The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea

by William Hope Hodgson

  It was some time after midnight that something waked me, and I sat up in the darkness and looked about and listened. I could not imagine what had roused me, but I felt that I had heard something, though there was no sound in all the night, except the low blowing of the wind and the rippling of the water against the boat.

  And then, suddenly, as I sat there harking, there came over the sea from the southward the desolate mournful blowing of a foghorn. I stood up abruptly and threw all my rugs from me into the bottom of the boat.

  I ran down in the direction of the foghorn, and in ten minutes or so I saw against the sky the spars of a big four-masted vessel. I dropped the sail and shipped the oars. As I pulled toward her, the sound of the horn broke out into the night in a dull roar, coming from the after-part of the vessel. I backed the boat aft, noticing as I did so that the vessel stood no more than three or four feet above the level of the sea.

  Then, as I came opposite to the place where the horn seemed to be, I saw dimly that the deck rose here, and that I was come opposite to the poop. I rested on my oars. “Miss Doriswold!” I shouted. “Miss Doriswold!”

  The fog-horn gave a short, impotent blare, and immediately a girl’s voice called:

  “Who is that? Who is that?” in a queer, frightened, breathless way.

  “It’s all right!” I shouted back. “We got your message! I’m the Mate of the Skylark, the ship that got the message. I’m coming aboard.”

  The answer astonished me.

  “Don’t come onto the ship!” the voice called back to me, shrill and anxious. “Keep the boat away! Keep the boat away! There are thousands of rats—”

  It broke off abruptly, and there was the sound of a pistol shot up in the darkness. At that, I had the painter fast in a moment and, catching up my gun, vaulted aboard. In an instant the girl’s voice came again:

  “I’m all right. Don’t come aboard, whatever you do! It’s the rats! Wait for the daylight!”

  Even before she spoke, I was aware of a sound along the poop like the harsh noise of several saws at work. I walked aft a few steps, groping, and knew suddenly that there was a faint, curious smell everywhere about me in the night. I paused and stared through the darkness.

  “Where are you?” I shouted, and then I saw the black bulk of the chart-house vaguely through the darkness. I went forward a pace, and stumbled clumsily over a deck ring-bolt. “Where are you?” I shouted again. “I’ve come aboard.”

  “Go back! Go back! Go back!” called the girl’s voice shrilly, with a note of utter fear and horror in it. “Get into the boat, quick! I’ll explain. Go back! Go back!”

  III

  There came to me in the same moment a strange sense of restlessness all about the decks, and then, suddenly, all the air seemed to be full of an odd whining noise, that rose into a horrible shrill, twittering keening of sound. I heard a massed sound, as of thousands of small scuttering bodies coming toward me at a run through the darkness. The voice of the girl came in the same instant, crying out something in a frightened voice. But I never heard what she said, for something plucked my trousers, and immediately hundreds of creatures sprang upon me and swarmed over me, biting and tearing. My gun was utterly useless, and in an instant I knew that if I would save my life I must go overboard. I made a mad, staggering run to the side of the derelict, the rats flocking about me. With my free hand I was tearing their great bodies from me and keeping them from my face. The hideous little brutes were so thick upon me that I was loaded with them. I reached the rail and got over somehow, and fell souse down into the icy cold water.

  I stayed under water deliberately, as long as I could; and the rats left me and went to the surface to breathe. I swam hard until my head felt as if it would burst; then I came up, and found that I was clear of the rats. I discovered that I still had my gun in my left hand, and I was careful not to lose it. I swam forward until I was opposite the boat. I heard the girl’s voice calling something to me, but the water in my ears prevented me from hearing what it was.

  “Are you safe? Are you safe? Where are you?” the girl was calling.

  “I’m all right, thanks!” I shouted back. “I’m in the boat. I’ll wait till daylight, if you’re sure you are safe.”

