The William Hope Hodgson Megapack

by William Hope Hodgson

  Down on the main deck I could hear presently the murmur of voices, and I knew that the men had got the news and were talking it over; but that was all that we could do.

  At midnight, when the second mate came up to relieve me, he had already learned the story from the ’prentice who called him, and when finally I went below, he and the Skipper were still discussing it.

  At four o’clock, when I was waked, my first inquiry was about the wind; but there was not a sign, and when I got on the poop I could see that the weather still had the same dead, settled look.

  All that day we kept waiting for the wind that never came; and at last a deputation of the men came aft to ask to be allowed to volunteer to man one of the life-boats and make a search party. But the Master sent them forward again, quietly enough, and even took the trouble to point out the hopelessness of such an attempt, as well as the tremendous risk. For if the derelict were still above water, she might have drifted sufficiently far to be still lost after weeks of searching in the great unknown seas to the southward.

  All that day the wind never came, and all that day there was nothing else talked about aboard except the chances of saving the girl. And when at last night came I do not believe half the watch below turned in, but paced the decks, whistling for wind and watching the weather.

  The morning came, and still the calm; and at last I asked the Captain whether he would give me permission to take the little gig, which was a light and handy boat, and make the trial alone. I said that if I failed, and the boat was lost, her value would be amply covered by the wages due to me. But the “Old Man” simply refused to listen to the idea, and told me, kindly enough, that it was madness.

  I saw that it was no use arguing with him, for he was perfectly right in what he said; but at the same time I was determined to try, if the wind did not come by the evening. For I could not get the thought of that lonely unknown girl out of my mind, and I kept remembering what she had said about the rats.

  II

  That night, when the Captain had gone below, I had a talk with the steward, and afterward I gave orders to get the little gig quietly into the water. I provisioned her thoroughly and added a bottle of brandy and a bottle of rum. The second mate fitted her with a boat’s compass and binnacle from one of the life-boats, and also attended to the filling of the water-breakers, and saw that all the gear was in place. Then I added my oilskins, some rugs and canvas, and my sextant and chronometer and charts, and so forth. At the last I remembered my shotgun, and ran down for this and plenty of cartridges; for there was no saying how useful it might be.

  I shook hands with the second mate, when I returned, and went down into the boat.

  “We’ll be after you as soon as the wind comes,” he said quietly. “Good luck!”

  I nodded, and afterward mentioned one or two details of ship’s work which would need attention. Then I pulled in the painter and pushed off. As I cleared the side of the vessel, there came a hushed cheering, and hoarse whispers of, “Good luck, sir! Good luck, sir!”

  The lamp in the little binnacle was lit, and I turned the hood round, so that I could watch the compass as I pulled. Then I settled down to my work at the oars, and presently the vessel had faded away from me into the night, though for a long while there would come over the sea to me the odd rustle and flap of a sail, as the ship lifted to the occasional glassy swell. But afterward I rowed on through an everlasting silence toward the south.

  Twice in the night I ceased work, and ate and drank; then onward again, keeping to an easy, regular pull that I knew I could keep up hour after hour.

  In the morning I had a good look round, but the Skylark was lost below the horizon astern, and the whole world seemed empty. It was a most extraordinary and depressing sensation. I had an early breakfast, and rowed on. Later, I got my longitude; at midday I took my altitude and found that I had done nearly fifty miles to the south.

  All that day I pulled steadily, stopping only to eat and drink at regular intervals. That night I slept for six hours, from twelve until six, and when I waked there was still the everlasting calm.

  Four more days and nights I went onward in this fashion. All the fourth day I pulled steadily, stopping every half-hour to take a look round; but there was always and only the gray emptiness of the sea. All that night I drifted; for I had passed over, and was now to the southward of, the position of the derelict given by the girl, and I dared not row in the darkness, for fear of passing the wreck.

