CHAPTER XVII
TELLETH HOW AN EYE WATCHED ME FROM THE DARK
It is not my intention to chronicle all those minor happenings thatbefell us at this time, lest my narrative prove over-long and thereforetedious to the reader. Suffice it then that the fair weather foretoldby Godby had set in and day by day we stood on with a favouring wind.Nevertheless, despite calm weather and propitious gale, thedisaffection among the crew waxed apace by reason of the great blackship that dogged us, some holding her to be a bloody pirate and othersa phantom-ship foredooming us to destruction.
As to myself, never was poor wretch in more woeful plight for,'prisoned in the stifling hold where no ray of kindly sun might everpenetrate, and void of all human fellowship, I became a prey to wild,unholy fancies and a mind-sickness bred of my brooding humours; my evilthoughts seemed to take on stealthy shapes that haunted the fetid gloomabout me, shapes of horror and murder conjured up of my own vengefulimaginations. An evil time indeed this, of long, uneasy sleepings, ofhateful dreams and ill wakings, of sullen humours and a horror of allcompanionship, insomuch that when came Godby or Adam to supply my dailywants, I would hide myself until they should be gone; thereafter,tossing feverishly upon my miserable bed, I would brood upon my wrongs,hugging to myself the thought of vengeance and joying in the knowledgethat every hour brought me the nearer its fulfilment.
And now it was that I became possessed of an uneasy feeling that I wasnot alone, that beyond my crazy door was a thing, soft-breathing, thatlurked watchful-eyed in the gloom, hearkening for my smallest movementand following on soundless feet whithersoever I went. This unease sogrew upon me that when not lost in fevered sleep I would lie, withbreath in check, listening to such sounds as reached me above thenever-ceasing groaning of the vessel's labour, until the squeak andscutter of some rat hard by, or any unwonted rustling beyond the door,would bring me to an elbow in sweating panic.
To combat the which sick fancies it became my custom to steal up frommy fetid hiding-place at dead of night and to prowl soft-footed aboutthe ship where none stirred save myself and the drowsy watch abovedeck. None the less (and go where I would) it seemed I was hauntedstill, that behind me lurked a nameless dread, a silent, unseenpresence. Night after night I roamed the ship thus, my fingersclenched on the knife in my girdle, my ears on the strain and eyes thatsought vainly every dark corner or patch of shadow.
At last, on a night, as I crouched beside a gun on the 'tween-decks Iespied of a sudden a shape, dim and impalpable-seeming in the gloom,that flitted silently past me and up the ladder to the deck above. Upstarted I, knife in hand, but in my haste I stumbled over some obstacleand fell; but up the ladder I sprang in pursuit, out into moonlight,and hastening forward came face to face with Adam.
"Ha-rogue!" I cried, and sprang at him with up lifted knife; but as Icame he stepped aside (incredibly quick) and thrusting out a foottripped me sprawling.
"Easy, shipmate, easy!" says he, thrusting a pistol under my nose."Lord love you, Martin, what would you now?"
"So you'll follow me, will you!" I panted. "You'll creep and crawl andspy on me, will you?"
"Neither one nor t'other, Martin."
"'Twas you climbed the gangway but now!"
"Not I, Martin, not I." And as I scowled up at him I knew he spoketruth, and a new fear seized me.
"And you saw no one, Adam? Nothing--no shape that flitted up theladder hitherwards and no sound to it?"
"Never a thing, Martin, save yourself."
"Why then," says I, clasping my temples, "why then--I'm mad!"
"How so, comrade?"
"Because I'm followed--I'm watched--spied upon sleeping and waking!"
"Aye, but how d'ye know?" he questioned, stooping to peer at me.
"I feel it--I've known it for days past, and to-night I saw it. I'mhaunted, I tell you!"
"Who by, shipmate?"
"Aye!" I cried. "Who is it--what? 'Tis a thing that flits i' the darkand with never a sound, that watches and listens. It mounted theladder yonder scarce a moment since plain to my sight--"
"Yet I saw nothing, Martin. And not a soul stirring, save the watchforward, the steersman aft, and myself."
"Why then I'm verily mad!" says I.