  She assured me that she was all right, now that I had come, and could easily hold out until the morning. In the meanwhile I had stripped off my wet things and got into the spares I had brought with me and for which I was very thankful now, as you can imagine. All the time, as I changed, the girl and I kept up a conversation. I asked her about food; she told me she had eaten nothing for three days and nights but had still some water, and I was not to try to reach her until daylight came to show me the position of everything.

  This, however, would not satisfy me, and as I completed my dressing a sudden thought came to me. I struck a match and lit the binnacle-lamp and also the boat’s lantern, which was in the midship locker. Then I hooked the ring of the lantern over the spike of the boat-hook and reached the lantern up on to the poop of the derelict, where I set it on the deck. I could see the chart-house plainly now, and a pale but very beautiful face was looking at me through the glass of one of the ports. It was Miss Doriswold, and I waved to her with the boat-hook. She opened the port about an inch and called out to know what I was going to do. I told her she would see very quickly. Then I stuck the boat-hook into the handle of the binnacle-lamp and ran to the other end of the boat, where I was able to set it inboard on the poop-deck, some way farther aft than the boat-lamp.

  I got the bottom boards of the boat now and set them across from gunnel to gunnel of the boat, and then, taking my gun and a pocket full of cartridges, I stood on this temporary erection and looked aboard.

  I saw a most extraordinary sight, and really a very horrible one; for in the light of the lamps the decks were literally black and moving with rats, and the shining of their eyes in the lights made a constant, myriad twinkling from a thousand places at once, as the rats shifted this way and that. All about the base of the house there seemed to be rats, and I could see dimly that they had been at the woodwork of the house, but as there was a steel combing in at the back of the teak, very few had been able to get in, and then only by the door, as I learned afterward.

  I glanced at the port, but Miss Doriswold was not there, and as I looked there came the flare of a match and immediately the sharp report of a pistol shot. In a minute she returned to the port and cast out a big rat, which was instantly set upon by hundreds of others in a great black scramble. Then I raised my gun so that it was just a little above the level of the poop-deck and fired both barrels into that struggling crowd of little monsters. Several rolled over and died, and over a dozen ran about wounded and squealing, but in a moment both the wounded and the dead were covered with the living rats and literally torn to pieces.

  I reloaded quickly and began now to fire shot after shot among the hideous little brutes, and with every thud of the gun they lay dying and dead over the deck, and every time the living rats would leap onto the dead and wounded and destroy them, devouring them practically alive.

  In ten minutes I had killed hundreds, and within the next half hour I must have destroyed a thousand, to make a rough guess. The gun was almost red-hot in my hands. The dead began now to lie about the decks; for most of the rats were destroyed and the living rats had begun to run into hiding. I waved to Miss Doriswold, and we began to talk, while the gun was cooling.

  She told me she had been fighting the brutes off for the last four days, but that she had burned all her candles and had been forced to stay in the dark, only striking a match now and again (of which she had several boxes left) when the sounds at the door told her that a rat had nearly gnawed his way through. Then she would fire the Captain’s revolver at the brute, block the hole up with coal, and sit quiet in the dark, waiting for the next. Sometimes the rats got through in other places, above the steel combing. In this way she had been badly bitten several times, but had always managed to kill the rats and blo
ck the holes.

  Presently, when the gun was cool again, I began to shoot systematically at every rat in sight, so that soon I had killed and driven the little monsters clear off the visible parts of the poop-deck. I jumped aboard then, and walked round the house, with the boat-lantern and my gun. In this way I surprised and shot a score of rats that were hiding in the shadows, and after that there was not a rat to be seen anywhere.

  “They’re gone!” I shouted to Miss Doriswold, and in the same moment I heard her unlocking the chart-house door, and she came out onto the deck. She looked dreadfully haggard and seemed a little uncertain on her feet, but even thus I could see how pretty she was.

  “Oh!” she said, and staggered and gripped the corner of the chart-house. She tried to say something further, but I thought she was going to fall and caught her arm to lead her back into the house.

