Before Lanson paid heed to the occupants of the room he searched for and found the lifeboat, planing behind them from its taut painter.
Vanderbeck stood with his back to the companionway, staring gloomily through the stern ports. When Lanson touched the back of a chair, making a slight noise, the captain turned slowly. He had taken off pistols and rapier and had changed sea boots for buckled slippers but he was still garbed in black silk which gave his face an unnatural glow.
“Wine?” said Vanderbeck.
“As you will,” said Lanson.
The captain waved him into a seat at the table but did not himself sit down. Watching the man’s restive pacing, Lanson broke some dried fruit in his hands and chased it down with excellent port.
“You are a fellow of remarkable indestructibility,” said Vanderbeck.
“I might,” ventured Lanson, “say the same of you.”
“Yes . . . yes, that’s so, I suppose. But blast me, Mister Mate, if I’d enjoy twenty-one days in an open boat, dumping over the crew one by one.”
“I . . . I’d rather not talk about it, sir, if you please.”
“Yes, yes, yes, of course! Blast me, of course! Good fruit, eh?”
“Very tasty.”
“Good, good. Got it from a derelict named the Martha Howe. Captain must have been a fool to desert her. There she was, floating high and where was he? Shark bait, most likely. A joke on the fellow, eh?”
Lanson drank a little more wine.
“Marvelous what one finds bobbing around,” said Vanderbeck. “God love us, a man begins to believe that the accursed world is only intent upon one thing—giving all their riches to Old Man Sea.”
“I suppose one would think so,” said Lanson, “looking at all these chests.”
“These? Rubble, Mister Mate. I should show you what there is in the forward hold. But here’s the dinner.” He sat down and the sailor who had entered laid the board with smoothly mechanical motions. His face too was featureless.
“But what worth is it?” demanded Vanderbeck. “It can’t be spent. It can’t buy me what I want! Have some beef.”
Lanson ate as slowly as he could, experiencing difficulty with an insane desire to snatch out with both hands and bolt everything in sight. Neither of them said anything more until they had finished and the steward had brought forth some liquors and coffee.
Vanderbeck sank back in his chair and examined his watch, comparing it with an ancient chronometer on another table a short distance away. While he was so engaged a shadow was thrown in the path of the swinging lamp. Lanson’s liquor glass slopped a little.
The captain of the Gloucester Maid, recognizable only by his clothes, having no slightest feature from chin to brow, stood deferentially at Vanderbeck’s chair. Lanson felt that he was being looked upon but he tried to make no sign.
“Course eas’-nor’-eas’ and wind strong, sir,” said the captain of the Gloucester Maid.
“Eas’-nor’-eas’,” repeated Vanderbeck. “When do we pass the Cape?”
“At midnight, sir.”
“Perhaps,” said Vanderbeck, “we’ll not be turned back this time. Steady as you go.”
The Gloucester Maid’s master touched his cap and withdrew.
“And maybe we will,” said Vanderbeck. “That’s the only hope. To pass the Cape and be quit of this forever. Hah, Mister Mate, we’ll have a drink on it for I very much fear that your own fate also depends upon it.”
Lanson drank with him.
“Perhaps,” said Vanderbeck, growing more expansive, “he’ll not even board us this night!”
Lanson smiled. “Has he ever failed?”
Vanderbeck clouded, glancing around. “Must you rob me of even the wish? No, he’s never failed. Not in all these hundreds of years. But by this watch he’s close to ten minutes overdue. That’s unusual.”
They lapsed into silence, both of them waiting, Lanson knowing full well who was coming and why and marveling slightly that he in his youth should be wise in lore so old.
He did not disappoint them, though the time had progressed almost an hour. There was a swirl of wind upon the deck, even louder than the already shrieking gale. The ship was, for a moment, in the grip of some savage force which strained at it and made it reel.
There came a sound of great boots on the deck and a halloo for Vanderbeck. Vanderbeck sat still.
The boots made the companionway groan and the room was full of rushing wind and glaring light and smoke too. Lanson looked steadily at his glass.
“What’s this?” said an ingratiating voice.
“Edward Lanson,” said Vanderbeck.
“And who, may I politely ask, is Edward Lanson?”
“Hah!” said Vanderbeck. “Is he as good as that?” He laughed immoderately, and then, “Mate of the Gloucester Maid, or perhaps I should say captain since he had the command for five hours. A cool one, my friend, and worthy of your notice. He outlives all the men in his boat. . . .”
“By taking their rations for himself?” hopefully.
Lanson’s face was very stiff when he looked up. The fellow in the dark, dripping cloak had slunk into a chair and his pointed brows were raised half amusedly, half cynically.
“You do not know everything, I see,” said Lanson coldly.
“You see?” cried Vanderbeck. “You see? Twenty-one days in an open boat and he comes up with enough nerve to bait you!” Laughter shook him so that, pouring wine, the bottle chattered against the glass.
He was not cross. A leer of disbelief appeared upon his tapering face. “No man, my young mate, has any such remarkable power of self-sacrifice. I should know for, after all, I govern the lives of more than you suppose.”
