by Dolly
"All that day I waited, suffering agonies of thirst, and slowly the following night dragged itself away. A racking pain in my head and a tightness across the chest as of slowly-contracting iron bands proved to me pretty forcibly that the confined air of the hold was becoming unbreathable, that I must make another attempt to get up on deck, or perish miserably where I stood.
" It was about ten in the morning, as nearly as I could judge, when I came to the final decision of getting out of this, even if it should mean out of the frying-pan into the fire. I pulled the bags down and looked up. The air seemed clear enough, and the bit of sky I could see was blue and tranquil, but there was still a distinct trace of the sulphurous fumes of yesterday in the air.
"Anyhow, it looked more promising than the hold. But how was I to reach there ? To climb up that narrow shaft was out of the question, some other way had to be found. I found a way by standing on the iron hold-ladder, and, with what little strength remained to me, pushing aside one of the 'tween-deck hatches sufficiently to scramble through.
" I found myself, stiff and sore, in the 'twegn decks, but there still remained the main-deck hatches overhead, and these must be battened down, else the gas would have filtered through. There could be no chance of raising them, and I spent a fruitless hour in hammering on them with a piece of dunnage wood in the hopes of their hearing me on deck.
" As I sat resting and considering what was best to be done, I remembered the little skylight with glass flaps on th foredeck. This skylight had 190 The "Leonid."
for the stars seem to be rushing down on me, burning into my brain like balls of fire, and I catch myself listening, trembling, again for that terrific explosion that was the commencement of the horror which in three short days transformed me from a light-hearted youngster into the decrepit old'man you say I look."
The "Leonid." 189
furnaces, and had to take her in tow to Saigon.
" There the Chinese merchants, her owners, directed that the ill-fated vessel should be sold for whatever she would fetch, and the whole lot paid over to the Messageries Company as salvage, adding that they must decline to entertain any further correspondence on the subject of the ' badjoss ' ship. I don't know what became of her after that; she must have been sent home, she never would have been of further use in Eastern waters, marked down as she was as a 'devil-joss ship.'
" When I came out of hospital, the British Consul at Saigon had me sent on to Hong-Kong as a D.B.S., and there they wanted me to go home, but I would not go, and so I drifted up here and got this job."
" Why didn't you want to go home ? " asked the first.
" To tell you the truth, my nerves were too shattered to stand the sea voyage. Even coming across from Saigon I was shivering like a scared horse all the way."
" But how about going home later on ?" asked the second.
" I shall never go," he replied sadly; " the mere thought of the sea sets me shuddering. You may think it folly, but even here on dry land I dare not, if I am alone, look up at that group of Orion,
188 The "Leonid."
Frenchman, and used to come and see me at the military hospital in the Rue Chasseloup Loubat, where they took me with brain-fever, every time the ship came to Saigon.
" He spoke a fair amount of English, and what I made out about it was this.
" He had been very much surprised on clambering up from the boat to find the main deck deserted, and that pink powder I told you of scattered all round. Spying a Chinaman apparently asleep on the hatch, he walked up to him, and to his horror found him to be dead. As he hurried up to the lower bridge, he passed two more dead Chinamen, and on the bridge itself the engineers, lying as I have described.
"At the break of the bridge he found me, and seeing that I was still alive, sent the boat back for the surgeon.
"They carried me aboard the Gascoigne insensible, and sent back a crew and two engineers to try and get up steam again. They had first to give the ship's company decent burial, and the second of the Gascoigne said it was about the most gruesome job he ever thought of doing.
"Several of the men turned green about the gills over it and vomited, and, spite of unlimited cognac, had to be sent back to the ship. After they had got the last remnant of rotting flesh over the side they went below, but found it impossible to dislodge the curiously-caked fuel that choked the
The "Leonid." 187
the intention of doing this, when I saw a patch of colour flutter out from her bridge and climb slowly to the jumper-stay. With the naked eye 1 could make out the flags to be B.S.L , and rushing into the chart-house, I dragged out the code list and read the signal—' Is anything the matter ?' My mind was still too hazy to be able to think of any definite answer, for I found myself hunting about among the geographical signals. However, while idly turning over the leaves my eye lit on the ' Urgent' signal column, and the flags P.B.— ' Want immediate assistance,' and feverishly pulling the flags from their pigeon-holes, I bent them on and ran them up to the stay.
" Then, as I saw the steamer's propeller churning astern and a boat being lowered, ship and horizon commenced reeling round and heaving, a red mist swam before my eyes, and with the halyards still in my hands, I lurched heavily forwards, and everything became a blank."
The consul's constable stopped and sat gazing moodily at his glass. The second leaned forward and refilled it.