  “No!” she whispered breathlessly. “Not in there!” And I helped her to the seat on the side of the skylight. Then I ran to the boat for brandy, water and food, and presently I saw the life begin to come back into her. She told me later that she had not slept for four nights. And once she tried to thank me, but she was dumb that way—only her eyes said all the rest.

  Afterward, I got her to the boat, and when I had seen her safe and comfortable, I left her there and walked the poop of the derelict until daylight. And she, now that she felt safe, slept through the whole night and far into the daylight.

  When she waked I helped her aboard again and she insisted on preparing our breakfast. There was a fireplace in the chart-house, and coal, and I broke up the front of one of the hen-coops for kindling-wood. Soon we were drinking hot coffee and eating sea-biscuit and tinned meat. Then we went out on deck to walk up and down and talk. In this way she learned my side of the story, and questioned me closely on every point.

  “Oh,” she said at last, holding out both hands to me, “may God bless you!” I took her hands and looked at her with the strangest mixture of awkwardness and happiness. Then she slipped her hands from me and we went again to our constant pacing. Presently I had to send her to rest, though she would not at first, because she felt too happy to sit still; but afterward she was glad to be quiet.

  Through four days and nights we waited for the Skylark. The days we had entirely together; the nights she slept in the chart-house, and I in the little alley-way, with just a few feet below me the roll and gurgle of the water going through the waterlogged cabins of the half-sunk vessel. Odd whiles I would rise and see that the lamp was burning brightly in the rigging, so that the Skylark would not pass us in the darkness.

  On the morning of the fourth day, after we had made our breakfast happily together, we went out for our usual walk of the poop. The wind still continued light, but there were heavy clouds to the northward, which made me very anxious. Then, suddenly, Miss Doriswold cried out that she saw the ship, and in the same moment I saw her, too. We turned and looked at each other. Yet it was not all happiness that was in us. There was a half-questioning in the girl’s eyes, and abruptly I held out my arms!

  Two hours later we were safely aboard the Skylark, under only the main lower top-sail, and the wind coming down out of the north like thunder while to leeward the lonesome derelict was lost in huge clouds of spray.

  The ’Prentices’ Mutiny

  I

  In giving the following account of an actual and distinctly unusual happening, I have discovered, somewhat to my disgust, how awkward crude facts are to recount with plausibility. In fiction one realizses that mere statements are not sufficient; the invented fact must always have a road of plausible lies to aid its journey into the reader’s belief. Here, dealing with the bald, naked truth, I am permitted to make no preparatory road of plausible inventions. I am allowed only to present to you the things that actually happened—in short, the truth.

  I have also endeavoured to present, along with the narrative of what occurred, a slight though constant picture of the emotions and feelings of the actors in the scenes I have set out.

  Finally, I wish the reader to understand definitely that, for the sake of many who are yet living, in different parts of this little world of ours, the names of the personalities mentioned herein have been altered, and certain other precautions taken to safeguard them from any results which might follow upon the publication of this severely unvarnished account of their several actions in the affair of this quite unique mutiny.

  The following is, as far as possible, an exact account of the mutiny of the eight ’prentices of the full-rigged ship Lady Morgan—a thoroughly serious affair that occurred on the voyage home round Cape Horn.

  On the voyage out from England the Lady Morgan carried only two apprentices, youngsters of fifteen and sixteen, who endured a very great deal of rough treatment, notably at the hands of William Beeston, the Master; Jan Henricksen, the Second Mate; and Carl Schieffs, the Bo’sun. The indignities and sufferings that these two boys endured go to prove that the harsh treatment of young lads at sea is not so much a matter of the past as one could wish.

  The Mate, Robert Jenkins, though stern and brusque, treated the two youths with ordinary fairness, and as a result they had very warm feelings for him. His attitude to them was no better and no worse than that of most officers in well-disciplined vessels; but, standing alone for fairness, amid so much petty and brutal treatment, his conduct appears more humane, by the mere force of the contrast, than was probably the case.

