“After that, I unlocked the companion, and pushed back the big, over-arching slide. Then, silently, we stole down the steps and into the saloon. Here, being now able to see the big cabin through all its length, we discovered a most extraordinary scene; the whole place appeared to be wrecked from end to end; the six cabins that line each side had their bulksheading driven into shards and slivers of broken wood in places. Here, a door would be standing untouched, whilst the bulkshead beside it was in a mass of flinders—There, a door would be driven completely from its hinges, whilst the surrounding woodwork was untouched. And so it was, wherever we looked.
“My wife made to go towards our cabin; but I pulled her back, and went forward myself. Here the desolation was almost as great. My wife’s bunk-board had been ripped out, whilst the supporting side-batten of mine had been plucked forth, so that all the bottom-boards of the bunk had descended to the floor in a cascade.
“But it was neither of these things that touched us so sharply, as the fact that the child’s little swing cot had been wrenched from its standards, and flung in a tangled mass of white-painted ironwork across the cabin. At the sight of that, I glanced across at my wife, and she at me, her face grown very white. Then down she slid to her knees, and fell to crying and thanking God together, so that I found myself beside her in a moment, with a very humble and thankful heart.
“Presently, when we were more controlled, we left the cabin, and finished our search. The pantry, we discovered to be entirely untouched, which, somehow, I do not think was then a matter of great surprise to me; for I had ever a feeling that the things which had broken a way into our sleeping cabin, had been looking for us.
“In a little while, we left the wrecked saloon and cabins, and made our way forrard to the pigsty; for I was anxious to see whether the carcass of the pig had been touched. As we came round the corner of the sty, I uttered a great cry; for there, lying upon the deck, on its back, was a gigantic crab, so vast in size that I had not conceived so huge a monster existed. Brown it was in colour, save for the belly part, which was of a light yellow.
“One of its pincer-claws, or mandibles, had been torn off in the fight in which it must have been slain (for it was all disembowelled). And this one claw weighed so heavy that I had some to-do to lift it from the deck; and by this you may have some idea of the size and formidableness of the creature itself.
“Around the great crab, lay half a dozen smaller ones, no more than from seven or eight to twenty inches across, and all white in colour, save for an occasional mottling of brown. These had all been killed by a single nip of an enormous mandible, which had in every case smashed them almost into two halves. Of the carcass of the great boar, not a fragment remained.
“And so was the mystery solved; and, with the solution, departed the superstitious terror which had suffocated me through those three nights, since the tapping had commenced. We had been attacked by a wandering shoal of giant crabs, which, it is quite possible, roam across the weed from place to place, devouring aught that comes in their path.
“Whether they had ever boarded a ship before, and so, perhaps, developed a moustrous lust for human flesh, or whether their attack had been prompted by curiosity, I cannot possibly say. It may be that, at first, they mistook the hull of the vessel for the body of some dead marine monster, and hence their blows upon her sides, by which, possibly, they were endeavouring to pierce through our somewhat unusually tough hide!
“Or, again, it may be that they have some power of scent, by means of which they were able to smell our presence aboard the ship; but this (as they made no general attack upon us in the deckhouse) I feel disinclined to regard as probable. And yet—I do not know. Why their attack upon the saloon, and our sleeping-cabin? As I say, I cannot tell, and so must leave it there.
“The way in which they came aboard, I discovered that same day; for, having learned what manner of creature it was that had attacked us, I made a more intelligent survey of the sides of the ship; but it was not until I came to the extreme bows, that I saw how they had managed. Here, I found that some of the gear of the broken bowsprit and jibboom, trailed down on to the weed, and as I had not extended the canvas-screen across the heel of the bowsprit, the monsters had been able to climb up the gear, and thence aboard, without the least obstruction being opposed to their progress.
“This state of affairs, I very speedily remedied; for, with a few strokes of my axe, I cut through the gear, allowing it to drop down among the weed; and, after that, I built a temporary breastwork of wood across the gap, between the two ends of the screen; later on making it more permanent.
“Since that time, we have been no more molested by the giant crabs; though for several nights afterwards, we heard them knocking strangely against our sides. Maybe, they are attracted by such refuse as we are forced to dump overboard, and this would explain their first tappings being aft, opposite to the lazarette; for it is from the openings in this part of the canvas-screen that we cast our rubbish.
“Yet, it is weeks now since we heard aught of them, so that I have reason to believe that they have betaken themselves elsewhere, maybe to attack some other lonely humans, living out their short span of life aboard some lone derelict, lost even to memory in the depth of this vast sea of weed and deadly creatures.
“I shall send this message forth on its journey, as I have sent the other four, within a well-pitched barrel, attached to a small fire-balloon. The shell of the severed claw of the monster crab, I shall enclose2, as evidence of the terrors that beset us in this dreadful place. Should this message, and the claw, ever fall into human hands, let them, contemplating this vast mandible, try to imagine the size of the other crab or crabs that could destroy so formidable a creature as the one to which this claw belonged.
“What other terrors does this hideous world hold for us?