"Not you, shipmate, not you. 'Tis nought but the solitude anddarkness, they take many a man that way, so ha' done with 'em, Martin!My lady's offer of employ yet holdeth good, so 'list with me asmaster's mate, say but the word and--"
"No!" says I, fiercely. "Come what may I take no service under anaccursed Brandon!" Saying which I got me to my feet and presently backto the haunted dark.
Thus the days dragged by all unmarked by me (that took no more heed oftime) for my fevered restlessness gave place to a heaviness, a growinginertia that gripped me, mind and body; thus when not lost in troubledsleep I would lie motionless, staring dully at the dim flame of thelanthorn or blinking sightless on the dark.
This strange sickness (as hath been said) I then set down to no morethan confinement and my unwholesome situation, in the which suppositionI was very far beside the mark, as you shall hear. For there now befella thing that roused me from my apathy once and for all, and therebysaved me from miserably perishing and others with me, and the manner ofit thus:
On a time as I lay 'twixt sleep and wake, my glance (and for no reasonin the world) chanced upon that knot-hole in the opposite bulkhead, thewhich (as already told) I had wrought into the likeness of a great eye.Now, as I stared at it, the thing seemed, all at once, to grow instinctwith life and to stare back at me. I continued to view it (dullyenough) until little by little I became aware of something strangeabout it, and then as I watched this (that was no more than aknot-hole) the thing winked at me. Thinking this but some wild fancyor a trick of the light I lay still, watching it beneath my loweredlids, and thus I suddenly caught the glitter of the thing as it movedand knew it for a very bright, human eye that watched me through theknot-hole. Now this may seem a very small matter in the telling, butto me at that moment (overwrought by my long sojourn in the dark) itwas vastly otherwise.
For maybe a full minute the eye stared at me, fixed and motionless andwith a piercing intensity, then suddenly was gone, and I lying there,my flesh a-tingle, my heart quick-beating in a strange terror, so thatI marvelled to find myself so shaken. Leaping up in sudden fierce angerI wrenched open the door and rushed forth, only to fall headlong oversome obstacle; and lying there bruised and dazed heard the soft thudand scamper of rats in the dark hard by. So I got me back to my bunk,and lying there fell to a gloomy reflection. And the more I thought,the fiercer grew my anger that any should dare so to spy upon me.
Thus it was in one of my blackest humours that Godby found me when,having set down the victuals he had brought, he closed the crazy doorand seated himself on the cask that served me as chair, and bent topeer at me where I lay.
"Mart'n," said he, speaking almost in a whisper, "be ye awake at last?"For answer I cursed him heartily. "Avast, pal!" says he shaking hishead, "look'ee, Mart'n, 'tis in my mind the devil's aboard this ship."
"And what then?" I demanded angrily. "Am I a raree show to be peepedat and watched and spied upon?"
"Anan, pal--watched, d'ye say?"
"Aye, stared at through the knot-hole yonder awhile since by you orPenfeather."
"Never knowed there was a knot-hole, Mart'n," said he in the samehushed voice and staring at the thing, "and as for Cap'n Adam he aren'tbeen anigh you this two days. But 'tis all one, pal, all one--thisship do be haunted. And as for eyes a-watching of ye, Martin, whoshould it be but this here ghost as walketh the ship o'nights and makesaway wi' good men."
"How d'ye mean?" I questioned, reaching the ale he had brought. "Whattalk is this of ghosts?"
"What's yon?" he whispered, starting up, as a rustling sounded beyondthe door.
"Mere rats, man!"
"Lord love ye, Mart'n," says he, glancing about him, "'tis a chancyplace this. I don't know how ye can abide it."
&nbs
p; "I've known worse!" said I.
"Then ye don't believe in spectres, Mart'n--ghosts, pal, nor yetphantoms?"
"No, I don't!"
"Well, Mart'n, there be strange talk among the crew o' something as dohaunt the 'tween-decks--"
"Aye, I've overheard some such!" I nodded. "But, look ye, I've hauntedthe ship myself of late."
"And yet you've seen nowt o' this thing, pal?"
"No. What thing should I see?"
