The Ghost Pirates and Other Revenants of the Sea

by William Hope Hodgson

  “I’m listening,” I assured him, anxious to help him in every way. “Is it matches you want, or….”

  But he relieved himself abruptly, with a remarkable exhibition of energy. In brief, he came for me, nearer mad than sane. I doubt whether anyone had ever spoken him fair and gentle before in all his rough, sinful life; and he was anxious to record his impressions—on me!

  Now, I am not a big man; not when compared with the two-hundred-and-fifty pound Dutchman, or even the two-hundred pound Skipper, or the Hogge, who must weigh almost as much. I weigh a hundred and seventy-five pounds, stripped; but then I have fought in the ropes many a score of times, and I am rather unusually strong for a man of my weight; therefore, perhaps, you will understand why I was pleased to accept the Hogge’s attentions in as warm a fashion as he could have wished.

  He swung two mighty right and left hand punches at my head, which was certainly “not there” when the punches arrived; and he followed this by a second and a third right-and-left, right-and-left, grunting like a hogge, as he hit.

  There was a clatter of feet, and good old Miles came racing up, to bear a hand; but I checked him.

  “All right,” I called out. “The Hogge and I are having a little argument.” I slipped under the Mate’s right, as I spoke. “Hark to him grunt!” I added, and shot my own right up under the man’s unpleasant chin, with the lift of my shoulder under it. He went away from me, all loose, just as a man does who gets a punch of that kind. I went after him, with two steps, and hit him again, this time with a straight left-hand punch right below the point of the sternum.

  As I hit, I was vaguely aware that someone had come at me, with a run, and Miles had jumped in between. The Mate concluded his falling movement and hit the deck. He lay as quiet as a tired babe, and I was able to glance round.

  I saw that Miles and Bully Dunkan were mixing it, in the prettiest kind of a fight; only that Miles was no match for the Skipper, especially with his face and jaw still so tender, that a touch hurt like a blow.

  The next thing I knew, poor old Miles was down and out, on the deck; and that two hundred pounds of Evil and Fight was charging me, in a silent ugly way that meant business.

  Now, Captain Bully Dunkan could fight, and he knew how to use his hands; also he weighed almost two stones more than I do. But my years of ring-work stood for all that, and more. I slipped my head under his left drive, countering hard with my left on his nose; for I wished to daze and weaken him a bit, without knocking him out.

  He had no real foot-work, and he was a little slow; but there was quite enough of the human hurricane to him, as he bored in at me, punching with right and left, to make me careful. I can quite believe that he must have proved a tough proposition for the average rough-and-ready fighter.

  Bully Dunkan was no pretty sight, as any boxing man will understand, when you remember that I had landed a hard, straight, left punch on his nose, as he rushed me; but he was not really damaged; and I set out now to knock some of the steam out of him. I had already sidestepped and slipped him all around a twelve foot circle; and it tickled me a little to see the way the men stood about the decks, almost stiffened with amazement, as they realised that I was not “eaten clean up.”

  I came in suddenly at the Bully; pushed his right up smartly with my left hand, and landed him a hard, solid punch on the side of the jaw; but not heavy enough to knock him out. He rocked back an instant, with his chin snicked up in the air; and I could see that he was all adrift for the moment. Then he steadied, and rushed me, hitting with right and left.

  He was panting badly now, and I slid under his left arm, and hit him a good body thump as I passed him. Then I sprang at him from behind, caught him by his two shoulders, put my knee hard into his back, and brought him down with a deuce of a thud onto his broad back. This shook him badly, and took the evil out of him a lot. When he got up, I hit him a right and left punch over the heart, and as he tried to grab me, I uppercut him under the chin, with a straight-armed, right upward swing.