  Part of the night I used in making calculations, and afterward had a good long sleep. I was wakened in the dawn by the lapping of water against the boat, and found that a light breeze had sprung up from the west. This cheered me immensely for I knew that now the Skylark would be able to follow, provided that the wind was not merely a local breeze. And, in any case, there was no longer need to use the oars, for I had a mast and sail in the boat.

  I stepped the mast and hoisted the lug-sail; then I shipped the rudder and sat down to rest and steer. And it is impossible to express my gratitude; for my hands were raw with broken blisters, and I ached in all my body with the constant and weary labor at the oars.

  All that day I ran to the southward, keeping a lookout; but never a sign was there of anything, so that an utter dismay began to come down on me. Yet I did not give up hoping. That night I made fresh calculations, with the result that next morning, as soon as I had hoisted the sail (for I had let the boat drift during the darkness), I altered my course a few degrees to the eastward. At noon I found that I was a hundred and twenty-seven miles to the south and forty-six miles to the east of the last known position of the Unicorn. If I sighted nothing by evening, I would make a long tack next day to the north, a few miles eastward of my downward run.

  I ran on until the dusk came; and then, after a final long look round, I dropped my sail for the night and set the boat to ride by the painter to a couple of oars, as I had done on the previous nights of drifting.

  I felt desperately disheartened, and began to realize more thoroughly my own position, over four hundred miles from the Skylark and in a latitude of hopeless and weary storms and utterly unfrequented by ships. Yet I fought this down and finally settled myself to sleep, well wrapped up in my rugs, for it was bitterly cold, though so fine.

  It was some time after midnight that something waked me, and I sat up in the darkness and looked about and listened. I could not imagine what had roused me, but I felt that I had heard something, though there was no sound in all the night, except the low blowing of the wind and the rippling of the water against the boat.

  And then, suddenly, as I sat there harking, there came over the sea from the southward the desolate mournful blowing of a foghorn. I stood up abruptly and threw all my rugs from me into the bottom of the boat.

  I ran down in the direction of the foghorn, and in ten minutes or so I saw against the sky the spars of a big four-masted vessel. I dropped the sail and shipped the oars. As I pulled toward her, the sound of the horn broke out into the night in a dull roar, coming from the after-part of the vessel. I backed the boat aft, noticing as I did so that the vessel stood no more than three or four feet above the level of the sea.

  Then, as I came opposite to the place where the horn seemed to be, I saw dimly that the deck rose here, and that I was come opposite to the poop. I rested on my oars. “Miss Doriswold!” I shouted. “Miss Doriswold!”

  The fog-horn gave a short, impotent blare, and immediately a girl’s voice called:

  “Who is that? Who is that?” in a queer, frightened, breathless way.

  “It’s all right!” I shouted back. “We got your message! I’m the mate of the Skylark, the ship that got the message. I’m coming aboard.”

  The answer astonished me.

  “Don’t come on to the ship!” the voice called back to me, shrill and anxious. “Keep the boat away! Keep the boat away! There are thousands of rats—”

  It broke off abruptly, and there was the sound of a pistol-shot up in the darkness.
At that, I had the painter fast in a moment and, catching up my gun, vaulted aboard. In an instant the girl’s voice came again:

  “I’m all right. Don’t come aboard, whatever you do! It’s the rats! Wait for the daylight!”

  Even before she spoke, I was aware of a sound along the poop like the harsh noise of several saws at work. I walked aft a few steps, groping, and knew suddenly that there was a faint, curious smell everywhere about me in the night. I paused and stared through the darkness.

  “Where are you?” I shouted, and then I saw the black bulk of the chart-house vaguely through the darkness. I went forward a pace, and stumbled clumsily over a deck ring-bolt. “Where are you?” I shouted again. “I’ve come aboard.”

  “Go back! Go back! Go back!” called the girl’s voice shrilly, with a note of utter fear and horror in it. “Get into the boat, quick! I’ll explain. Go back! Go back!”

