by Lamb, Hugh;
Landing safely on the lower deck, and placing my lamp on an iron tank near by, I gazed curiously around.
And truly there was enough to excite anyone’s curiosity!
Instead of the usual grating, a solid bulkhead of great thickness stretched right across from one side of the ship to the other.
Casks, cases, baskets of all sizes and descriptions lay scattered around, most of them open and their contents mouldy, decaying, and gnawed, strewing the place.
But the object which at once arrested our attention was a large brass gun – an 18-pounder, Dyson said – which, mounted on its carriage, with all its tackling complete, was pointed for’ard through a large opening in the bulkhead.
Catching up my lamp, I was tumbling towards this opening, or port-hole, when the boatswain, grabbing me by the shoulder, stammered in a horror-stricken voice, pointing to the ‘tween decks, where still the noises continued with every movement of the vessel, ‘Dead men’s bones, as sure as there’s a God above us! Look here, sir,’ he continued, holding up to the light a large, bulbous, conical object of a reddish colour, ‘this is grapeshot!’
‘Well?’ I asked.
‘Don’t you see, sir?’ replied the boatswain, ‘there’s been awful goings-on here! A coolie ship, or somethin’ o’ the kind, an’ the whole cargo on ‘em mowed down with shot in the ’tween decks there, an’ the bodies left to the rats. No wonder there’s rows when, perhaps, six or seven hundred skeletons gets a-rollin’ an’ smashin’ about in a sea like this! Nothin’ else but a floatin’ slaughter-house; sure’s my name’s John Dyson!’
But, unconvinced, I passed on towards the muzzle of the cannon, and, stooping, peered through the aperture, which was jagged and splintered as if hurriedly cut with an axe.
As I gazed, the vessel gave a sharp, sudden hoist to port, and a heap of something came sliding, rattling, and crashing just beneath me.
Lowering my lamp, as it sped swiftly by on the smooth deck, I saw that it was indeed a confused heap of bones, glistening white as ivory. As I followed them with my eyes disappearing into the darkness of the wings, five or six round objects came bounding singly along, one of which hit me a sharp blow on the side of the head, whilst another knocked the lamp out of my hands clear away into the black void beyond me, not before, however, I had recognized the thing with its grinning jaws and empty sockets. It was a human skull.
I am not ashamed to confess that I now altogether lost my presence of mind under this grim bombardment, and hastily turning, I staggered and stumbled towards where a feeble gleam of light showed the position of the ladder and the hatchway.
Quick as I was, the boatswain was up before me, and if ever two thoroughly scared men looked into each other’s pale faces, it was the pair of us as we regained our old places in the saloon, fronting the still slumbering seamen.
‘Coolies, you said, bo’sun,’ I remarked, as soon as I had in some measure collected my scattered wits, ‘what would a coolie ship be doing hereabouts?’
‘Who’s to tell, Mr Staunton, sir,’ rejoined Dyson, ‘where she fust come from? She might ha’ been bound round the Horn to Valparaiser or the Chinchis. An’ then, when this here wholesale slaughterin’ takes place, an’ the crew mutinies an’ battens the Chinkies, an’ perhaps the passengers too, for all we knows, down in the ’tween decks; what does they do but gets the gun into the lazarette there, an’ shoves the grape into the poor devils, on the idea that dead men tells no tales. I mayn’t ha’ got altogether the right drift o’ the thing, but I can’t see no other. An’,’ continued the boatswain, ‘this here derelick, high out o’ the water, an’ as strong as a castle, might ha’ come right acrost here on her own hook with her cussed loading o’ rats an’ skeletons. Dash me!’ he exclaimed, ‘if I think I ever got such a turn as when I hears that lamp a-gettin’ knocked out o’ your hand by one o’ them bouncin’ bones.’
‘Why, Dyson,’ I retorted indignantly, ‘you were half-way up the ladder almost before I made a start.’
‘Well, sir,’ replied he, with a half-laugh, ‘I reckon neither of us lost much time. And anyways, I’m glad we knows the reason now of that infarnal rumpus down there; though I must say I never did think it was as bad’s it is. I’ll just go up on the poop an’ get a mouthful o’ fresh air, an’ see if the light’s a-burnin’.’
