw Pathan halt within a dozen feet of him and aim straight at his head. He had been dead the following instant, but that there happened a diversion.

  A white face flashed into the field of his vision, and the next moment Miss Eversley had thrown a handful of some whitish powder into the man’s face. The pistol dropped with a thud, and from Pathan there was nothing save a mixture of gasps and shouts, violent sneezing, and coughs that broke off oddly into breathless blasphemy.

  The Second Mate shouted incoherently. Then the girl was upon his assailants, throwing handfuls of the powder into their faces; whereupon they loosed him, as if their strength had gone from them, and fell to much the same antics as had Pathan. Some of the powder rose and assailed the Second Officer’s nostrils, so that he sneezed violently. It was pepper!

  He turned to the girl. At her feet lay the tin with which she had wrought his relief. She herself was standing, crying and sneezing along with the rest, and trying to wipe her eyes with a peppery handkerchief.

  The Second Mate’s glance noted the pistol dropped by Pathan, and he stepped over, and, picking it up, put it in his pocket. Between him and the group of sneezing, choking men lay the body of the Boatswain. A lot of the pepper had been spilt upon his upturned face, yet he moved no whit. He was quite dead.

  “What’s happened, Mr. Grey?” asked a thin voice at his elbow.

  “Rank mutiny!” he replied.

  “Whatever shall we do?” returned the voice, the owner of which was the First Mate. “Whatever shall we do?”

  “Nothing,” said the Second Mate shortly.