“There’s something down there,” I muttered. “For goodness’ sake come back from the rail.”
We gave back a step or two, and then stopped to listen; and even as we did so there came a slight air playing through the mist. “The breeze is coming,” said the Second Mate. “Look, the mist is clearing already.”
He was right. Already the look of white impenetrability had gone, and suddenly we could see the corner of the after-hatch coamings through the thinning fog. Within a minute we could see as far forrard as the mainmast, and then the stuff blew away from us, clear of the vessel, like a great wall of whiteness, that dissipated as it went.
“Look!” we all exclaimed together. The whole of the vessel was now clear to our sight; but it was not at the ship herself that we looked, for, after one quick glance along the empty main-deck, we had seen something beyond the ship’s side. All around the vessel there lay a submerged spread of weed, for, maybe, a good quarter of a mile upon every side.
“Weed!” sang out Captain Jeldy in a voice of comprehension. “Weed! Look! By Jove, I guess I know now what got the Mate!” He turned and ran to the port side and looked over. And suddenly he stiffened and beckoned silently over his shoulder to us to come and see. We had followed, and now we stood, one on each side of him, staring.
“Look!” whispered the Captain, pointing. “See the great brute! Do you see it? There! Look!”
At first I could see nothing except the submerged spread of the weed, into which we had evidently run after dark. Then, as I stared intently, my gaze began to separate from the surrounding weed a leathery-looking something that was somewhat darker in hue than the weed itself.
“My God!” said Captain Jeldy. “What a monster! What a monster! Just look at the brute! Look at the thing’s eyes! That’s what got the Mate. What a creature out of hell itself!”
I saw it plainly now; three of the massive feelers lay twined in and out among the clumpings of the weed; and then, abruptly, I realised that the two extraordinary round disks, motionless and inscrutable, were the creature’s eyes, just below the surface of the water. It appeared to be staring, expressionless, up at the steel side of the vessel. I traced, vaguely, the shapeless monstrosity of what must be termed its head. “My God!” I muttered. “It’s an enormous squid of some kind! What an awful brute! What—”
The sharp report of the Captain’s revolver came at that moment. He had fired at the thing, and instantly there was a most awful commotion alongside. The weed was hove upward, literally in tons. An enormous quantity was thrown aboard us by the thrashing of the monster’s great feelers. The sea seemed almost to boil, in one great cauldron of weed and water, all about the brute, and the steel side of the ship resounded with the dull, tremendous blows that the creature gave in its struggle. And into all that whirling boil of tentacles, weed, and seawater the three of us emptied our revolvers as fast as we could fire and reload. I remember the feeling of fierce satisfaction I had in thus aiding to avenge the death of the Mate.
Suddenly the Captain roared out to us to jump back, and we obeyed on the instant. As we did so the weed rose up into a great mound over twenty feet in height, and more than a ton of it slopped aboard. The next instant three of the monstrous tentacles came in over the side, and the vessel gave a slow, sullen roll to port as the weight came upon her, for the monster had literally hove itself almost free of the sea against our port side, in one vast, leathery shape, all wreathed with weed-fronds, and seeming drenched with blood and curious black liquid.
The feelers that had come inboard thrashed round here and there, and suddenly one of them curled in the most hideous, snake-like fashion around the base of the mainmast. This seemed to attract it, for immediately it curled the two others about the mast, and forthwith wrenched upon it with such hideous violence that the whole towering length of spars, through all their height of a hundred and fifty feet, were shaken visibly, whilst the vessel herself vibrated with the stupendous efforts of the brute.
“It’ll have the mast down, Sir!” said the Second Mate, with a gasp. “My God! It’ll strain her side open! My—”
“One of those blasting cartridges!” I said to Jeldy almost in a shout, as the inspiration took me. “Blow the brute to pieces!”
“Get one, quick!” said the Captain, jerking his thumb towards the companion. “You know where they are.”