“I had thought of inclosing, along with the claw, the shell of one of the white smaller crabs. It must have been some of these moving in the weed that night, that set my disordered fancy to imagining of ghouls and the Un-Dead. But, on thinking it over, I shall not; for to do so would be to illustrate nothing that needs illustration, and it would but increase needlessly the weight which the balloon will have to lift.
“And so I grow wearied of writing. The night is drawing near, and I have little more to tell. I am writing this in the saloon, and, though I have mended and carpentered so well as I am able, nothing I can do will hide the traces of that night when the vast crabs raided through these cabins, searching for—what?
“There is nothing more to say. In health, I am well, and so is my wife and the little one, but….
“I must have myself under control, and be patient. We are beyond all help, and must bear that which is before us, with such bravery as we are able. And with this, I end; for my last word shall not be one of complaint.
“ARTHUR SAMUEL PHILIPS.”
“Christmas Eve, 1879.”
1 This is evidently a reference to something which Mr. Philips has set forth in an earlier message—one of the three lost messages—W. H. H.
2 Captain Bolton makes no mention of the claw, in the covering letter which he has enclosed with the MS.—W.H.H.
The Mystery of the Derelict
All the night had the four-masted ship, Tarawak, lain motionless in the drift of the Gulf Stream; for she had run into a “calm patch”—into a stark calm which had lasted now for two days and nights.
On every side, had it been light, might have been seen dense masses of floating gulf-weed, studding the ocean even to the distant horizon. In places, so large were the weed-masses that they formed long, low banks, that, by daylight, might have been mistaken for low-lying land.
Upon the lee side of the poop, Duthie, one of the ’prentices, leaned with his elbows upon the rail, and stared out across the hidden sea, to where in the Eastern horizon showed the first pink and lemon streamers of the dawn—faint, delicate streaks and washes of colour.
A period of time passe
d, and the surface of the leeward sea began to show—a great expanse of grey, touched with odd, wavering belts of silver. And everywhere the black specks and islets of the weed.
Presently, the red dome of the sun protruded itself into sight above the dark rim of the horizon; and, abruptly, the watching Duthie saw something—a great, shapeless bulk that lay some miles away to starboard, and showed black and distinct against the gloomy red mass of the rising sun.
“Something in sight to looard, Sir,” he informed the Mate, who was leaning, smoking, over the rail that ran across the break of the poop. “I can’t just make out what it is.”
The Mate rose from his easy position, stretched himself, yawned, and came across to the boy.
“Whereabouts, Toby?” he asked, wearily, and yawning again.
“There, Sir,” said Duthie—alias Toby— “broad away on the beam, and right in the track of the sun. It looks something like a big houseboat, or a haystack.”
The Mate stared in the direction indicated, and saw the thing which puzzled the boy, and immediately the tiredness went out of his eyes and face.
“Pass me the glasses off the skylight, Toby,” he commanded, and the youth obeyed.
After the Mate had examined the strange object through his binoculars for, maybe, a minute, he passed them to Toby, telling him to take a “squint,” and say what he made of it.
“Looks like an old powder-hulk, Sir,” exclaimed the lad, after a while, and to this description the Mate nodded agreement.
Later, when the sun had risen somewhat, they were able to study the derelict with more exactness. She appeared to be a vessel of an exceedingly old type, mastless, and upon the hull of which had been built a roof-like superstructure; the use of which they could not determine. She was lying just within the borders of one of the weedbanks, and all her side was splotched with a greenish growth.
It was her position, within the borders of the weed, that suggested to the puzzled Mate, how so strange and unseaworthy looking a craft had come so far abroad into the greatness of the ocean. For, suddenly, it occurred to him that she was neither more nor less than a derelict from the vast Sargasso Sea—a vessel that had, possibly, been lost to the world, scores and scores of years gone, perhaps hundreds. The suggestion touched the Mate’s thoughts with solemnity, and he fell to examining the ancient hulk with an even greater interest, and pondering on all the lonesome and awful years that must have passed over her, as she had lain desolate and forgotten in that grim cemetery of the ocean.
Through all that day, the derelict was an object of the most intense interest to those aboard the Tarawak, every glass in the ship being brought into use to examine her. Yet, though within no more than some six or seven miles of her, the Captain refused to listen to the Mate’s suggestions that they should put a boat into the water, and pay the stranger a visit; for he was a cautious man, and the glass warned him that a sudden change might be expected in the weather; so that he would have no one leave the ship on any unnecessary business. But, for all that he had caution, curiosity was by no means lacking in him, and his telescope, at intervals, was turned on the ancient hulk through all the day.
Then, it would be about six bells in the second dog watch, a sail was sighted astern, coming up steadily but slowly. By eight bells they were able to make out that a small barque was bringing the wind with her; her yards squared, and every stitch set. Yet the night had advanced apace, and it was nigh to eleven o’clock before the wind reached those aboard the Tarawak. When at last it arrived, there was a slight rustling and quaking of canvas, and odd creaks here and there in the darkness amid the gear, as each portion of the running and standing rigging took up the strain.