" And what became of the ship ? "
" Sold."
" Why did they sell her ? "
The second officer's curiosity was not yet satisfied.
" Well, what happened afterward I will have td tell you in the words of the second officer of the Gascoigne. He was a very decent sort for a
186 The "Leonid.
" It was myself—my features line for line, even to the deep scar you see on my cheek—and it was inviting me to peace and rest in the translucent depths below there. I must go. I felt I must; for there were the grisly corpses of my former shipmates urging me on from behind.
" At last, as with a supreme effort I tore my eyes away and cast one last imploring look at the relentless skies, my heart commenced to beat again for joy. There, not two miles away, was the French mail steamer standing down toward me, black wreaths of smoke pouring from her funnels. I think it was that throbbing pain of joy that came with the knowledge that I was near living human beings that saved me from stark insanity at that critical moment.
" The intensity of my relief so overpowered me at first that I cared not whether they saw me. I was not alone on the boundless sea with this charnel - ship. That was the only thought that tingled its way through my brain. There were living beings near me—beings who could speak, beings who would not glare at me so wherever I went, beings whose flesh was firm and sweet, not like these that hung in putrid tatters.
"Then came the horrible fear that they would
'pass on and leave me alone again, and with the
thought came action. If I was to receive help, 1
must hoist some signal. I was turning away with
The "Leonid." 185
sickening thud to the deck. Then, as I leaned a little forward, I caught again the stare of those horrible, filmy eyes, and, with a shudder, I pushed the corpse far out from me and stood watching it as it slowly sank alongside.
" The eyes were still wide open, and after circling slowly down a little way it turned on its back and stared mockingly up at me through the clear seas as the arms, relaxed by the water, floated upwards as though inviting me to join it. Little bits of clothing and flesh floated round it, some still held to the corpse by strings and tendons.
" It sank out of sight at last, and I stood, I knew not how long, gazing horrified into the water, when I seemed to see the thing reappear again a few fathoms from the surface floating slowly upwards.
" I looked helplessly at it with its arms held toward me waving gently to and fro as it swung, then gradually the face was turned full toward me, and I staggered back with screams of mad terror.
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" The face that looked up at me from below there was my own face. A terrible fascination drew me back irresistibly to the rails, and I stood looking down at my other self as it floated beneath the water smiling that sardonic smile.
"Twice, as my brain reeled with horror of the thing, I started to clamber over the rail toward it, and twice drew back shivering.
184 The "Leonid."
This I dragged out, and with averted head made fast to the second officer's feet. The skin and flesh fell away from the softened bones as I touched hi m, and clung in shreds to my fingers, but I was calm with the stillness of despair, and hardly heeded the reeking stench of putrid flesh that arose when I disturbed him.
"With infinite pains I succeeded, weak as I was, in getting the body poised on the rail, and held it there, staring stupidly at the knotted muscles on the hands and arms, some of them showing blue and white, where the flesh had fallen away and left them exposed.
"What had I to do now? I tried to think. He had once been a shipmate of mine, this ghastly mass of rotting flesh, and a good sort in his way, though a little wild and given to aimless frolic. Perhaps he was sorry for it now. Ah, yes, the burial service. What was it? I had seen several poor fellows buried at sea, but now my bewildered brain would recall no word of the service but the ominous ' Commit the body to the deep.' Something came before that. What was it ? I asked myself wildly. I tried to pray, I who had uttered no word of prayer for long years, and never a prayer would come.
" All this time I was keeping the corpse balanced across the rail, and every now and then a great mass of the flesh would detach itself from the rest, torn away by its own weight, and fall with a
The "Leonid." 183
hands clenched so tightly that I could see where the nails had cut into the flesh. He was lying on his back, inclined a little toward the left, but his head was twisted round until, glaring over his right shoulder, the glassy orbs were turned full on me.
"As I looked at him again I felt the hair rising erect on my head and the blood freezing in my veins. The eyes seemed fixed on mine with a leer of understanding that it seemed impossible could creep into the eyes of a man two days dead and well on the way to putrefaction.
"Then, while I stared in fascination at the dreadful sight, the snarl on his lips seemed to broaden into a horrible smile of savage triumph.
" I sprang up with a shriek that rang through the silent ship, and stumbled in terror farther from the grisly thing. But when I dared look again, the eyes had followed my movements, and were staring at me with the same grim, frightful malice. I whimpered like a little child in my anguish and horror; then I laughed long and loudly. I knew then, that if I was to preserve my tottering reason, I must get rid of those frightful corpses, that seemed to be luring me on to join them in that set smile of death.
" The prospect of action of some sort served to steady my shattered nerves. There lay in the wheel-house a few feet away a detached cog-wheel that had been used with the hand steering gear.