  I guessed now that he’d had a lot of the ugliness dazed out of him, and he would not be able to hurt too much, if I let him hit me. However, I had to take some chances; for it’s my experience of life, that gold has to be worked and suffered for! Yet, to make sure he was as weak as possible, I stalled off his next rush, with a heavyish left-hand thump in his great bull neck, and a right-hand punch, pretty hard, in the short ribs. Then I let him hit me; but he was gasping heavily, and rocking a little on his feet as he struck, and the blow I took from him, hardly made my eyes water; yet, I threw out my hands, and sagged, and collapsed backwards on to the hatch, with a thud that shook me up a lot more than his punch. And there I lay, never moving.

  “Got yer!” roared Bully Dunkan, with a gasp, and aimed a clumsy kick at me, where I lay; but I had so weakened him, that he staggered over sideways, and sat down heavily beside me on the hatch, and was immediately very sick indeed.

  I never moved or opened my eyes, and presently, I heard him bellowing weakly for one of the men to go aft and tell the Steward, who, as you know, was Sandy Meg, to bring the irons.

  They handcuffed me first, where I lay, apparently unconscious. I could hear Bully Dunkan, sitting near me on the hatch, groaning a little. After they had handcuffed me, I heard them gather round poor Miles, and then came the chink of the cuffs, and I knew that he too was ironed.

  “Take ’em aft, Stooard, an’ dump ’em down the lazarette,” shouted Dunkan. “You, Lang an’ Tarbrey an’ Mike, give a hand with the hogs, an’ one of you others shove a bucket o’ water over that fool Mate o’ mine, an’ fetch him round….”

  He broke off, and groaned a bit; then turned suddenly on my “unconscious” body.

  “You—!” he said, vilely, and bashed his sea-booted heel a couple of times into my ribs, where I lay; but he broke nothing; for he was still too shaken to be his true self. Then I was picked up, shoulders and feet, and carried aft. I could hear men’s feet stumbling ahead of me, and knew they were carrying Miles first; and behind me, there was the voice of Bully Dunkan, cursing; and then a sound of thrown water, by which I knew they were heaving cold water over the Mate.

  “They’s washing down th’ Hogge!” I heard the man mutter who was carrying my feet…. “Carry ’im easy, mate; I’m ’is friend for life an’ hevermore, the way he’s outed the First Mate an’ pasted the Skipper. Ee’s a holy terror!”

  I gathered that the latter part of the man’s remark applied to me; but I kept my eyes shut.

  “Wasn’t it just swate the way he played round the Ole Man,” said the man at my head. (I could tell it was Mike.) “I’m lackin’ to know, bejabers, how he come to get knocked out at all, at all!”

  It is unnecessary to say that I did not explain that I was entirely un-knocked-out, if I may so put it. I had a secret plan to carry out, and a ship’s fo’cas’le is no place to hold secrets long; so I remained knocked-out and limp, to them and all the world of that moment.

  Five minutes later, Miles and I were chained down to the floor of the lazarette; and to make sure that it was done right, Bully Dunkan came groaning and cursing down the steep ladder, and locked and tested the padlocks himself. Then he took the keys of the irons from Sandy Meg, and pocketed them; after which he kicked Miles once, and me twice; and I certainly wished I had hit him about a little more than I had. However, I managed to keep silent, and in a minute he had gone, with the Steward and the men. I heard the heavy trap dropped, and afterwards the sound of a key, locking it.

  The first part of my plot was achieved. Miles and I were in the lazarette.

  III

  Poor Miles lay very quiet, where the men had put him. For my part, I ached considerably, and had something of a fight to check the anger that was boiling up in me for the way Bully Dunkan had kicked the two of us, after we were ironed.

  But I reasoned myself out of it. I had arranged the whole thing, with a perfect knowledge of the kind of man the Skipper was; and it was hardly logical, I told myself,
to be all of a bubble inside me, because I had received the due portion of Dunkanism which I had earned. It was part of the price we had to pay for the saving of Bully Dunkan’s soul; for only by affliction could such a one be saved from his thoroughly earned fate. Incidentally, as I have mentioned before, gold is a painful metal to achieve—either slow or painful; and frequently both.