Awaking the two seamen, but saying nothing to them of our adventure, we all went on deck.
The light was still burning, but very dimly. However, as the dawn was beginning to break, that was of little moment.
All that remained was to wait and hope that the Minnehaha was not very far away. Nor was she. For, when the daylight fully broke, ascending into the mizzen-top, I saw, about three miles away, hove-to under a topsail and couple of staysails, our own little ship; and the comfort and relief the sight afforded me would be hardly appreciated by anyone who had not spent such a night as I had. It was wonderful how she had contrived so well to keep in touch with us. But, as we afterwards discovered, it was our riding light in the rigging that did it. With their night-glasses, her look-outs had scarcely lost sight of us for five minutes together.
I cheered and waved my hat to the anxious watchers below, who heartily responded.
A few minutes later, the Minnehaha, with her yards just checked, ran down close to us, riding easily over the billows, at times perched like some great bird right on the summit of one; then, with a long, slow, heaving slide, leaning over till the morning sun shone on her bright copper, she would swoop down the steep green incline and be for a moment lost to view, with the exception of her royal yards just showing above the watery mountain-tops, till, presently, she again ascended, a glorious fabric, instinct with life and grace and human skill in her every motion.
‘I wonders, now,’ said the boatswain, as we stood holding on to the mizzen-rigging and watching her, ‘how the old man means to get us out of this fix.’
However, that it was the captain’s intention to lower a boat we soon discovered, although how she would approach close enough to the storm-swept derelict to be of any service to us passed our comprehension. We now saw, so close was the Minnehaha, the hands lie aft in a body, and almost before we realised what was going on, the lifeboat, so called from her being built in watertight compartments and her double bows, was in the water full of men, and pulling towards us. More often out of than in sight, as the great waves hid her in their valleys, on she came gallantly, making for the derelict’s stern, where we stood ready with lines to heave to her.
I could see the first officer, as he hung on with all his might to the long, powerful steering-oar, bareheaded, with the angry spray flying like hail over himself and the crew.
Now a huge billow lifted the boat nearly level with the derelict’s quarter-gallery, only escaping destruction by a miracle of skilful steering. At this moment Dyson hove his line, for so close were we that they could almost have touched us with their oars, yet in a trice they were a hundred yards away on the quarter.
Hauling in our line, we found attached to it the end of a new one, to which was made fast a life-buoy.
‘Oh, that’s it, is it?’ exclaimed Dyson, as he unbent the half-rotten rope we had hove from the derelict. ‘It’s risky, but the old man’s right. It’s the only way.’
Whilst saying this the boatswain had got into the buoy, to which, of course, another line from the boat, as well as ours, was attached. We waved our hats to those in the lifeboat as a signal, and Dyson, watching his chance, sprang overboard, and, half pulled, half swimming as we rapidly paid out line, was at length dragged safely into the boat.
Being a capital swimmer, I had decided to go last, and, after seeing the two seamen in safely, I hauled back the buoy and in my turn leaped over the taffrail, and though, being without the saving check exerted by the inboard line, I was carried a long way to leeward and half smothered by being dragged by those in the boat through the tops of the waves, instead of being allowed to make my own way over them, I had the satisfaction at lengt
h of feeling myself pulled by a dozen strong arms into the boat, in the stern-sheets of which I laid gasping and draining.
In less than half an hour we all stood, little the worse for our adventure, on board of our own vessel, along whose decks, before the davit-tackles had been well made fast, sounded the sharp orders, ‘Reefs out of the top’sls!’ ‘Loose foresail and mainsail!‘ ‘Set the main-to’gall’ns’1!’
Our story, as may be imagined, excited no end of comment and conjecture from those on board of the Minnehaha, and many were the yarns spun that passage, both in saloon and forecastle.
