The Dark Boatman

by John Glasby

  I questioned him seriously as to whether he had heard anything strange during the night, but he had sat reading until after midnight and had then gone to bed, falling into a deep sleep almost at once and had heard nothing.

  The arrival of the architect from Penzance pushed the incidents of the night into the background of my mind. He was youngish man of Midland stock, having only moved to Cornwall within the past year, and he was not given to over-imaginative speculations concerning the house he examined; nor had he any leanings towards the occult, and evidently knew very little of the history of the Dexters.

  I accompanied him as he went over the house, making brief notes and sketches on a pad as I explained to him exactly what I wanted. It was as we were returning along the long, gloomy upper corridor that a very curious incident occurred. We had paused to look at the rows of family portraits along either side.

  “I notice there’s no room left for yours as last of the family,” said the architect, indicating to where my uncle’s picture occupied the position at the very end of the wall.

  “Most of these portraits have been here for centuries,” I said. “It seemed unlikely whoever arranged spaces for them could have known how many more would be needed.”

  The architect stepped forward and, grasping the bottom of my uncle’s picture, tilted it slightly in order for it to hang level. It was as he did so that something small and round fell onto the thick carpet and rolled away into the shadows. I went forward, stooped, and picked it up holding it tightly in my fingers. It was a large golden coin with Greek inscriptions on either side, and a head which I did not recognise. I slipped it into my pocket and then led the way downstairs.

  After the architect had gone, promising to proceed with his plans and let me see them as soon as possible so that workmen might be engaged to put them into practice, I showed my find to Ambrose, for I had never had any interest in things of that kind.

  He took it across to the window and examined it curiously, obviously puzzled by its antiquity and the inscriptions.

  Finally, he said, “I must confess I’ve never come across anything like this before. It’s certainly gold and must be some three thousand years old. But the head is one I don’t recognise, nor the design on the other side.”

  “Can you make out what it is?”

  “I’m not sure. It looks like a boat, rather a primitive design, and there are leaves, or perhaps flames, in the background. Do you mind if I keep it for a while? I’d like to have the experts look at it. I’ll let you have it back.”

  “You may keep it if you wish,” I said. “It’s of no interest to me and I’ve no idea of its worth.”

  “It could be extremely valuable,” he remarked, eyeing me dubiously as if reluctant to accept it.

  Had I known of its true meaning and value, I would certainly never have let him have it for, unwittingly, by that simple act I had brought doom upon both of us. For Ambrose is gone now, like all the others of my accursed family. Some might say he went in my place, and my only consolation is that his fate was not as terrible as mine is likely to be.

  That afternoon, we decided to explore the upper rooms, for I was now anxious to discover the whereabouts of the clock that had featured so strangely in my uncle’s letter. But though we searched every room on the top floor, we found no sign of anything even remotely resembling a clock. It might have well gone undiscovered had it not been for Ambrose’s sharp eyes later that afternoon.

  Disappointed in our efforts to find a clock, he went out into the grounds to look, instead, for the family mausoleum, which I was certain had to be located somewhere within walking distance of the house. Most of the grounds lay to one side of the house, and at the front where they stretched in the direction of the narrow track that served as a road. Very little vegetation of any kind grew close to the cliff edge, for here there was only a meager covering of soil on top of hard rock. But elsewhere stood a veritable forest of tall trees and bushes, which had long gone untended.

  The unnatural growth of vegetation was not due only to years of neglect, however. We came across several places where grotesque plants flourished in such wild profusion we were forced to literally hack our way through them. Long, creeping tendrils as thick as my wrist coiled and intertwined among patches of abnormally large fungi of such garish colours and hideous configurations it was almost impossible to believe they were natural species. Everything we saw seemed changed, as if the roots which penetrated deep into the soil sucked some blasphemous nourishment from the earth, transforming and mutating them into the shapes they now possessed.

  The mausoleum, when we eventually found it, was an unobtrusive, low building, concealed within the trees close to the eastern boundary of the property. Very little of the structure was visible apart from the huge door that sloped backward at the bottom of a short flight of steps leading below ground level.

  I had not thought to bring a key with me but, to our surprise, the heavy door was not locked and readily yielded to our efforts.

  Ambrose had brought a powerful torch and, stepping inside, he shone the beam around the dark interior. It was considerably larger than we had anticipated from the outside, clearly built many centuries earlier from stone blocks which had survived the years remarkably well.

  So this was where the Dexter dead lay interred, I mused as I glanced at the long rows of coffins stacked along the walls. That they were indeed those of my ancestors appeared evident from the state of increasing decay, the further they lay from the door. Those against the far wall had all but crumbled into mouldy heaps of dry dust.

  Yet there was still a nagging suspicion at the back of my mind, one that had to be confirmed or stilled forever. Motioning Ambrose to hold the torch steady, I gripped the outer edge of the coffin lid nearest me and slid it aside. Tilting the torch, Ambrose shone the beam directly into the coffin, revealing to our startled gaze that it was empty. In my mind, there was no doubt at all that it had never been occupied. An examination of several others confirmed my suspicions, for inwardly, I had been half-expecting something like this, ever since reading through the old records in the Penzance library.

