19 Tales of Terror

by Whit Burnett

  as they remained hollow. A wave of happiness heaved Charlie's

  heart; after a while he laughed in the dark.

  "My sisters," he thought, "I should have come to you long

  ago. You beautiful, superficial wanderers, gallant, swimming

  conquerors of the deep ! You heavy, hollow angels, I shall

  thank you all my life. God keep you afloat, big sisters, you and

  me. God preserve our superficiality." He was very wet by now,

  his hair and his havelock were shining softly, like the sides of

  the ships in the rain. "And now," he thought, "I shall hold my

  mouth. My life has had altogether too many words; I cannot

  remember now why I have talked so much. Only when I came

  down here and was silent in the rain was I shown the truth of

  things. From now on I shall speak no more, but I shall listen to

  what the sailors will tell me, the people who are familiar with

  the floating ships, and keep off the bottom of things. I shall go to

  the end of the world, and hold my mouth."

  He had hardly made this resolution before a man on the

  wharf came up and spoke to him. "Are you looking for a

  Tile Young Man wltll tile Carnation • as

  ship?" he asked. He looked like a sailor, Charlie thought, and

  like a friendly monkey as well. He was a short man with a

  weather-bi tten face and a neck-beard. "Yes, I am," said

  Charlie. "For which ship?" asked the sailor. Charlie was about

  to answer: "For the ark of Noah, from the flood." But in time

  he realized that it would sound foolish. "You see," he said, "I

  want to get aboard a ship, and go for a journey." The sailor

  spat, and laughed. "A journey?" he said. "All right. You were

  staring down into the water, so that in the end I believed that

  you were going to jump in." "Ah, yes, to jump in!" said Charlie.

  "And so you would have saved me? But there it is, you are too

  late to save me. You should have come last night, that would

  have been the right moment. The only reason why I did not

  drown myself last night," he went on, "was that I was short of

  water. If the water had come to me then ! Here lies the watergood; here stands the man-good. If the water comes to him he drowns himself. It all goes to prove that the greatest of poets

  make mistakes, and that one should never become a poet." The

  sailor by this time had made up his mind that the young stranger was drunk. "All right, my boy," he said, "if you have thought better about drowning yourself, you may go your own

  way, and· good night to you." This was a great disappointment

  to Charlie, who thought that the conversation was going extraordinarily well. "Nay, but can I not come with you?" he asked the sailor. "I am going into the inn of La Croix du Midi," the

  sailor answered, "to have a glass of rum." "That," Charlie exclaimed, "is an excellent idea, and I am in luck to meet a man who has such ideas."

  They went together into the inn of La Croix du Midi close

  by, and there met two more sailors, whom the first sailor knew,

  and introduced them to Charlie as a mate and a supercargo. He

  himself was captain of a small ship riding at anchor outside the

  harbour. Charlie put his hand in his pocket and found it full of

  the money which he had taken with him for his journey. "Let

  me have a bottle of your best rum for these gentlemen," he said

  to the waiter, "and a pot of coffee for myself." He did not

  want any spirits in his present mood. He was actually scared of

  his companions, but he found it difficult to explain his case to

  them. "I drink coffee," he said, "because I have taken"-he was

  going to say : a vow, but thought better of it-"a bet. There

  was an old man on a ship-he is, by the way, an uncle of mine

  -and he bet me that I could not keep from drink for a year,

  but if I won, the ship would be mine." "And have you "kept

  from it?'' the captain asked. "Yes, as God lives," said Charlie.

  "I declined a glass of brandy not twelve hours ago, and what,

  from my talk, you may take to be drunkenness, is nothing but

  the effect of the smell of the sea." The mate asked : "Was the

  B& • Nineteen Tales of Terror

  man who bet you a small man with a big belly and only one

  eye?" "Yes, that is Uncle! " cried Charlie. "Then I have met

  him myself, on my way to Rio," said the mate, "and he offered

  me the same terms, but I would not take them."

  Here the drinks were brought and Charlie filled the glasses.

  He rolled himself a cigarette, and joyously inhaled the aroma

  of the rum and of the warm room. In. the light of a dim hanginglamp the three faces of his new acquaintances glowed fresh and genial. He felt honoured and happy in their company and

  thought : "How much more they know than I do." He himself

  was very pale, as always when be was agitated. "May your

  coffee do you good," said the captain. "You look as if you had

  got the fever." "Nay, but I have had a great sorrow," said

  Charlie. The others put on condolent faces, and asked him

  what sorrow it was. "I will tell you," said Charlie. "It is better

  to speak of it, although a little while ago I thought the opposite.

  I had a tame monkey I was very fond of; his name was Charlie.

  I bad bought him from an old woman who kept a house in

  Hongkong, and she and I had to smuggle him out in the dead of

  midday, otherwise the girls would never have let him go, for be

  was like a brother to them. He was like a brother to me, too.