“But not mine,” said Lanson, “and so I’ll not be made to take that lie. Though I can’t say that your good opinion is of any great importance to me.”
Vanderbeck poured brandy all around in his enthusiasm. He looked put out and not at all pleased with what Vanderbeck had done.
“This was poorly thought of,” he growled.
“What can I do? You rob me, one by one, of those I get to man her. Even tonight the time of five is through and so they leave with you. And when I go to the work of lying to, shall I desist because, wonder of wonders, he is not dead?”
“What else can he expect now?”
“You’ll give him the same chance as others,” said Vanderbeck. “He boards me and he is not afraid. Nor is he even afraid of you! And therefore you wish him ill. He’ll have the same chance, I say.”
He peered at Lanson with shifty eyes but Lanson only sipped his brandy and did not blink. He despised the fellow from the nethermost reaches of his soul.
After a little, he got up and wandered about the room, opening the chests and regaining his good spirits by laughing at the contents. The sight of gold and gems reacted upon him like a colossal prank. Finally he took heed of the chronometer and sat down at the table again.
From inside the cloak he took a great dice cup and wrapping his long fingers over the edge, made the cubes within dance.
“Always your dice,” said Vanderbeck. “As the years go by I trust you less and less.”
“Pah, you think my dice are false? Here! Inspect them!”
“What good would that do?” said Vanderbeck. “But, this time, won’t you use mine?”
“And be certain, then, that they are false? What a child you think me, Captain Vanderbeck. High man for first?”
“As you will,” said Vanderbeck.
Promptly he rolled out four sixes and a five and sat there grinning while Vanderbeck took the great box and made the cubes rattle. When they fell upon the cloth they showed but small numbers.
“Shoot first, then,” cried Vanderbeck, “and be damned to you. This night I’ll
pass the Cape, that I swear!”
“Have you not sworn too much already, perhaps?” he said.
Vanderbeck flushed.
He rolled the dice and got three fives. The remaining two presently bounced forth and one of them was a five. The last was also a mate to the rest.
“Five fives,” he grinned. “Shoot five sixes now and pass the Cape. Yes, shoot five sixes or five aces and be free of it. Rattle them well, Captain Vanderbeck, for again you near land after long cruising. Fail and you are mine for seven years more.”
Vanderbeck’s eyes were overbright. “You’ve never been beaten. You have no concern. And it only amuses you to see another try. But here, I’ll shoot and to hell with you.”
The five dice leaped from the box and when they had quieted they read two sixes, a pair of fours and a deuce. Vanderbeck’s hands shook when he laid the sixes aside and put the trio back into the cup. Thoroughly he shook them, savagely he threw them. Two more sixes came to view.
He was still grinning, self-assured. It amused him to see the moistness of Vanderbeck’s hands and the tremble of the captain’s lip.
Vanderbeck sent the die spinning round and round inside the cup and then, as though abandoning everything, let it fall to sight.
He began to laugh in a quiet, horrible sort of way. Vanderbeck’s eyes were starting from their sockets and he appeared to be on the verge of insanity. Lanson whirled the brandy in the glass with small motions.
“Four sixes and a deuce won’t do it I’m afraid,” he said. “And so you’re mine another seven years. But worry not. Again I’ll bless your ship. She shall not founder. No, she’ll carry you through the storm of winds which blow around the bottom of the world and we’ll not meet again until your time has once more come. And so, good voyage to you, Captain Vanderbeck. Collect your crews upon the sea and send them on when their time is done. After all, you gave ship and self to me to win against these seas. You won, you see. And so, goodbye and good sailing. . . .”
“There’s the matter of myself,” said Lanson quietly. He dared not hope. “After all, I had no part in this and offered nothing to the sea but my own small strength. I come here only by chance and you have no right to keep me.”
“Blast me, that’s true,” said Vanderbeck. “Much as I like you, Mister Mate, I like you a shade too well to have you so condemned. Come, you, he’ll have to have his chance.”
He regarded them uncertainly for a little and then smiled in an oily fashion, slipping sideways into the chair once more.
“You really want to be given back to the sea, Edward Lanson?”
“Rather that than this.”
“Then you do not like my service.”
“I did not ask to enter it.”
His eyes shifted from the direct stare and he again produced the dice cup. “But let it be understood what you do. You shoot for your freedom and I for your soul. Is that correct?”
Lanson sat up a little straighter and took a hitch on his nerve. “Yes.”
“High man shoots first.”
And he rolled four sixes and a trey.
Lanson took the box. He stared for a while into its depths and then stirred it up. He tossed and got a hotchpotch of small ones.
He took the box again, rotating it slowly, all the while grinning triumphantly at Lanson. When the dice spewed forth there were three aces, a four and a deuce. His quick hands tossed the four and the deuce back and when they leaped out again they were an ace and a trey. He placed the fourth ace with the first three and the die went round and round inside the cup while he enjoyed Lanson’s strained face. Then it bounced to the board and teetered for a moment between an ace and a six. Then it fell, the ace on the side.
He shrugged. “Four aces to beat, Edward Lanson. But even if you lose I am not such a hard master.”
