“Yes,” agreed the doctor. “It certainly ought to prove a lesson in cleanliness.”
Bullion
It was a pitchy night in the South Pacific. I was Second Mate of one of the fast clipper-ships running between London and Melbourne at the time of the big gold finds up at Bendigo. There was a fresh breeze blowing, and I was walking hard up and down the weather side of the poop-deck to keep myself warm, when the Captain came out of the companion-way and joined me in my traipse.
“Mr. James, do you believe in ghosts?” he asked suddenly, after several minutes of silence.
“Well, sir,” I replied. “I always keep an open mind, so I can’t say I’m a proper disbeliever; though I think most ghost yarns can be explained.”
“Well,” he said in a queer voice, “there’s someone keeps whispering in my cabin at nights. It’s making me feel funny to be there. I’ve stood it ever since we left port; but I tell you, Mr. James, I think it’s healthier to be on the poop.”
“How do you mean, whispering, sir?” I asked.
“Just that,” he said. “Someone whispering about my cabin. Sometimes it’s quite close to my head, other times it’s here and there and everywhere—in the air, you know.”
Then, abruptly, he stopped in his walk and faced me as if determined to say the thing that was in his mind. “What did Captain Avery die of on the passage out?” he asked, quick and blunt.
“None of us knew, sir,” I told him. “He just seemed to sicken and go off.”
“Well,” he said, “I’m not going to sleep in his cabin any longer. I’ve no special fancy for just sickening and going off. If you like I’ll change cabins with you, as you don’t seem over troubled with superstitions.”
“Certainly, sir,” I answered, half pleased and half sorry; for while I had a feeling that there was nothing really to bother about in the Captain’s fancies, yet—though he had only taken command in Melbourne to bring the ship home—I had found already that he was not one of the soft kind by any means. And so, as you will understand, I had vague feelings of uneasiness to set against my curiosity to find out what it was that had given Captain Reynolds a fit of nerves.
“Would you like me to sleep in your place tonight, sir?” I asked.
“Well,” he said with a little laugh, “when you get below you’ll find me snug in your bunk, so it’ll be a case of my cabin or the saloon table.” And with that it was settled.
“I shall lock the door,” I added. “I’m not going to have anyone fooling me. I suppose I may search?”
“Do what you like,” was all he replied.
About an hour later, the Captain left me and went below. When the Mate came up to relieve me at eight bells I told him that I was promoted to the Captain’s cabin and the reason why. To my surprise, he said that he wouldn’t sleep there for all the gold that was in the ship; so that I finished by telling him that he was a superstitious old shell-back. But he stuck to his opinion, and I left him sticking hard.
When I got down to my new cabin, I found that the Captain had made the Steward shift my gear in already, so that I had nothing to do but turn in, which I did after a good look round and locking the door.
I left the lamp turned about half up, and meant to lie awake awhile listening; but I had gone over to sleep before I knew, and only waked to hear the ’prentice knocking on my door to tell me it was one bell.
For three nights I slept thus in comfort and jested once or twice with the Captain that I was getting the best of the bargain; but he was firm that he would not sleep there again and said that if I was so pleased with it, so much the better as I could take it permanently.
Then, just as you might expect, on the fourth night something happened. I had gone below for the middle watch and had fallen asleep as usual, almost as soon as my head was on the pillow. I was awakened suddenly by some curious sound apparently quite near to me. I lay there without moving and listened, my heart beating a little rapidly; but otherwise I was cool and alert. Then I heard the thing quite plainly with my waking senses—a vague, uncertain whispering, seeming to me as if someone or something bent over me from behind, and whispered some unintelligible thing close to my ear. I rolled over suddenly and stared behind and around the cabin, but the whole place was empty.
Then I sat still and listened again. For several minutes there was an absolute silence; and then, abruptly, I heard the vague, uncomfortable whispering again, seeming to come from the middle of the cabin. I sat there feeling distinctly nervous; then I jumped quietly from my bunk and slipped across silently to the door. I stooped and listened at the keyhole; but there was no one there. I ran across then to the ventilators and shut them; also I made sure that the ports were screwed up, so that there was now absolutely no place through which anyone could send his voice, even supposing that anyone was idiot enough to want to play such an unmeaning trick.
For a while after I had taken these precautions, I stood silent; and twice I heard the whispering, going vaguely now in this and now in that part of the air of the cabin, as if some unseen, spiritual thing wandered about trying to make itself heard.
As you may suppose, this was getting more than I cared to tackle; for I had searched the cabin every watch, and it seemed to me that there was truly something unnatural in the thing I heard. I began to get my clothes and dress; for after this I felt inclined to adopt the Captain’s suggestion of the saloon table for a bunk. You see, I had got to have my sleep, but I could not fancy lying unconscious in that cabin, with that strange sound wandering about; though awake, I think I can say truthfully, I should not really have feared it; but to submit myself to the defencelessness of sleep with that uncanniness near me was more than I could bear.