  He knew all my thoughts, and was always on my side. He bad

  been taught many tricks already when I got him, and be

  learned more while be was with me. But when I came home the

  English food did not agree with him, nor did the English Sunday. So he grew sick, and he grew worse, and one Sabbath evening be died on me." "That was a pity," said the captain compassionately. "Yes," said Charlie. "When there is only one person in the world whom you care for, and that is a monkey, and he is dead, then that is a pity."

  The supercargo, before the others came in, had been telling

  the mate a story. Now for the benefit of the others he told it

  all over. It was a cruel tale of bow be bad sailed from Buenos

  Aires with wool. When five days out in the doldrums the ship

  had caught fire, and the crew, after fighting the fire all night,

  had got into the boats in the morning and left her. The supercargo himself had had his hands burnt; all the same he had rowed for three days and nights, so that when they were picked

  up by a steamer from Rotterdam his hand bad grown round his

  oar, and he could never again stretch out the two fingers.

  "Then," he said, "I looked at my hand, and I swore an oath

  that if I ever came back on dry land, the Devil take me and the

  Devil hold me if ever I went to sea again." . The other two

  nodded their heads gravely at his tale, and asked him where he

  was off to now. "Me?'' said the supercargo. "I have shipped for

  Sydney."

  The mate described a storm in the Bay, and the captain gave

  The Young Man wltll tile Carnation • 11

  them a story of a blizzard in the North Sea, which he had experienced when he was but a sailor-boy. He had been set to the pumps, he narrated, and had been forgotten there, and as he

  dared not leave, he had pumped for eleven hours. "At that

  time," he said,
"I too, swore to stay on land, and never to set

  foot on the sea again."

  Charlie listened, and thought: "These are wise men. They

  know what they are talking about. For the people who travel

  for their pleasure when the sea is smooth, and smiles at them,

  and who declare that they love her, they do not know what

  love means. It is the sailors, who have been beaten and battered

  by the sea, and who have cursed and damned her, who are her

  true lovers. Very likely the same law applies to husbands and

  wives. I shall learn more from the seamen. I am a child and a

  fool, compared to them."

  The three sailors were conscious, from his silent, attentive

  attitude, of the young man's reverence and wonder. They took

  him for a student, and were content to divulge their experiences

  to him. They also thought him a good host, for he steadily

  filled their glasses, and ordered a fresh bottle when the first was

  empty. Charlie, in return for their stories, gave them a couple

  of songs. He had a sweet voice and tonight was pleased with it

  himself; it was a long time since he had sung a song. They all

  became friendly. The captain slapped him on the back and told

  him that he was a bright boy and might still be turned into a

  sailor.

  But as, a little later, the captain began to talk tenderly of his

  wife and family, whom he had just left, and the supercargo,

  with pride and emotion, informed the party that within the last

  three months two barmaids of Antwerp had had twins, girls

  with red hair like her father's, Charlie remembered his own wife

  and became ill at ease. These sailors, he thought, seemed to

  know how to deal with their women. Probably there was not

  one of them so afraid of his wife as to run away from her in

  the middle of night. If they knew that he had done so, he reflected, they would think Jess well of him.

  The sailors had believed him to be much younger than he

  was; so in their company he had come to feel himself like a very

  young man, and his wife now looked to him more like a mother

  than a mate. His real mother, although she had been a respectable tradeswoman, had had a drop of gypsy blood in her, and none of his quick resolutions had ever taken her by surprise.

  Indeed, he reflected, she keot upon the surface through everything, and swam there, majestically, like a proud, dark, ponderous goose. If tonight he had gone to her and told her of his decision to go to sea, the idea might very well have excited and

  pleased her. The pride and gratitude which he had always felt

  88

  Nineteen Tales of Terror

  •

  towards the old woman, now, as he drank his last cup of coffee,

  were transferred to the young. Laura would understand him,

  and side with him.

  He sat for some time, weighing the matter. For experience

  had taught him to be careful here. He had, before now, been

  trapped as by a strange optical delusion. When he was away

  from her, his wife took on all the appearance of a guardian

  angel, unfailing in sympathy and support. But when again he

  met her face to face, she was a stranger, and he found his road

  paved with difficulties.

  Still tonight all this seemed to belong to the past. For he was

  in power now; he had the sea and the ships with him, and before

  him the young man with the carnation. Great images surrounded him. Here, in the inn of La Croix du Midi he had already lived through much. He had seen a ship burn down, a snowstorm in the North Sea, and the sailor's homecoming to

  his wife and children. So potent did he feel that the figure of his

  wife looked pathetic. He remembered her as he had last seen

  her, asleep, passive and peaceful, and her whiteness, and her

  ignorance of the world, went to his heart. He suddenly blushed

  deeply at the thought of the letter he had written to her. He

  might go away, he now felt, with a lighter heart, if he had first

  explained everything to her. "Home," he thought, "where is

  thy sting? Married life, where is thy victory?"