“I have not lost,” said Lanson stubbornly.
He made the dice clatter in the cup. With a twitch of his wrist he scattered them on the green cloth. Two aces were there to be set aside. He tittered. “Go ahead, Edward Lanson. As you say, you have not lost.”
Lanson rattled the three dice savagely. He spilled them and when they had stopped, only one was found to be an ace.
“Keep right on,” he laughed. “Not even yet have you lost.”
Lanson shot him a contemptuous glare. The two remaining dice leaped about in the box and then bounced swiftly forth.
Vanderbeck leaped up so suddenly that he upset his brandy, “You see!” he cried. “You see! Two aces and that makes five! He’s shot five aces and he’s got you! Then you can be beaten. You can! And seven years from tonight when we again come near the Cape, we’ll see!”
But a strange thing was happening to Lanson. His evil face was beginning to fade. Vanderbeck was beginning to fade. The very tapestries of the room were growing indistinct.
The steward who waited in the door became only a boney thing and then a shadow and finally vanished altogether. The beams overhead grew as transparent as glass and even Vanderbeck’s voice was drawing far off.
The face was gone. The chests were gone. The table and the beef were gone. And then the deck under his feet was nothing and he began to fall.
The water was a bitter shock. A hungry wave towered up and dropped its tons of froth upon him. He came to the surface gasping and struck out wildly, encumbered by his clothes, smothered by the sea, deafened by the wind.
Close beside him something white was bobbing and he clung desperately to it. The solidity of the canvas-wrapped spar was reassuring for he knew it as a sea anchor. More calmly now he worked himself up the line to the lifeboat’s bow, discovering that he was only using one hand.
It took some time for him to get over the lunging gunwale but at last he lay in the half-swamped boat, gasping with relief.
Presently he pulled himself to the ’midship thwart and lay out flat upon it. There was something to which he had clung and now he gazed wonderingly upon it, finding that he still held a dice box.
Overhead the winds that howl around the bottom of the world tore spray straight out from the crests of every wave until a solid sheet of water was continually in the air. Back and forth, up and down, rolling, pitching and staggering, the lifeboat floundered through the gale.
Lanson got in the sea anchor and hung its beribboned canvas upon the mast as best he could, the while glancing about for any further sign of the spectral Flying Dutchman.
But the sea was clear, and after a little he lashed the helm upon a northerly course. Gripping the dice box with a stubborn hand and kneeling on the buried bottom boards, Edward Lanson began to bail.
Glossary
STORIES FROM THE GOLDEN AGE reflect the words and expressions used in the 1930s and 1940s, adding unique flavor and authenticity to the tales. While a character’s speech may often reflect regional origins, it also can convey attitudes common in the day. So that readers can better grasp such cultural and historical terms, uncommon words or expressions of the era, the following glossary has been provided.
AAA: Agricultural Adjustment Administration; former US government agency established in 1933 under President Franklin Roosevelt. Its purpose was to help farmers by reducing the production of certain common crops, thus raising farm prices and encouraging more diversified farming. Farmers were given benefit payments in return for limiting acreage given to common crops. The agency also oversaw a large-scale destruction of existing crops and livestock in an attempt to reduce surpluses. In 1936, the Supreme Court declared the AAA as unconstitutional.
astern: in a position behind a specified vessel.
Astor: Hotel Astor; located between Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth streets on Broadway, the Astor brought New Yorkers, as well as the world, in droves to what would soon be Times Square. Its design combined a number of different artistic styles and was meant to approximat
e the luxurious European spas and resorts.
athwartship: across a ship from side to side.
auks: a name given to various species of Arctic sea birds having a chunky body, short wings and webbed feet.
bandoliers: broad belts worn over the shoulder by soldiers and having a number of small loops or pockets, for holding cartridges.
bells: the strokes on a ship’s bell, every half-hour, to mark the passage of time.
bitt: a vertical post, usually one of a pair, set on the deck of a ship and used for securing cables, lines for towing, etc.
bolero: a jacket ending above or at the waistline, with or without collar, lapel and sleeves, worn open in front.
bosun: a ship’s officer in charge of supervision and maintenance of the ship and its equipment.
bowline on the bight: a bowline knot (a loop knot that neither slips nor jams) with a double loop tied in the bight (middle or slack part) of a rope.
bucko mate: the mate of a sailing ship who drives his crew by the power of his fists.
burg: city or town.
camphor: camphor laurel; a large ornamental evergreen tree, native to Taiwan, Japan and some parts of China. It grows up to seventy feet tall and has leaves with a glossy, waxy appearance.
Cape Town: capital of the Republic of South Africa. A port city founded in the seventeenth century as a stopover for ships plying the Europe-to-India route.
chronometer: an instrument for measuring time accurately in spite of motion or varying conditions.
Confederate: of or pertaining to the Confederate States of America (1861–1865), the government established by eleven Southern states of the US after their secession from the Union. At the onset of the Civil War, the Confederate government issued its own currency which at first was accepted throughout the South as a medium of exchange. The money lost all value when the Confederacy ceased to exist as a political entity at the end of the war.
The Scifi & Fantasy Collection Page 14