Beneath the bows, and alongside, there came gentle rippling noises, as the vessel gathered way; and so, for the better part of the next hour, they slid through the water at something less than a couple of knots in the sixty minutes.
To starboard of them, they could see the red light of the little barque, which had brought up the wind with her, and was now forging slowly ahead, being better able evidently than the big, heavy Tarawak to take advantage of so slight a breeze.
About a quarter to twelve, just after the relieving watch had been roused, lights were observed to be moving to and fro upon the small barque, and by midnight it was palpable that, through some cause or other, she was dropping astern.
When the Mate arrived on deck to relieve the Second, the latter officer informed him of the possibility that something unusual had occurred aboard the barque, telling of the lights about her decks,1 and how that, in the last quarter of an hour, she had begun to drop astern.
On hearing the Second Mate’s account, the First sent one of the ’prentices for his night-glasses, and, when they were brought, studied the other vessel intently, that is, so well as he was able through the darkness; for, even through the night-glasses, she showed only as a vague shape, surmounted by the three dim towers of her masts and sails.
Suddenly, the Mate gave out a sharp exclamation; for, beyond the barque, there was something else shown dimly in the field of vision. He studied it with great intentness, ignoring for the instant, the Second’s queries as to what it was that had caused him to exclaim.
All at once, he said, with a little note of excitement in his voice:—
“The derelict! The barque’s run into the weed around that old hooker!”
The Second Mate gave a mutter of surprised assent, and slapped the rail.
“That’s it!” he said. “That’s why we’re passing her. And that explains the lights. If they’re not fast in the weed, they’ve probably run slap into the blessed derelict!”
“One thing,” said the Mate, lowering his glasses, and beginning to fumble for his pipe, “she won’t have had enough way on her to do much damage.”
The Second Mate, who was still peering through his binoculars, murmured an absent agreement, and continued to peer. The Mate, for his part, filled and lit his pipe, remarking meanwhile to the unhearing Second, that the light breeze was dropping.
Abruptly, the Second Mate called his superior’s attention, and in the same instant, so it seemed, the failing wind died entirely away, the sails settling down into runkles, with little rustles and flutters of sagging canvas.
“What’s up?” asked the Mate, and raised his glasses.
“There’s something queer going on over yonder,” said the Second. “Look at the lights moving about, and—Did you see that?”
The last portion of his remark came out swiftly, with a sharp accentuation of the last word.
“What?” asked the Mate, staring hard.
“They’re shooting,” replied the Second. “Look! There again!”
“Rubbish!” said the Mate, a mixture of unbelief and doubt in his voice.
With the falling of the wind, there had come a great silence upon the sea. And, abruptly, from far across the water, sounded the distant, dullish thud of a gun, followed almost instantly by several minute, but sharply defined, reports, like the cracking of a whip out in the darkness.
“Jove!” cried the Mate, “I believe you’re right.” He paused and stared. “There!” he said. “I saw the flashes then. They’re firing from the poop, I believe…. I must call the Old Man.” He turned and ran hastily down into the saloon, knocked on the door of the Captain’s cabin, and entered. He turned up the lamp, and, shaking his superior into wakefulness, told him of the thing he believed to be happening aboard the barque:—
“It’s mutiny, Sir; they’re shooting from the poop. We ought to do something—” The Mate said many things, breathlessly; for he was a young man; but the Captain stopped him, with a quietly lifted hand.
“I’ll be up with you in a minute, Mr. Johnson,” he said, and the Mate took the hint, and ran up on deck.
Before the minute had passed, the Skipper was on the poop, and staring through his night-glasses at the barque and the derelict. Yet now, aboard of the barque, the lights had vanished, and there showed no more the flashes
of discharging weapons—only there remained the dull, steady red glow of the port sidelight; and, behind it, the night-glasses showed the shadowy outline of the vessel.
The Captain put questions to the Mates, asking for further details.
“It all stopped while the Mate was calling you, Sir,” explained the Second. “We could hear the shots quite plainly.”
They seemed to be using a gun as well as their revolvers,” interjected the Mate, without ceasing to stare into the darkness.
For a while the three of them continued to discuss the matter, whilst down on the main-deck the two watches clustered along the starboard rail, and a low hum of talk rose, fore and aft.
Presently, the Captain and the Mates came to a decision. If there had been a mutiny, it had been brought to its conclusion, whatever that conclusion might be, and no interference from those aboard the Tarawak, at that period, would be likely to do good. They were utterly in the dark—in more ways than one—and, for all they knew, there might not even have been any mutiny. If there had been a mutiny, and the mutineers had won, then they had done their worst; whilst if the officers had won, well and good. They had managed to do so without help. Of course, if the Tayawak had been a man-of-war with a large crew, capable of mastering any situation, it would have been a simple matter to send a powerful, armed boat’s crew to inquire; but as she was merely a merchant vessel, undermanned, as is the modern fashion, they must go warily. They would wait for the morning, and signal. In a couple of hours it would be light. Then they would be guided by circumstances.
The Mate walked to the break of the poop, and sang out to the men:—
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 22