And then, you know, a sudden thought came blinding through my brain. The bullion! We were bringing home thirty thousand ounces of gold in sealed bullion chests, and these were in a specially erected wooden compartment standing all by itself in the center of the lazarette, just below the Captain’s cabin. What if some attempt were being made secretly on the treasure, and we all the time idiotically thinking of ghosts, when perhaps the vague sounds we had heard were conducted in some way from below! You can conceive how the thought set me tingling; so that I did not stop to realize how improbable it was, but took my lamp and went immediately to the Captain.
He woke in a moment, and when he had heard my suggestion he told me that the thing was practically impossible; yet the very idea made him sufficiently uneasy to determine him on going down with me into the lazarette, to look at the seals on the door of the temporary bullion room.
He did not stop to dress, but just pushed his feet into his soft slippers, and reaching the lamp from me, led the way. The entrance to the lazarette was through a trap-door under the saloon table, and this was kept locked. When this was opened, the Captain went down with the lamp, and I followed noiselessly in my stockinged feet.
At the bottom of the steep ladder we paused, and the Captain held the lamp high and looked around. Then he went over to where the square bulk of the bullion room stood alone in the center of the place, and together we examined the seals on the door; but of course they were untouched, and I began to realize now that my idea had been nothing more than an unreasoned suggestion. And then, you know, as we stood there silent amid the various creaks and groans of the working bulkheads, we both heard the sound—a whispering somewhere near us that came and went oddly, being lost in the noise of the creaking woodwork, and again coming plain, seeming to be in this place and now in that.
I experienced an extraordinary feeling of superstitious fear; but, curiously enough, the Captain was affected quite otherwise; for he muttered in a low voice that there was someone inside of the bullion room, and began quickly and coolly to break the sealed tapes. Then, very quietly, he unlocked the door, and telling me to hold the lamp high, threw the door wide open. But the place was empty save for the neatly chocked range of bullion boxes, bound and sealed and numbered, that occupied half of the floor.
“Nothing here!
” said the Captain, and took the lamp from my hand. He held it low down over the rows of little numbered chests, and suddenly he swore.
“The thirteenth!” he said with a gasp. “Where’s the thirteenth? Number Thirteen!”
He was right. The bullion-chest which should have stood between No. twelve and No. fourteen was gone. We set-to and counted every chest, verifying the numbers. There they all were, numbered up to sixty, except for the gap of the thirteenth. Somehow, in some way, a thousand ounces of gold had been removed bodily from out of the sealed room.
In a very agitated but thorough manner, the Captain and I made close examination of the room; but it was plain that any entry that had been made could only have been through the sealed doorway. Then he led the way out and, having tried the lock several times and found it showed no signs of having been tampered with, he locked and sealed up the door again; sealing the tape also right across the keyhole. Then, a sudden thought seemed to come to him, he told me to stay by the door while he went up into the saloon.
In a few minutes he returned with the Purser, both of them armed and carrying lamps. They came very quietly and paused with me outside of the door where the two of them made very close and minute scrutiny both of the old seals and of the door itself. At the Purser’s request, the Captain removed the new seals and unlocked the door. As he opened it the Purser turned suddenly and looked behind him. I heard it also—a vague whispering, seeming to be in the air; then it was drowned and lost in the creaking of the timbers.
The Captain had heard the sound, too, and was standing in the doorway holding his lamp high and looking in, his pistol ready in his right hand; for to him it had seemed to come from within the bullion room. Yet the place was as empty as we had left it but a few minutes before; as, indeed, it was bound to be of any living creature. The Captain walked across to where the bullion chest was missing, and stooped to point out the gap to the Purser. A queer exclamation came from him, and he remained stooping while the Purser and I pressed forward to find what new thing had happened now. When I saw what the Captain was staring at you will understand that I felt simply dazed; for there right before his face, in its proper place, was the thirteenth bullion chest; as indeed it must have been all the time.
“You’ve been dreaming,” said the Purser with a burst of relieved laughter. “My goodness! but you did give me a fright!”
For our parts, the Captain and I just stared at the re-materialized bullion chest, and then at one another. But explanation of this extraordinary thing we could not find. One thing only was I sure of, and that was that the chest had not been there five minutes earlier. And yet, there it was, sealed and banded, and wedged in with the others as it must have been since it was placed there under official supervision.
“That chest was not there a few minutes ago!” the Captain said at length. Then he brushed the hair off his forehead and looked again at the chest. “Are we dreaming?” he asked at last, and turned and looked at me. He touched the chest with his foot, and I did the same with my hand; but it was no illusion, and we could only suppose, in spite of the tellings of our eyes, that we must have made some extraordinary mistake.
I turned to the purser.
“But the whispering!” I said. “You heard the whispering!”
“Yes,” said the Captain. “What was that? I tell you there’s something funny knocking about, or else we’re all mad!”
The Purser stared puzzled, nodding his head.
“I heard something,” he said. “The chief thing is, the stuff is there all right. I suppose you’ll put a watch over it?”
“By Moses, yes!” said the Captain. “The Mate and I’ll sleep on that blessed gold until we hand it ashore in London Town!”