  Whatever had taken place whenever one of my ancestors had died, they had never been buried here nor, it seemed, were their deaths ever recorded anywhere!

  Closing the vault behind us, we retraced our steps in silence, mystified by our grim discovery, pondering on any possible explanation for this curious state of affairs.

  By some misjudgement of our direction we emerged from the trees, not at the point where we had earlier entered, but close to the cliff edge with the surf pounding onto the rocks directly below. Thus it was we approached the house at an angle from the rear and, as I have intimated earlier, Ambrose’s keen antiquarian eye noticed an odd peculiarity. He drew my attention to it at once.

  At the back of the house, midway between two turrets and obviously forming part of the upper floor, an oblong abutment jutted from the wall, standing out for perhaps ten feet. Although it would have been completely invisible from any other direction, it was obvious from where we stood.

  There could be only one answer. Somewhere at the end of the long upper corridor was a concealed room. That it wasn’t the most ancient part of the house seemed highly significant.

  Now convinced that this had to be the room my uncle had written of, we hurriedly made our way inside and up the wide stairway to the upper floor. Had we not known the room was there, it is extremely unlikely we would ever have found it, for the means of opening the concealed door was well hidden among the embossed carving on the wall. It took several minutes of painstaking examination of these carvings before Ambrose uttered a sharp exclamation as his questing fingers depressed a small, insignificant portion of the design.

  What hidden mechanism controlled the opening and closing of the door we could not tell, for it slid snugly into a narrow cavity in the wall. But from the smooth, silent way it moved, I guessed it had been in use on several previous occasions.

  The
room was small and cramped, yet it was just possible for both of us to stand side by side with our heads scraping the low ceiling. There were no windows, nor had we really expected to find any. By the torchlight we saw that the room was completely empty except for the object that stood against the far wall. It was indeed the clock mentioned by my uncle, yet it presented the most singular appearance, for it was totally unlike any I had ever seen.

  It was about nine feet tall, roughly oblong in shape, rather like a grandfather clock. Yet there the resemblance ended. It bore a large oval face with but a single pointer, and around the circumference were all manner of repulsive figures, interspersed with drawings of the sun and moon and planets. The case was not of wood but some kind of black metal, which did not reflect the light from the torch. And although we carried out a minute and meticulous examination of the entire surface, we could discover no means of opening the case to determine what sort of mechanism operated it.

  By this time, the most horrifying conclusions were pushing their way into my mind, but all without any logic to them. That there had to be some connecting link between all of the weird and seemingly inexplicable facts I had ascertained seemed obvious. Some concealed thread wove continuously through the twisted fabric of myth, ancient belief, and genuine reality. I had the feeling it lay right under my nose, but I could not see it.

  Ambrose would have remained longer in the room, for he was clearly fascinated by the clock. At the time, I thought it was because it represented a challenge to him, defying him to probe its secrets. Now I know better, for I think, in retrospect, it was this object that drove him to his final act of destruction and left me to face a hideous end.

  I finally persuaded him to leave it for the time being, and after closing the door by depressing the same motif, we went downstairs and prepared ourselves a meal.

  Over dinner, we attempted to make sense out of the confusing information we had in our possession. Most of our talk, however, centred upon the cabalistic nature of the clock. Ambrose was of the opinion that it, and the key we had found, were the central clues to the entire mystery which seemed to hang over my family and, indeed, over the house itself.

  Having seen it for myself, I considered it was something best left alone, for I had not liked the look of the characters inscribed around the face, and I had the uncanny conviction I knew its purpose, yet I had never seen it before, nor even suspected its existence.

  “Of one thing I am certain,” Ambrose said, sipping his wine slowly. “It has the appearance of being ancient Greek in origin, judging by some of the characters. But I’m confident it predates the earliest Athenian culture by several thousand years.”

  “That’s impossible,” I argued. “For one thing, there were no such time-keeping devices as far back in time as that. And secondly, if we’re to believe what my uncle wrote, it still works, although in what fashion I don’t know. No driving mechanism could possibly remain in working order for that length of time. It would have rusted and crumbled into dust ages ago.”

  “Nevertheless, I’m convinced I’m correct.” Ambrose remained adamant in spite of the incontrovertible truth of my statement.

  “Even if you’re right,” I went on, “can you tell me what form of energy has kept it going for so long?”

  “There are more forces within the universe then you, or science, can even dream of,” he said enigmatically.

  There was clearly no point in arguing with him further, and we dropped the subject, turning instead to more mundane matters connected with my plans for the renovation of the house interior, until it was almost midnight and the fire in the hearth had dwindled to a heap of faintly glowing embers.

  That night, my sleep was unbroken by dreams for the first time since arriving in the house. Yet when I woke, it was with a sudden start. Something had woken me, for it was still pitch black outside the window and I lay for several minutes straining to pick out any untoward sound that might have subconsciously alarmed me.