"Who knows, Martin? But the sea aren't the land, and here on thesewild wastes o' waters there's chancy things beyond any man's wisdom asany mariner'll--ha, what's yon?" says he under his breath and whippinground, knife in hand. "'Twas like a shoeless foot, Mart'n ... creepingmurder ... 'Tis there again!" Speaking, he tore open the door and I sawhis knife flash as he sprang into the darkness beyond; as for me Iquaffed my ale. Presently back he comes, claps to the door (mightycareful) and sinking upon the upturned cask, mops at his brow.
"Content you, Godby," says I, "here be no ghosts--"
"Soft, lad--speak soft!" he whispered. "For--Lord love you, Mart'n,'tis worse than ghosts as I do fear! Dog bite me, pal, here's beenblack and bloody doings aboard us this last two nights."
"How so, Godby?" I questioned, lowering my voice in turn as I met hislook.
"I mean, lad, as this thing--call it ghost or what ye will--has tookthree men these last two nights. There's Perks o' Deptford, McLean ashails from Leith, and Treliving the Cornishman--three good men,Mart'n--lost, vanished, gone! And, O pal, wi' never a mark or trace totell how!"
"Lost! D'ye mean--overboard?"
"No, Mart'n, I mean--lost! And each of them i' the middle watch--thesleepy hour, Mart'n, just afore dawn. In a fair night, pal, wi' a calmsea--these men vanish and none to see 'em go. And all of 'em primesailor-men and trusty. The which, Mart'n, sets a cove to wonderingwho'll be next."
"But are you sure they are gone?"
"Aye, Mart'n, we've sought 'em alow and aloft, all over the ship, saveonly this hole o' yourn--the which you might ha' known had ye sleptless."
"Have I slept so much, then?"
"Pal, you've done little else since you came aboard, seemingly. Allyesterday, as I do know, you slept and never stirred nor took so muchas bite or sup--and I know because while we was a' turning out the holda-seekin' and a-searchin' I come and took a look at ye every now andthen, and here's you a-lyin' like a dead man but for your snoring."
"Here's strange thing, and mighty strange! For until I came aboard Iwas ever a wondrous light sleeper, Godby."
"Why, 'tis the stench o' this place--faugh! Come aloft and take amouthful o' good, sweet air, pal."
"You say you sought these men everywhere--even down here in the hold?"
"Aye, alow and aloft, every bulkhead and timber from trucks to keelson!"
"And all this time I was asleep, Godby?"
"Aye--like a log, Mart'n."
"And breathing heavily?"
"Aye, ye did so, pal, groaning ye might call it--aye, fit to chill aman's good blood!"
"And neither you nor Adam nor the others thought to search thisdog-hole of mine?"
"Lord love ye--no, Mart'n! How should three men hide here?"
"Three men? Aye, true enough!" says I, clasping my head to stay therush and hurry of my thoughts.
"Come aloft, pal, 'tis a fair evening and the fine folk all a-suppingin the great cabin. Come into the air."
"Yes," I nodded, "yes, 'twill clear my head and I must think, Godby, Imust think. Reach me my doublet," says I, for now I felt myself allshivering as with cold. So Godby took up the garment where it lay andheld it out to me; but all at once let it fall and, drawing back, stoodstaring down at it, and all with never a word; whiles I sat crouchedupon my bed, my head between my clenched fists and my mind reelingbeneath the growing horror of the thought that filled me. And now,even as this thought took dreadful shape and meaning--even as suspiciongrew to certainty, I heard Godby draw a gasping breath, saw him reach astealthy, fumbling hand behind him and open the door, and then, leapingbackwards, he was swallowed in the dark, and with a hurry of stumblingfeet, was gone.
But I scarcely heeded his going or the manner of it, so stunned was Iby the sudden realisation of the terror that had haunted my ghastlyslumbers and evil wakings, a terror that (if my dreadful speculationswere true) was very real after all, a peril deadly and imminent.
The truth of which I now (and feverishly) set myself to prove beyondall doubt, and reached for the lanthorn. Now in so doing my footcaught in the doublet lying where Godby had dropped it, and I picked itup out of the way; but as I lifted it into the light I let it fallagain (even as Godby had done): and now, staring down at it, felt myflesh suddenly a-creep for, as it lay there at my feet, I saw upon onesleeve a great, dark stain that smeared it up from wrist to elbow--thehideous stain of new-spilt blood.
Black Bartlemy's Treasure Page 18