  Thus I shook myself, mentally, and became slowly able to delay the shedding of Bully Dunkan’s blood.

  I leaned towards poor Miles, in the absolute darkness; but I could not touch him; for the ring-bolts, to which we were chained, were evidently calculated to be just sufficiently far apart to prevent unevenly tempered seamen from mingling their tears.

  I saw that it was time I brought into use some of the various little preparations which I had made for our adventure. I reached into my pockets and found, first of all, a box of matches and half a candle.

  I lit the candle, and stood it on the deck of the lazarette. Then I took, from a small pocket I had stitched in the waistband of my trousers, a sawn handcuff key, such as is used by those apparently clever jugglers, who make their living by persuading unfortunate and credulous people to lock numberless pairs of handcuffs upon them, immediately afterwards retiring into hiding, while they quickly unlock them with a key like the one I held; after which they return to the audience and exhibit the irons (but not the key) and obtain thereby much applause.

  The beauty of this key is at once evident. It is like an ordinary handcuff key, only longer in the barrel and made of steel. It is then sawn lengthways down the barrel, so that it is possible to press it on to the screwed end of the bolt that holds a handcuff shut, and then a mere pull opens the cuff, and the prisoner is free. As a key of this kind will fit almost any standard make of cuff, it is an entirely useful pocket adjunct to adventurers, criminals, conjurers and the like!

  With this key, I unlocked the cuff on my right wrist, and let the chain that passed over it, from the ring-bolt in the floor, fall on to my knees. I was free.

  I took the candle; put the matches in my pocket, and crept over to Miles. He was lying huddled, where they had dropped him, and I set to and straightened him out. Then I unlocked his cuffs, and began to rub his hands. After a bit, I opened his shirt and rubbed his chest, hard; and presently he moved a little.

  “Ssh!” I said; for he had suddenly kicked out. “Keep quiet. You’re all right. We’re down in the lazarette.” But he was not conscious enough yet to comprehend me.

  Ten minutes later, he was talking to me, a little stupidly at first; but he improved every half minute.

  “Have you got your gun on you?” I asked him, as soon as he was all right.

  “Yes,” he told me. “In my right sea-boot. And I’ve those candles in my pockets, you told me to carry around, and two boxes of matches. The auger fixing and the screwdriver are in my left boot; and the long narrow canvas sack you made, is wrapped round my waist, under my shirt.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “I’ve got my automatic in one sea-boot and the narrow saw and the files in the other; and I’ve got the keys and a dozen half candles and three boxes of matches and the bottle of dope in my pockets; and a belt-full of cartridges under my shirt. We’ll do fine. I’ve even got a little black beeswax, to hide any bright gaps we may have to make with the files.”

  “John!” he said, suddenly, heaving himself up into a sitting position. “It’s just struck me, they’ve not taken our sheath-knives or our matches or pipes or tobacco or anything. I’ve got all mine on me. If they had, they’d have discovered the matches and candles and your bunches of keys. They’ve forgotten! And that means they’ll be coming down, as soon as ever they remember, to search us and take them away. They’ll never leave us with our matches and sheath-knives, and I’ll bet they’ll take our tobacco, so as to stop us having even the comfort of a chew.”

  “By Jove! I’ll bet you’re right,” I said. “It’s a mercy you thought of it. Here, out with everything, automatic, auger, screwdriver, candles, matches, the bag—everything! No, leave one box of matches and your pipe and leave a bit of your plug. That’ll make them sure you’ve not hidden anything; and they’ll not maul you as much, searching you—see? I’ll do the same. Hurry up, man! They may be down any minute.”

  I had been emptying my pockets and my boots, while I was speaking, and I even slipped off my hidden belt of cartridge-clips. I took the whole lot of things, and wrapped them in my red cotton handkerchief. Then, taking the lighted candle, I went quietly across the lazarette, and hid the stuff behind the bread barrels.