In thirty seconds I was back with the cartridge. Captain Jeldy took out his knife and cut the fuse dead short; then, with a steady hand, he lit the fuse, and calmly held it, until I backed away, shouting to him to throw it, for I knew it must explode in another couple of seconds.
Captain Jeldy threw the thing like one throws a quoit, so that it fell into the sea just on the outward side of the vast bulk of the monster. So well had he timed it that it burst, with a stunning report, just as it struck the water. The effect upon the squid was amazing. It seemed literally to collapse. The enormous tentacles released themselves from the mast and curled across the deck helplessly, and were drawn inertly over the rail, as the enormous bulk sank away from the ship’s side, out of sight, into the weed. The ship rolled slowly to starboard, and then steadied. “Thank God!” I muttered, and looked at the two others. They were pallid and sweating, and I must have been the same.
“Here’s the breeze again,” said the Second Mate, a minute later. “We’re moving.” He turned, without another word, and raced aft to the wheel, whilst the vessel slid over and through the weedfield.
“Look where that brute broke up the sheep-pen!” cried Jeldy, pointing. “And here’s the skylight of the sail-locker smashed to bits!”
He walked across to it, and glanced down. And suddenly he let out a tremendous shout of astonishment:
“Here’s the Mate down here!” he shouted. “He’s not overboard at all! He’s here!”
He dropped himself down through the skylight on to the sails, and I after him; and, surely, there was the Mate, lying all huddled and insensible on a hummock of spare sails. In his right hand he held a drawn sheath-knife, which he was in the habit of carrying, A.B. fashion, whilst his left hand was all caked with dried blood, where he had been badly cut. Afterwards, we concluded he had cut himself in slashing at one of the tentacles of the squid, which had caught him round the left wrist, the tip of the tentacle being still curled tight about his arm, just as it had been when he hacked it through. For the rest, he was not seriously damaged, the creature having obviously flung him violently away through the framework of the skylight, so that he had fallen in a studded condition on to the pile of sails.
We got him on deck, and down into his bunk, where we left the steward to attend to him. When we returned to the poop the vessel had drawn clear of the weed-field, and the Captain and I stopped for a few moments to stare astern over the taffrail.
As we stood and looked, something wavered up out of the heart of the weed—a long, tapering, sinuous thing, that curled and wavered against the dawn-light, and presently sank back again into the demure weed—a veritable spider of the deep, waiting in the great web that Dame Nature had spun for it in the eddy of her tides and currents.
And we sailed away northwards, with strengthening Trades, and left thuat patch of monstrousness to the loneliness of the sea.
The Finding of the Graiken
I
When a year had passed, and still there was no news of the full-rigged ship Graiken, even the most sanguine of my old chum’s friends had ceased to hope perchance, somewhere, she might be above water.
Yet Ned Barlow, in his inmost thoughts, I knew, still hugged to himself the hope that she would win home. Poor, dear old fellow, how my heart did go out towards him in his sorrow!
For it was in the Graiken that his sweetheart had sailed on that dull January day some twelve months previously.
The voyage had been taken for the sake of her health; yet since then—save for a distant signal recorded at the Azores—there had been from all the mystery of ocean no voice; the ship and they within her had vani
shed utterly.
And still Barlow hoped. He said nothing actually, but at times his deeper thoughts would float up and show through the sea of his usual talk, and thus I would know in an indirect way of the thing that his heart was thinking.
Nor was time a healer.
It was later that my present good fortune came to me. My uncle died, and I—hitherto poor—was now a rich man. In a breath, it seemed, I had become possessor of houses, lands, and money; also—in my eyes almost more important—a fine fore-and-aft-rigged yacht of some two hundred tons register.
It seemed scarcely believable that the thing was mine, and I was all in a scutter to run away down to Falmouth and get to sea.
In old times, when my uncle had been more than usually gracious, he had invited me to accompany him for a trip round the coast or elsewhere, as the fit might take him; yet never, even in my most hopeful moments, had it occurred to me that ever she might be mine.