Duly recorded, too, was the occurrence in the official logbook, extracts from which, in course of time, appeared in Lloyd’s and a few other nautical journals; but, so far as I was able to learn, without doing anything towards clearing up the mystery of the wandering vessel, which, with the gruesome remnants of her ill-fated occupants, is possibly, even yet, drifting, ever drifting, becalmed or tempest-tossed, perhaps not far from where we first sighted her, perhaps now in distant seas, with still the beautiful image, pointing heavenward, before her; still bound to her mast, with its bonds of iron, the grim skeleton; still, in windy weather, clattering along her hold those others, fated only to disclose their terrible secret when the sea shall give up its dead.
Elsewhere in his books, J. A. Barry reports the true story of the Napoleon Canavero, which sailed from Macao in April 1866, bound for Peru, carrying 600 coolies. The crew mutinied and slaughtered the coolies in just the manner described here. Truth is indeed stranger than fiction. ED.
The Haunted Mill OR The Ruined Home
JEROME K. JEROME
There’s very little one can say about the next item. If I tell you it comes from the pen of the author of THREE MEN IN A BOAT (1889) it will give you some idea of what to expect. Jerome K. Jerome (1859 – 1927) was one of the Victorian era’s great humorists. The son of a clergyman, his career embraced periods as a schoolmaster, an actor and a journalist. In the latter capacity, he was co-founder with Robert Barr, another contributor to this volume, of The Idler, a successful magazine.
The work in question which follows comes from an incredible book, TOLD AFTER SUPPER (1891). Published by the Leadenhall Press, on thick blue paper, it was illustrated on almost every page by K.M. Skeaping. TOLD AFTER SUPPER consisted of Jerome sending up almost every ghost story in sight, while at the same time inventing a few of his own – and then sending them up. That ghost story literature survived the experience speaks volumes for its stamina.
This selection from the book is made up of two pieces run together. The first half is the book’s introduction, worthy of resurrection in itself and also setting the tone for the following tale, one of those told by the various guests in Jerome’s book who each recount a seasonal Yuletide ghost story. Charles Dickens must have spun in his grave.
Introductory
I begin this way, because it is the proper, orthodox, respectable way to begin, and I have been brought up in a proper, orthodox, respectable way, and taught to always do the proper orthodox, respectable thing; and the habit clings to me.
Of course, as a mere matter of information it is quite unnecessary to mention the date at all. The experienced reader knows it was Christmas Eve, without my telling him. It always is Christmas Eve, in a ghost story.
Christmas Eve is the ghosts’ great gala night. On Christmas Eve they hold their annual fête. On Christmas Eve everybody in Ghostland who is anybody – or rather, speaking of ghosts, one should say, I suppose, every nobody who is any nobody – comes out to show himself or herself, to see and to be seen, to promenade about and display their winding-sheets and grave-clothes to each other, to criticize one another’s style, and sneer at one another’s complexion.
‘Christmas Eve parade,’ as I expect they themselves term it, is a function, doubtless, eagerly prepared for and looked forward to throughout Ghostland, especially by the swagger set, such as the murdered Barons, the crime-stained Countesses, and the Earls who came over with the Conqueror, and assassinated their relatives, and died raving mad.
Hollow moans and fiendish grins are, one may be sure, energetically practised up. Blood-curdling shrieks and marrow-freezing gestures are probably rehearsed for weeks beforehand. Rusty chains and gory daggers are overhauled, and put into good working order; and sheets and shrouds, laid carefully by from the previous year’s show, are taken down and shaken out, and mended, and aired.
Oh, it is a stirring night in Ghostland, the night of December the twenty-fourth!
Ghosts never come out on Christmas night itself, you may have noticed. Christmas Eve, we suspect, has been too much for them; they are not used to excitement. For about a week after Christmas Eve, the gentleman ghosts, no doubt, feel as if they were all head, and go about making solemn resolutions to themselves that they will stop in next Christmas Eve; while the lady spectres are contradictory and snappish, and liable to burst into tears and leave the room hurriedly on being spoken to, for no perceptible cause whatever.
Ghosts with no position to maintain – mere middle-class ghosts – occasionally, I believe, do a little haunting on off-nights: on All Hallows Eve, and at Midsummer; and some will even run up for a mere local event – to celebrate, for instance, the anniversary of the hanging of somebody’s grandfather, or to prophesy a misfortune.