182 The "Leonid."
engine-room, and thence into the stokehold. We had been about eighty or ninety miles off Cape Varella when the deadly meteorite fell, and perhaps if I could succeed in getting steam up alone I might make the coast or get into the track of vessels. At least the motion would blow that vile dust away.
"The boilers were still hot, and a thin jet of steam, singing through a leak in the stop-valve above, seemed to promise success; but when I opened the furnace doors and tried to rake out the burnt fuel, I found to my dismay that the pink dust, drawn by the draught into the fires, had melted, and, cooling again, had formed a thin metallic coating over the whole mass, binding it firmly together and making it impossible to break off the smallest lump.
" Back I went to the deck, with the vision of a livid, twisted fireman grinning at me in ghastly derision. I felt I was going mad, for I was babbling and laughing aloud. Why had I been reserved for this? Would to God, I whimpered, that I had not fallen down the ventilator! How long would it take to die ? Should I have to wander about among the grim dead until, my stock of waters being exhausted, I laid myself down beside them to die of the slow agony of thirst ? I sat down again and looked around. The second officer was lying on the deck a few feet away, his limbs extended to their fullest stretch, and the
The "Leonid." 181
about the deck again, and it was beginning to choke me. I sat down with my back against the fiddley and tried to think. My nerves were thoroughly unstrung. I remember thinking with amusement of the numerous rats that had pestered us, and wondering how they had fared.
" Then I suddenly burst into tears and cried for half an hour like a little child. That seemed to relieve me, and after awhile hunger and thirst drove me down to the pantry in search of food. The steward had dropped in his tracks, and was lying athwart the pantry door, glaring at me with glassy eyes. I cowered back shuddering, until, hunger-impelled, I darted forward, and snatching a piece of meat that lay on the dresser just within the door, retreated; but the first ravenous bite I took caused me to spit it out and cough. It was impregnated with the terrible gas that had wrought such havoc among my shipmates.
" The water was the same, but I remembered the aerated waters that were kept in the ice-chest; being corked, they were undefiled by the gas, and with these and a tin of lobster which I found and opened I refreshed myself.
" Then I returned to the deck and tried to realise my position.
" I was alone on the wide sea with nothing but the rotting corpses of my former shipmates, staring at me with filmy eyes, for company.
" I rose in despair and wandered down into the
covering him over like a light veil. With an indescribable thrill of fear, I ran up on the lower bridge and looked around.
" The captain was lying, or rather crouching, at the foot of the upper bridge ladder, his eyes wide open and his face contorted and livid. A piece of his coat was stuffed into his mouth, and the teeth had closed on it, holding it as in a vice. He too was covered with the dust, and when I went up to him and tried to sweep it from his face the skin came away in my hand.
" I turned away dizzy and sick, and hunted through the ship. Nothing but the ghastly dead ! Dead but two days, and already rotting and putrid!
" I stood still and shouted, or rather I tried to shout, but my voice rose in a scream and quavered away to a groan. Nothing answered me but the swish of the water alongside.
" I found the second officer lying a few feet from the chart-house, his eyes fixed in a glassy stare, and the teeth drawn back from the livid lips in what seemed to my distorted fancy a savage snarl. Two of the engineers I found on the lower bridge with the same twisted limbs and contorted features, and covered with that horrible dust, but nowhere did I find a living being.
" The chief officer I never saw; perhaps he had leapt overboard in his frenzy.
" My movements were sending the dust whirling
The "Leonid." 179
always been a thorn in our sides, and if the angels took careful note of what we said about it, all of us must long since have lost our chance of heaven. The builders had put it in her for convenience of Chinese 'tween-deck passengers, and whenever there was a bit of sea on that skylight used to get stove in.
" Now I blessed the skylight and blessed the builder who put it there. With a piece of dunnage wood I smashed the glass, and, climbing through the hole, found myself on deck.
"There I stood stock still, wondering if the sudden glare of light had affected my sight. Sea, deck, hatches, everything around appeared to my dazed eyes pale pink. To prove myself that my eyes were somehow wrong, I passed my hand across the skylight from which I had just emerged. It was covered by a light, impalpable powder, which the current of air raised by my hand sent circling up in clouds. The sea was glassy, and I could see the powder floating on and under the surface to the depth of three or four feet."
The consul's constable stopped and shivered a little, and the second officer silently passe
d him the bottle. After he had gulped down a few mouthfuls of raw whisky, he went on.
" I saw one of the Chinamen lying on deck, apparently asleep, but when 1 went up to him I uttered a cry of horror. The man was dead as a door-nail, dead and rigid, with the pink dust
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