And now I was hurrying my preparations for a good long sea trip—for to me the sea is, and always has been, a comrade.
Still, with all the prospects before me, I was by no means completely satisfied, for I wanted Ned Barlow with me, and yet was afraid to ask him.
I had the feeling that, in view of his overwhelming loss, he must positively hate the sea; and yet I could not be happy at the thought of leaving him, and going alone.
He had not been well lately, and a sea voyage would be the very thing for him if only it were not going to freshen painful memories.
Eventually I decided to suggest it, and this I did a couple of days before the date I had fixed for sailing.
“Ned,” I said, “you need a change.”
“Yes,” he assented wearily.
“Come with me, old chap,” I went on, growing bolder. “I’m taking a trip in the yacht. It would be splendid to have—”
To my dismay, he jumped to his feet and came towards me excitedly.
“I’ve upset him now,” was my thought. “I am a fool!”
“Go to sea!” he said. “My God! I’d give—” He broke off short, and stood opposite to me, his face all of a quiver with suppressed emotion. He was silent a few seconds, getting himself in hand; then he proceeded more quietly: “Where to!”
“Anywhere,” I replied, watching him keenly, for I was greatly puzzled by his manner. “I’m not quite clear yet. Somewhere south of here—the West Indies, I have thought. It’s all so new, you know—just fancy being able to go just where we like. I can hardly realise it yet.”
I stopped, for he had turned from me and was staring out of the window.
“You’ll come, Ned?” I cried, fearful that he was going to refuse me.
He took a pace away, and came back.
“I’ll come,” he said, and there was a look of strange excitement in his eyes that set me off on a tack of vague wonder; but I said nothing, just told him how he had pleased me.
II
We had been at sea a couple of weeks, and were alone upon the Atlantic—at least, so much of it as presented itself to our view.
I was leaning over the taffrail, staring down into the boil of the wake; yet I noticed nothing, for I was wrapped in a tissue of somewhat uncomfortable thought. It was about Ned Barlow.
He had been queer, decidedly queer, since leaving port. His whole attitude mentally had been that of a man under the influence of an all-pervading excitement. I had said that he was in need of change, and had trusted that the splendid tonic of the sea breeze would serve to put him soon to rights mentally and physically; yet here was the poor old chap acting in a manner calculated to cause me anxiety as to his balance.
Scarcely a word had been spoken since leaving the Channel. When I ventured to speak to him, often he would take not the least notice, other times he would answer only by a brief word; but talk—never.
In addition, his whole time was spent on deck among the men, and with some of them he seemed to converse both long and earnestly; yet to me, his chum and true friend, not a word.
Another thing came to me as a surprise—Barlow betrayed the greatest interest in the position of the vessel, and the courses set, all in such a manner as left me no room for doubt but that his knowledge of navigation was considerable.
Once I ventured to express my astonishment at this knowledge, and ask a question or two as to the way in which he had gathered it, but had been treated with such an absurdly stony silence that since then I had not spoken to him.
With all this it may be easily conceived that my thoughts, as I stared down into the wake, were troublesome.
Suddenly I heard a voice at my elbow:
“I should like to have a word with you, Sir.” I turned sharply. It was my skipper, and something in his face told me that all was not as it should be.
“Well, Jenkins, fire away.”
He looked round, as if afraid of being overheard; then came closer to me.
“Someone’s been messing with the compasses, Sir,” he said in a low voice.
“What?” I asked sharply.
“They’ve been meddled with, Sir. The magnets have been shifted and by someone who’s a good idea of what he’s doing.”
“What on earth do you mean?” I inquired. “Why should anyone mess about with them? What good would it do them? You must be mistaken.”
“No, Sir, I’m not. They’ve been touched within the last forty-eight hours, and by someone that understands what he’s doing.”
I stared at him. The man was so certain. I felt bewildered.