He does love prophesying a misfortune, does the average British ghost. Send him out to prognosticate trouble to somebody, and he is happy. Let him force his way into a peaceful home, and turn the whole house upside down by foretelling a funeral, or predicting a bankruptcy, or hinting at a coming disgrace, or some other terrible disaster, about which nobody in their senses would want to know sooner than they could possible help, and the prior knowledge of which can serve no useful purpose whatsoever, and he feels that he is combining duty with pleasure. He would never forgive himself if anybody in his family had a trouble and he had not been there for a couple of months beforehand, doing silly tricks on the lawn or balancing himself on somebody’s bedrail.
Then there are, besides, the very young, or very conscientious ghosts with a lost will or an undiscovered number weighing heavy on their minds, who will haunt steadily all the year round; and also the fussy ghost, who is indignant at having been buried in the dust-bin or in the village pond, and who never gives the parish a single night’s quiet until somebody has paid for a first-class funeral for him.
But these are the exceptions. As I have said, the average orthodox ghost does his one turn a year, on Christmas Eve and is satisfied.
Why on Christmas Eve, of all nights in the year, I never could myself understand. It is invariably one of the most dismal of nights to be out in – cold, muddy, and wet. And besides, at Christmas time, everybody has quite enough to put up with in the way of a houseful of living relations, without wanting the ghosts of any dead ones mooning about the place, I am sure.
There must be something ghostly in the air of Christmas – something about the close, muggy atmosphere that draws up the ghosts, like the dampness of the summer rains brings out the frogs and snails.
And not only do the ghosts themselves always walk on Christmas Eve, but live people always sit and talk about them on Christmas Eve. When ever five or six English-speaking people meet round a fire on Christmas Eve, they start telling each other ghost stories. Nothing satisfies us on Christmas Eve but to hear each other tell authentic anecdotes about spectres. It is a genial, festive season, and we love to muse upon graves, and dead bodies, and murders, and blood.
There is a good deal of similarity about our ghostly experiences; but this of course is not our fault but the fault of the ghosts, who never will try any new performances, but always will keep steadily to the old, safe business. The consequence is that, when you have been at one Christmas Eve party, and heard six people relate their adventures with spirits, you do not require to hear any more ghost stories. To listen to any further ghost stories after that would be like sitting out two farcical comedies, or taking in two co
mic journals; the repetition would become wearisome.
There is always the young man who was, one year, spending the Christmas at a country house, and, on Christmas Eve, they put him to sleep in the west wing. Then in the middle of the night, the room door quietly opens and somebody – generally a lady in her night-dress – walks slowly in, and comes and sits on the bed. The young man thinks it must be one of the visitors, or some relative of the family, though he does not remember having previously seen her, who, unable to go to sleep, and feeling lonesome, all by herself, has come into his room for a chat. He has no idea it is a ghost: he is so unsuspicious. She does not speak, however; and, when he looks again, she is gone!
The young man relates the circumstance at the breakfast-table next morning, and asks each of the ladies present if it were she who was his visitor. But they all assure him that it was not, and the host, who has grown deadly pale, begs him to say no more about the matter, which strikes the young man as a singularly strange request.
After breakfast the host takes the young man into a corner, and explains to him that what he saw was the ghost of a lady who had been murdered in that very bed, or who had murdered somebody else there – it does not really matter which: you can be a ghost by murdering somebody else or by being murdered yourself, whichever you prefer. The murdered ghost is, perhaps, the more popular; but, on the other hand, you can frighten people better if you are the murdered one, because then you can show your wounds and do groans.
Then there is the sceptical guest – it is always ‘the guest’ who gets let in for this sort of thing by-the-bye. A ghost never thinks much of his own family: it is ‘the guest’ he likes to haunt who after listening to the host’s ghost story, on Christmas Eve, laughs at it, and says that he does not believe there are such things as ghosts at all; and that he will sleep in the haunted chamber that very night, if they will let him.