  He sat and looked down at the table, where a little coffee

  had been spilled. The while the sailors' talk ebbed out, because

  they saw that he was no longer listening; in.the end it stopped.

  The consciousness of silence round him woke up Charlie. He

  smiled at them. "I shall tell you a story before we go home. A

  blue story," he said.

  "There was once," he began, "an immensely rich old Englishman who had been a courtier and a councillor to the Queen and who now, in his old age, cared for nothing but collecting

  ancient blue china. To that end he travelled to Persia, Japan

  and China, and he was everywhere accompanied by his daughter, the Lady Helena. It happened, as they sailed in the Chinese Sea, that the ship caught fire on a still night, and everybody

  went into the lifeboats and left her. In the dark and the confusion the old peer was separated from his daughter. Lady Helena got up on deck late, and found the ship quite deserted. In the

  last moment a young English sailor carried her down into a

  lifeboat that had been forgotten. To the two fugitives it seemed

  as if fire was following them from all sides, for the phosphorescence played in the dark sea, and, as they looked up, a falling star ran across the sky, as if it was going to drop into the boat.

  They sailed for nine days, till they were picked up by a Dutch

  merchantman, and came home to England.

  The Young Man with the Carnation • 89

  "The old lord had believed his daughter to be dead. He now

  wept with joy, and at once took her off to a fashionable watering-place so that she might recover from the hardships she had gone through. And as he thought it must be unpleasant to her

  that a young sailor, who made his bread in the merchant service, should tell the world that he had sailed for nine days alone with a peer's daughter, he paid the boy a fine sum, and made

  him promise to go shipping in the other hemisphere and never

  come back. 'For what,' said the old nobleman, 'would M the

  good of that?"

  "When Lady Helena· recovered, and they gave her the news

  of the Court and of her family, and in the end also told her how

  the young sailor had been sent away never to come back, they

  found that her mind had suffered from her trials, and that she

  cared for nothing in all the world. She would not go back to

  her father's castle in its park, nor go to 8ourt, nor travel to

  any gay town of the continent. The only thing which she now

  wanted to do was to go, like her father before her, to collect

  rare blue china: So she began to sail, from one country to the

  other, and her father went with her.

  "In her search she told the people, with whom she dealt, that

  she was looking for a particular blue colour, and would pay any

  price for it. But although she bought many hundred blue jars

  and bowls, she would always after a time put them aside and

  say: 'Alas, alas, it is not the right blue.' Her father, when they

  had sailed for many years, suggested to her that perhaps the

  colour which she sought did not exist. '0 God, Papa,' said she,

  'how can you speak so wickedly? Surely there must .be some of

  it left from the time when all the world was blue.'

  "Her two old aunts in England implored
her to come back,

  still to make a great match. But she answered them: 'Nay, I

  have got to sail. For you must know, dear aunts, that it is all

  nonsense when learned people tell you that the seas have got

  a bottom to them. On the contrary, the water, which is the

  noblest of the elements, does, of course, go all through the

  earth, so that our planet really floats in the ether, like a soapbubble. And there, on the other hemisphere, a ship sails, with which I have got to keep pace. We two are like the reflection

  of one another, in the deep sea, and the ship of which I speak is

  always exactly beneath my own ship, upon the opposite side of

  the globe. You have never seen a big fish swimming underneath

  a boat, following it like a dark-blue shade in the water. But in

  that way this ship goes, like the shadow of my ship, and I draw

  it to and fro wherever I go, as the moon draws the tides, all

  through the bulk of the earth. If I stopped sailing, what would

  those poor sailors who make their bread in the merchant service do? But I shall tell you a secret,' she said. 'In the end my

  80 • llnatean Tales of Terror

  ship will go down, to the centre of the globe, and at the very

  same hour the other ship will sink as well-for people call it

  sinking, although I can assure you that there is no up and down

  in the sea-and there, in the midst of the world, we two shall

  meet.'

  "Many years passed, the old lord died and Lady Helena became old and deaf, but she still sailed. Then it happened, after the. plunder of the summer palace of the Emperor of China,

  that a merchant brought her a very old blue jar. The moment

  she set eyes on it she gave · a terrible shriek. 'There it is !' she

  cried. 'I have found it at last. This is the true blue. Oh, how

  light it makes one. Oh, it is as fresh as a breeze, as deep as a

  deep secret, as full as I say not what.' With trembling hands

  she held the jar to her bosom, and sat for six hours sunk in contemplation of it. Then she said to her doctor and her lady-companion : 'Now I can die. And when I am dead you will cut out my heart and lay it in the blue jar. For then everything will be

  as it was then. All shall be blue around me, and in the midst of

  the blue world my heart will be innocent and free, and will beat