The Ghost Ship

by Richard Middleton

  And Who Shall Say----?

  It was a dull November day, and the windows were heavilycurtained, so that the room was very dark. In front of the fire was alarge arm-chair, which shut whatever light there might be from thetwo children, a boy of eleven and a girl about two years younger, whosat on the floor at the back of the room. The boy was the betterlooking, but the girl had the better face. They were both gazing atthe arm-chair with the utmost excitement.

  "It's all right. He's asleep," said the boy.

  "Oh, do be careful! you'll wake him," whispered the girl.

  "Are you afraid?"

  "No, why should I be afraid of my father, stupid?"

  "I tell you he's not father any more. He's a murderer," the boy saidhotly. "He told me, I tell you. He said, `I have killed yourmother, Ray,' and I went and looked, and mother was all red. I simplyshouted, and she wouldn't answer. That means she's dead. His hand wasall red, too."

  "Was it paint?"

  "No, of course it wasn't paint. It was blood. And then he came downhere and went to sleep."

  "Poor father, so tired."

  "He's not poor father, he's not father at all; he's a murderer, andit is very wicked of you to call him father," said the boy.

  "Father," muttered the girl rebelliously.

  "You know the sixth commandment says `Thou shalt do no murder,' andhe has done murder; so he'll go to hell. And you'll go to hell too ifyou call him father. It's all in the Bible."

  The boy ended vaguely, but the little girl was quite overcome by thethought of her badness.

  "Oh, I am wicked!" she cried. "And I do so want to go to heaven."

  She had a stout and materialistic belief in it as a place of sheetedangels and harps, where it was easy to be good.

  "You must do as I tell you, then," he said. "Because I know. I'velearnt all about it at school."

  "And you never told me," said she reproachfully.

  "Ah, there's lots of things I know," he replied, nodding his head.

  "What must we do?" said the girl meekly. "Shall I go and askmother?"

  The boy was sick at her obstinacy.

  "Mother's dead, I tell you; that means she can't hear anything. It'sno use talking to her; but I know. You must stop here, and if fatherwakes you run out of the house and call `Police!' and I will go nowand tell a policeman now."

  "And what happens then?" she asked, with round eyes at her brother'swisdom.

  "Oh, they come and take him away to prison. And then they put a roperound his neck and hang him like Haman, and he goes to hell."

  "Wha-at! Do they kill him?"

  "Because he's a murderer. They always do."

  "Oh, don't let's tell them! Don't let's tell them!" shescreamed.

  "Shut up!" said the boy, "or he'll wake up. We must tell them, or wego to hell--both of us."

  But his sister did not collapse at this awful threat, as he expected,though the tears were rolling down her face. "Don't let's tell them,"she sobbed.

  "You're a horrid girl, and you'll go to hell," said the boy, indisgust. But the silence was only broken by her sobbing. "I tell youhe killed mother dead. You didn't cry a bit for mother; I did."

  "Oh, let's ask mother! Let's ask mother! I know she won't want fatherto go to hell. Let's ask mother!"

  "Mother's dead, and can't hear, you stupid," said the boy. "I keep ontelling you. Come up and look."

  They were both a little awed in mother's room. It was so quiet, andmother looked so funny. And first the girl shouted, and then the boy,and then they shouted both together, but nothing happened. The echoesmade them frightened.

  "Perhaps she's asleep," the girl said; so her brother pinched one ofmother's hands--the white one, not the red one--but nothinghappened, so mother was dead.

  "Has she gone to hell?" whispered the girl.

  "No! she's gone to heaven, because she's good. Only wicked people goto hell. And now I must go and tell the policeman. Don't you tellfather where I've gone if he wakes up, or he'll run away before thepoliceman comes."

  "Why?"

  "So as not to go to hell," said the boy, with certainty; and theywent downstairs together, the little mind of the girl being muchperturbed because she was so wicked. What would mother say tomorrowif she had done wrong?

  The boy put on his sailor hat in the hall. "You must go in there andwatch," he said, nodding in the direction of the sitting-room. "Ishall run all the way."

  The door banged, and she heard his steps down the path, and theneverything was quiet.

  She tiptoed into the room, and sat down on the floor, and looked atthe back of the chair in utter distress. She could see her father'selbow projecting on one side, but nothing more. For an instantshe hoped that he wasn't there--hoped that he had gone--but then,terrified, she knew that this was a piece of extreme wickedness.

  So she lay on the rough carpet, sobbing hopelessly, and seeing realand vicious devils of her brother's imagining in all the corners ofthe room.

  Presently, in her misery, she remembered a packet of acid-drops thatlay in her pocket, and drew them forth in a sticky mass, which partedfrom its paper with regret. So she choked and sucked her sweets atthe same time, and found them salt and tasteless.

  Ray was gone a long time, and she was a wicked girl who would go tohell if she didn't do what he told her. Those were her prevailingideas.

  And presently there came a third. Ray had said that if her fatherwoke up he would run away, and not go to hell at all. Now if she wokehim up--.

  She knew this was dreadfully naughty; but her mind clung to the ideaobstinately. You see, father had always been so fond of mother, andhe would not like to be in a different place. Mother wouldn'tlike it either. She was always so sorry when father did not come homeor anything. And hell is a dreadful place, full of things. She halfconvinced herself, and started up, but then there came an awfulthought.

  If she did this she would go to hell for ever and ever, and all theothers would be in heaven.

  She hung there in suspense, sucking her sweet and puzzling it overwith knit brows.

  How can one be good?

  She swung round and looked in the dark corner by the piano; but theDevil was not there.

  And then she ran across the room to her father, and shaking his arm,shouted, tremulously--

  "Wake up, father! Wake up! The police are coming!"

  And when the police came ten minutes later, accompanied by a veryproud and virtuous little boy, they heard a small shrill voicecrying, despairingly--

  "The police, father! The police!"

  But father would not wake.