  The boys’ names were Harold Jones and Mercer Kinniks, and among some of their punishments and inflictions I may mention the following: Having to pace the lee side of the poop with a heavy capstan-bar in each hand during the whole of their night watch; having to stay on deck during the afternoon watch below, though the men were allowed to go below as usual; having to go aloft at night and sit on the main-royal yard-arm for the whole four hours of the watch; being constantly kept on deck at nights, when it was properly their watch below; being both kicked and rope-ended on a number of occasions; and having many times a bucket of sea-water hove over them, fully dressed as they were, so that often they had no dry clothes to wear.

  This kind of thing was common all the way out to ’Frisco, where, as good fortune would have it, Captain Beeston was cabled to by his company to take aboard six apprentices from another of their vessels. This ship had just been sold to a Dutch timber-carrying firm, and the ’prentices out of her were transferred to the Lady Morgan so that they might work their passage home in her in the ordinary way.

  Now the six new lads were all of them, excepting the youngest, second and third voyagers—powerful, hefty youths, determined not to knuckle down to the kind of treatment which Jones and Kinniks told them they had received.

  It may be that, being indignant at what they heard from the two other ’prentices, and anxious to show that they would not be “hazed” likewise, they really displayed what may have appeared to the officers an attitude of almost wanton insubordination, and so actually invited the rough handling they were determined to resist.

  That they endured a harder time than ever they had expected is undoubtedly true; for both the Master and the Second Mate were big men, and could use their hands more than a bit, as the saying goes. So that on those occasions when some one of the new ’prentices made an attempt to stand up for himself the results were neither pleasant to the youth nor to those who had to look on.

  In justice to the First Mate, it must be stated that this kind of thing occurred, in the natural course of the ship’s routine, largely in his watch below, during the Second’s charge of the deck; so that he saw only a part of the rough usage the lads endured. Moreover, when the Master ill-treated the ’prentices during the First Mate’s watch on deck the Mate’s unspoken disapproval produced a certain amount of restraint on his actions, with the result that he seldom saw the brutal extremes to which things were being carried; for the Bo’sun (an animal of a man) soon discovered that the First Mate had no especial taste for “hazing,” and therefore took care to satisf
y his appetite for brutality chiefly in the Second Mate’s watch.

  The name of the senior apprentice was Wyckliffe, but he was always called Jumbo in the berth, on account of his size, and because of his big, slow, good-humoured way of going about things. He was really an exceptionally powerful young man of nineteen, and had so far escaped any personal experience of rough usage, as had also Bullard, the next oldest lad—a strong and well-made youth.

  These two, after a consultation, called a meeting of all the ’prentices in the “Glory Hole” (’prentices’ berth) one second dog-watch, and told them that they had decided to stand by the next lad who was badly treated, and that they had all better swear to stand by each other every time anyone was knocked about. Jumbo made it plain that he was not proposing they should stand out at any minor act of bullying, such as docking them of their watch below, but only in actual cases of any of them being hit or kicked—a thing that was now becoming of daily occurrence.

  As a result of this decision and compact, there was in the morning watch of the very next day a tremendous fight up on the poop between the Captain, Second Mate, and Bo’sun on the one side and seven of the ’prentices on the other.

  It happened through the Second Mate catching hold of young Kinniks by the ear and repeatedly kicking him, with his heavy sea boot, from one end of the poop to the other. Kinniks remembered the compact and shouted for help. Instantly, almost, two of the ’prentices in his watch came flying up on to the poop, having first shouted a warning of what was going onto the four of the watch below, who were just about to turn in. These also followed, just as they were, in their pyjamas, the sleepy Jumbo being the first of the lot. Before the Second Mate well knew what had occurred, Kinniks was pulled from him, and he had to face young Jumbo instead.

  “We protest, Sir,” he said, “against this kind of treatment, which is both illegal and brutal.”