  It is not uncommon for sleepers to be awakened by the abrupt stopping of a clock, by the sudden cessation of sound rather than by a sound itself. Thus it was with me. Complete and utter silence reigned within the house. But even as I grew aware of the singular fact that there was not the slightest creak or gust of wind to be heard—there did come a sound, one I was loath to identify, and yet knew to be the stirring of rushing water.

  I slid off the bed and went out of the room, pulling on my dressing gown.

  This time, I meant to awaken Ambrose in order to confirm the existence of that unnatural phenomenon I had witnessed the previous night. I knocked loudly on his door and, when there was no answer, flung it open. In the faint wash of moonlight I saw that his bed was empty, and the lamp that he kept on the bedside table was gone. That he had been in bed was obvious from the tumbled bedding.

  Where could he have gone this ungodly hour of the morning? The first possibility that came into my mind was that he had gone for a drink of water, for we had consumed three bottles of wine at supper. Then I recalled his strange, one might almost say morbid, fascination with the clock.

  I returned hastily to my room and lit my lamp. Enveloped in the yellow pool of light, I made my way cautiously up the stairs, treading carefully to make no sound. Arriving at the top, I paused to listen. I could hear nothing but that earlier noise, like a huge wave washing up some deep cavern, and all of the nightmarish terror I had felt in my dream came sweeping over me anew.

  Arriving at the end of the corridor I saw that my supposition had been correct. The secret door stood open, but as I approached, shining the light into the room, I saw he was no longer there. The room was empty except for the monstrous clock, which I knew, even then, told no earthly time.

  I was just on the point of leaving when something anomalous about the clock caught my eye. It was just a small thing, yet it sent a shiver of dread and foreboding through me. The solitary hand had been pointing straight up when Ambrose and I had examined it only a few hours earlier. Now it had moved, and the metal tip rested midway across a grinning skull almost halfway around the oval face!

  Fighting back the horror that sent my thoughts spinning into a raving turmoil, I fled along the shadowed corridor as if all the demons of the outer spheres were on my heels, taking the stairs two at a time, oblivious of the very real possibility of falling and breaking my neck at the bottom. Somehow, I had to find my companion, for I was sure he was in mortal danger.

  By some strange instinct, I knew he was in none of the rooms I had visited with the architect that morning. What presentiment led my steps to the door leading down into the cellar, I shall never know. Perhaps some part of my mind subconsciously associated it with the sound of rushing, roaring water I had heard the night before—and could faintly hear now.

  The door was open when I reached it, although I had always assumed it to be locked. Holding the lamp high in front of my face, I began the descent of the ancient stone steps. Curiously, they stretched deeper into the foundations for the house than I had imagined possible, and long before I came to the bottom, they were encrusted with a glittering nitrous covering which made every step precarious in the extreme.

  Now the sound of water was louder, and I felt I must be approaching its source. I had tried to rationalise the noise by telling myself that the sea flung itself hard against the base of the cliffs whenever the tide came in, and odd echoes and reverberations would distort the sound into what I was hearing. Certainly the sheer size of the cellars, when I reached them, would have accounted for such deep-toned resonances as now clambered through the air all around me.

  I shouted Ambrose’s name at the top of my voice, straining my vision to pick out any movement in the darkness ahead of me. But there came no answer to my repeated calls, and I shuffled forward, taking care where I put my feet, for there were numerous obstacles littering the cellar floor. The lamplight threw long shadows ahead of me and picked out tall, rearing columns whose tops I was unable to distinguish.

  I had ta
ken less than a dozen shuffling steps when I happened to glance down and saw, a little to my left, a line of footprints in the dust and, just beyond them, a second set of prints, fainter than those nearer to where I stood. The one was clearly quite recent, and I knew they could belong to none other than my companion. As for the other, I could not guess whose they were, although they could not have been made more than a few months previously—and that could only mean that my uncle had been down here for some reason.

  Confident I was now on the right track, I followed the prints into the darkness, finally coming up against a great stone wall which was clearly the boundary of the foundations.

  Set in it was a massive metal door and I saw that both sets of prints led up to it and vanished. In the lock was the metal key covered with the weird hieroglyphs. Evidently, Ambrose had taken it from the desk where I had posted for safekeeping. Somehow, he had guessed at its purpose. There was an iron ring just above the lock and I grasped it firmly with one hand and pulled with all my strength. The door opened reluctantly as if it were seldom used.

  I had thought to see darkness before me, perhaps another room abutting onto the cellars. Instead, shock and horror paralysed me, held me rooted there, gripped in a frenzy of hallucinatory delirium. I must now choose words with great care, for in that horror-filled moment I saw everything; knew why there were never any records of the deaths of my ancestors, nor any trace of their earthly remains.

  I realised, in a cataclysm of superstitious fear, the nature of the time measured by that unimaginably old clock whose origins lay in the legend-shrouded aeons of time, marking off the hours remaining to each of the Dexters, and—by some terrible quirk of fate—poor Ambrose as well. And most terrible of all, the true identity of that mighty river whose nearer shore lay immediately below the Dexter mansion.