  III

  There came to me in the same moment a strange sense of restlessness all about the decks, and then, suddenly, all the air seemed to be full of an odd whining noise, that rose into a horrible shrill, twittering keening of sound. I heard a massed sound, as of thousands of small scuttering bodies coming toward me at a run through the darkness. The voice of the girl came in the same instant, crying out something in a frightened voice. But I never heard what she said, for something plucked my trousers, and immediately hundreds of creatures sprang upon me and swarmed over me, biting and tearing. My gun was utterly useless, and in an instant I knew that if I would save my life I must go overboard. I made a mad, staggering run to the side of the derelict, the rats flocking about me. With my free hand I was tearing their great bodies from me and keeping them from my face. The hideous little brutes were so thick upon me that I was loaded with them. I reached the rail and got over somehow, and fell souse down into the icy cold water.

  I stayed under water deliberately, as long as I could; and the rats left me and went to the surface to breathe. I swam hard until my head felt as if it would burst; then I came up, and found that I was clear of the rats. I discovered that I still had my gun in my left hand, and I was careful not to lose it. I swam forward until I was opposite the boat. I heard the girl’s voice calling something to me, but the water in my ears prevented me from hearing what it was.

  “Are you safe? Are you safe? Where are you?” the girl was calling.

  “I’m all right, thanks!” I shouted back. “I’m in the boat. I’ll wait till daylight, if you’re sure you are safe.”

  She assured me that she was all right, now that I had come, and could easily hold out until the morning. In the meanwhile I had stripped off my wet things and got into the spares I had brought with me and for which I was very thankful now, as you can imagine. All the time, as I changed, the girl and I kept up a conversation. I asked her about food; she told me she had eaten nothing for three days and nights but had still some water, and I was not to try to reach her until daylight came to show me the position of everything.

  This, however, would not satisfy me, and as I completed my dressing a sudden thought came to me. I struck a match and lit the binnacle-lamp and also the boat’s lantern, which was in the midship locker. Then I hooked the ring of the lantern over the spike of the boat-hook and reached the lantern up on to the poop of the derelict, where I set it on the deck. I could see the chart-house plainly now, and a pale but very beautiful face was looking at me through the glass of one of the ports. It was Miss Doriswold, and I waved to her with the boat-hook. She opened the port about an inch and called out to know what I was going to do. I told her she would see very quickly. Then I stuck the boat-hook into the handle of the binnacle-lamp and ran to the other end of the boat, where I was able to set it inboard on the poop deck, some way farther aft than the boat-lamp.

  I got the bottom boards of the boat now and set them across from gunnel to gunnel of the boat, and then, taking my gun and a pocket full of cartridges, I stood on this temporary erection and looked aboard.

  I saw a most extraordinary sight, and really a very horrible one; for in the light of the lamps the decks were literally black and moving with rats, and the shining of their eyes in the lights made a constant, myriad twinkling from a thousand places at once, as the rats shifted this way and that. All about the base of the house there seemed to be rats, and I could see dimly that they had been at the wood-work of the house, but as there was a steel combing in at the back of the teak, very few had been able to get in, and then only by the door, as I learned afterward.

  I glanced at the port, but Miss Doriswold was not there, and as I looked there came the flare of a match and immediately the sharp report of a pistol-shot. In a minute she returned to the port and cast out a big rat, which was instantly set upon by hundreds of others in a great black scramble. Then I raised my gun so that it was just a little above the level of the poop-deck and fired both barrels into that struggling crowd of little monsters. Several rolled over and died, and over a dozen ran about wounded and squealing, but in a moment both the wounded and the dead were covered with the living rats and literally torn to pieces.

  I reloaded quickly and began now to fire shot after shot among the hideous little brutes, and with every thud of the gun they lay dying and dead over the deck, and every time the living rats would leap on to the dead and wounded and destroy them, devouring them practically alive.