And so it was arranged. So much had the feeling impressed us that something threatened the bullion that we three officers had to take it in turns to sleep actually inside of the bullion room itself, being sealed and locked in with the treasure. In addition to this, the Captain made the petty officers keep watch and watch with him and the Purser through the whole of each twenty-four hours, traipsing round and round that wretched bullion room until not a mouse could have gone in or out without being seen. And more, he had the deck above and below thoroughly examined by the carpenter once in every twenty-four hours, so that never was a treasure so carefully and scrupulously guarded.
For our part, we officers began to grow pretty sick of the job, once the touch of excitement connected with the thought of robbery had worn off. And when, as sometimes happened, we were aware of that extraordinary whispering, it was only the Captain’s determination and authority which made us submit to the constant discomfort and breaking of our sleep; for every hour the watchman on the outside of the bullion room would knock twice on the boards of the room, and the sleeping officer within would have to rouse, take a look round, and knock back twice, to signify that all was well.
Sometimes I could almost think we got into the way of doing this in our sleep; for I have been roused to my watch on deck, with no memory of having answered the watch man’s knock, though a cautious inquiry showed me that I had done so.
Then, one night that I was sleeping in the bullion room, a rather queer thing happened. Something must have roused me between the times of the watchman’s knocks; for I wakened suddenly and half sat up, with a feeling that something was wrong somewhere. As in a dream I looked round, and all the time fighting against sleepiness. Everything seemed normal, but when I looked at the tiers of bullion chests, I saw that there was a gap among them—some of the chests had certainly disappeared.
I stared in a stupid nerveless way, as a man full of sleep sometimes will do, without rousing himself to realize the actuality of the things he looks at. And even as I stared, I dozed over and fell back; but seemed to waken almost immediately and looked again at the chests. Yet, it was plain that I must have seen dazedly and half dreaming; for not a bullion chest was missing, and I sank back again thankfully to my slumber, as you can think.
When, at the end of my “treasure-watch”, as we had grown to call our watch below, I reported my queer half-dream to the Captain. He came down himself and made a thorough examination of the bullion room, also questioning the sailmaker who had been the watchman outside. But he said there had been nothing unusual; only that once he had thought he had heard the curious whispering going about in the air of the lazarette.
And so that queer voyage went on, with over us all the time a sense of peculiar mystery, vague and indefinable; so that one thought a thousand strange weird thoughts that one lacked the courage to put into words. And other times there was only a sense of utter weariness of it all, and the one desire to get to port and be shut of it, and go back to a normal life in some other vessel. Even the passengers—many of whom were returning diggers—were infected by the strange atmosphere of uncertainty that prompted our constant guarding of the bullion; for it had become known among them that a special guard was being kept, and that certain inexplicable things had happened. But the Captain refused all their offers of help, preferring to keep his own men about the gold, as you may suppose.
At last we reached London and docked; and now came the strangest thing of all. When the bank officials came aboard to take over the gold, the Captain took them down to the bullion room where the carpenter was walking round, as outside watchman, and the First Mate was sealed inside as usual.
The Captain explained that we were taking unusual precautions and broke the seals. When, however, they unlocked and opened the door, the Mate did not answer to the Captain’s call, but was seen to be lying quiet beside the gold. Examination showed that he was quite dead; but there was nowhere any mark or sign to show that his death was unnatural. As the Captain said to me afterwards:
“Another case of just sickening and going off! I wouldn’t sail again in this packet for anything the owners like to offer me!”
The officials examined the gold and, finding all in order, had it taken ashore up to the bank, and very thankful I was
to see the last of it. Yet, this is where I was mistaken; for about an hour later, as I was superintending the slinging out of some heavy cargo, there came a message from the bank, to the effect that every one of the bullion chests was a dummy filled with lead, and that no one be allowed to leave the ship until an inquiry and search had been made. This search was carried out rigorously, so that not a cabin or a scrap of personal luggage was left unexamined; and afterwards the ship herself was searched, but nowhere was there any sign of the gold; and when you come to remember that there must have been something like a ton of it, you will realize that it was not a thing that could have been easily hidden.
Permission was now given to all that they might go ashore, and I proceeded once more to supervise the slinging out of heavy stuff that I had been “bossing” when the order came from the bank. And all the time as I gave my orders I felt in a daze. How could nearly seventeen hundredweight of gold have been removed out of that guarded bullion room? I remembered all the curious things that had been heard and seen and half felt. Was there something queer about the ship? But my reason objected. There was surely some sane, normal explanation of the mystery.
Abruptly I came out of my thoughts; for the man on the shore-gear had just let a heavy case down rather roughly, and a swell-looking man was cursing him for his clumsiness. It was then that a possible explanation of the mystery came to me, and I determined to take the risk of testing it.
I jumped ashore and swore at the man who was handling the gear, telling him to slack away more carefully; to which he replied “Ay, ay, Sir.” Under my breath I said:
“Take no notice of the hard talk, Jimmy. Let the next one come down good and solid. I’ll take the responsibility if it smashes.”
Then I stood back and let Jimmy have his chance. The next case went well up to the block before Jimmy took a turn and signalled to the winch to vast heaving.
“Slack away handsome!” yelled Jimmy, and let his own rope smoke round the bollard. The case came down, crashing, from a height of thirty feet and burst on the quay.
The House on the Borderland and Other Mysterious Places Page 43