“But why should they?”
“That’s more than I can say, Sir; but it’s a serious matter, and I want to know what I’m to do. It looks to me as though there were something funny going on. I’d give a month’s pay to know just who it was, for certain.”
“Well,” I said, “if they have been touched, it can only be by one of the officers. You say the chap who has done it must understand what he is doing.”
He shook his head. “No, Sir—” he began, and then stopped abruptly. His gaze met mine. I think the same thought must have come to us simultaneously. I gave a little gasp of amazement.
He wagged his head at me. “I’ve had my suspicions for a bit, Sir,” he went on; “but seeing that he’s—he’s—” He was fairly struck for the moment.
I took my weight off the rail and stood upright.
“To whom are you referring?” I asked curtly.
“Why, Sir, to him—Mr. Ned—”
He would have gone on, but I cut him short.
“That will do, Jenkins!” I cried. “Mr. Ned Barlow is my friend. You are forgetting yourself a little. You will accuse me of tampering with the compasses next!”
I turned away, leaving little Captain Jenkins speechless. I had spoken with an almost vehement over-loyalty, to quiet my own suspicions.
All the same, I was horribly bewildered, not knowing what to think or do or say, so that, eventually, I did just nothing.
III
It was early one morning, about a week later, that I opened my eyes abruptly. I was lying on my back in my bunk, and the daylight was beginning to creep wanly in through the ports.
I had a vague consciousness that all was not as it should be, and feeling thus, I made to grasp the edge of my bunk, and sit up, but failed, owing to the fact that my wrists were securely fastened by a pair of heavy steel handcuffs.
Utterly confounded, I let my head fall back upon the pillow; and then, in the midst of my bewilderment there sounded the sharp report of a pistol-shot somewhere on the decks over my head. There came a second and the sound of voices and footsteps, and then a long spell of silence.
Into my mind had rushed the single word—mutiny! My temples throbbed a little, but I struggled to keep calm and think, and then, all adrift, I fell to searching round for a reason. Who was it? And why?
Perhaps an hour passed, during which I asked myself ten thousand vain questions. All at once I heard a key inserted in the door. So I had been locked in! It turned, and the steward walk
ed into the cabin. He did not look at me, but went to the arm-rack and began to remove the various weapons.
“What the devil is the meaning of all this, Jones?” I roared, getting up a bit on one elbow. “What’s happened?”
But the fool answered not a word—just went to and fro carrying out the weapons from my cabin into the next, so that at last I ceased from questioning him, and lay silent, promising myself future vengeance.
When he had removed the arms, the steward began to go through my table drawers, emptying them, so that it appeared to me, of everything that could be used as a weapon or tool.
Having completed his task, he vanished, locking the door after him.
Some time passed, and at last, about seven bells, he reappeared, this time bringing a tray with my breakfast. Placing it upon the table, he came across to me and proceeded to unlock the cuffs from off my wrists. Then for the first time he spoke.
“Mr. Barlow desires me to say, Sir, that you are to have the liberty of your cabin so long as you will agree not to cause any bother. Should you wish for anything, I am under his orders to supply you.” He retreated hastily toward the door.
On my part, I was almost speechless with astonishment and rage.
“One minute, Jones!” I shouted, just as he was in the act of leaving the cabin. “Kindly explain what you mean. You said Mr. Barlow. Is it to him that I owe all this?” And I waved my hand towards the irons which the man still held.
“It is by his orders,” replied he, and turned once more to leave the cabin.
“I don’t understand!” I said, bewildered. “Mr. Barlow is my friend, and this is my yacht! By what right do you dare to take your orders from him? Let me out!”
As I shouted the last command, I leapt from my bunk, and made a dash for the door, but the steward, so far from attempting to bar it, flung it open and stepped quickly through, thus allowing me to see that a couple of the sailors were stationed in the alleyway.
Boats of the Glen Carrig and Other Nautical Adventures Page 25