  In ten minutes I had killed hundreds, and within the next half hour I must have destroyed a thousand, to make a rough guess. The gun was almost red-hot in my hands. The dead began now to lie about the decks; for most of the rats were destroyed and the living rats had begun to run into hiding. I waved to Miss Doriswold, and we began to talk, while the gun was cooling.

  She told me she had been fighting the brutes off for the last four days, but that she had burned all her candles and had been forced to stay in the dark, only striking a match now and again (of which she had several boxes left) when the sounds at the door told her that a rat had nearly gnawed his way through. Then she would fire the Captain’s revolver at the brute, block the hole up with coal, and sit quiet in the dark, waiting for the next. Sometimes the rats got through in other places, above the steel combing. In this way she had been badly bitten several times, but had always managed to kill the rats and block the holes.

  Presently, when the gun was cool again, I began to shoot systematically at every rat in sight, so that soon I had killed and driven the little monsters clear off the visible parts of the poop-deck. I jumped aboard then, and walked round the house, with the boat-lantern and my gun. In this way I surprised and shot a score of rats that were hiding in the shadows, and after that there was not a rat to be seen anywhere.

  “They’re gone!” I shouted to Miss Doriswold, and in the same moment I heard her unlocking the chart-house door, and she came out on to the deck. She looked dreadfully haggard and seemed a little uncertain on her feet, but even thus I could see how pretty she was.

  “Oh!” she said, and staggered and gripped the corner of the chart-house. She tried to say something further, but I thought she was going to fall and caught her arm to lead her back into the house.

  “No!” she whispered breathlessly. “Not in there!” And I helped her to the seat on the side of the skylight. Then I ran to the boat for brandy, water and food, and presently I saw the life begin to come back into her. She told me later that she had not slept for four nights. And once she tried to thank me, but she was dumb that way—only her eyes said all the rest.

  Afterward, I got her to the boat, and when I had seen her safe and comfortable, I left her there and walked the poop of the derelict until daylight. And she, now that she felt safe, slept through the whole night and far into the daylight.

  When she waked I helped her aboard again and she insisted on preparing our breakfast. There was a fireplace in the chart-house, and coal, and I broke up the front of one of the hen-coops for kindling-wood. Soon we were drinking hot coffee and eating sea-biscuit and tinned meat. Then we went out on deck to walk
up and down and talk. In this way she learned my side of the story, and questioned me closely on every point.

  “Oh,” she said at last, holding out both hands to me, “may God bless you!” I took her hands and looked at her with the strangest mixture of awkwardness and happiness. Then she slipped her hands from me and we went again to our constant pacing. Presently I had to send her to rest, though she would not at first, because she felt too happy to sit still; but afterward she was glad to be quiet.

  Through four days and nights we waited for the Skylark. The days we had entirely together; the nights she slept in the chart-house, and I in the little alleyway, with just a few feet below me the roll and gurgle of the water going through the waterlogged cabins of the half-sunk vessel. Odd whiles I would rise and see that the lamp was burning brightly in the rigging, so that the Skylark would not pass us in the darkness.

  On the morning of the fourth day, after we had made our breakfast happily together, we went out for our usual walk of the poop. The wind still continued light, but there were heavy clouds to the northward, which made me very anxious. Then, suddenly, Miss Doriswold cried out that she saw the ship, and in the same moment I saw her, too. We turned and looked at each other. Yet it was not all happiness that was in us. There was a half-questioning in the girl’s eyes, and abruptly I held out my arms!

  Two hours later we were safely aboard the Skylark, under only the main lower-topsail, and the wind coming down out of the north like thunder while to leeward the lonesome derelict was lost in huge clouds of spray.

  THE HAUNTING OF THE LADY SHANNON

  I.

  Captain Jeller had his men aft for a few brief words as the Lady Shannon wallowed down-channel in the wake of the tug. He explained very clearly that when he gave an order he expected that order to be obeyed with considerable haste or there would be “consequences.”