  I came back, and locked Miles up again, and afterwards myself, and blew out and hid the candle.

  “When they come, you’d better be sitting up,” I told him; “so as to be able to guard your face, if he kicks you.”

  “Right!” he answered. “Where have you put the key for the cuffs? They mustn’t find that on you.”

  “I’ve put it behind one of these chocks that keep these sugar-casks from rolling,” I told him. “I can just reach it, lying down and stretching.”

  “Good!” he said; and as he spoke, we heard the key put into the lock of the trap door, somewhere above us in the darkness, over to starboard.

  The trap was lifted, and an oblong of shadowy daylight showed in the deck above us.

  Then I heard the Skipper’s voice; he was cursing Sandy Meg, the Steward. Directly afterwards, his feet came into sight, and his bulk blotted out most of the daylight. He reached the bottom of the ladder, and Sandy Meg came down also, carrying a lantern.

  Bully Dunkan walked across to us, with the Steward following and holding the lantern up.

  “Well now, I do admire that!” he said, stopping in front of Miles. “So you’re sitting up on your little hind legs, Sonny, a-ready. That was a tidy clip I landed you, now; don’t ye think so!”

  He spoke a bit snuffily, because of the punch I had hit him on the nose, which looked emphatically enlarged, in the lantern-light.

  “Now, Steward,” he went on, “I’m a-going to take away his little pipe an’ matches, and his knife…. Lie down, you goat, while I go through you!”

  This last was to Miles, and Bully Dunkan gave my friend a push with his foot, that rolled him over onto his side. Then the Skipper went through his pockets, and took away everything he had, including his knife.

  When he had done with Miles, he came over to me.

  “So you’re come round too, are you!” he said. “Maybe you thought you could hand it out to me; but you was mistook, dear friend…. You was mistook, I tells you!”

  He repeated this in a shout, and then, without another word, as if the memory of the way I’d hammered him, drove him mad, he took a swinging kick at me, and got me in the ribs, with a thud that made me feel sick.

  Twice more, he kicked me; then bashed me over onto the deck, with his foot, and went through my pockets. He took all he found, also my sheath-knife.

  “Mister Hogge will be coming down in a bit, maybe, to have a little word with you,” he said, catching hold of my ears, and twisting them brutally until they bled.

  I began to regret that I had locked myself up again. Perhaps it was as well; for if I could have got free that moment, I should certainly have tried to kill him.

  However, I managed to keep from making a sound; and then he let go, and stood back a step, staring down at me. I bit my teeth hard together for a moment, so as to steady myself. Then I spoke:—

  “How is the Hogge, Cap’n?” I said, and stared up at him, smiling as well as I could. “Tell him, with my compliments, I’ll be pleased to hear him grunt a bit, any time he likes.”

  He never answered a word, for a moment; then burst out into a great laugh.

  “I’ll hand the Mate that,” he said. He roared out again into his brute of a laugh. “Oh, my bonny boy, but ye’ll hear him grunt, I’m thinkin’. I’ll hand him that, sure I will. It’ll rat him rank mad.”

  He turned away, hove the things he had taken from us, down into an emp
ty box on the floor of the lazarette, out of our reach, and went straight away up the ladder, with the Steward following with the lamp. The trap was slammed, and I heard it locked. Then Miles spoke to me:—

  “Did he hurt you much, old man?”

  “Not to mention it,” I said. “It seemed to tickle him about the Mate. If I understand his kind, right, though; he’ll never let the Hogge down here. He’d sooner use us to rag the Hogge with. That’s just his way. He’s got to be unpleasant to someone, or he couldn’t keep well. Did he damage you at all?”

  “No,” said Miles; “but I wanted badly to plug him.”

  “Never mind!” I answered. “When this business is through, safely, I’m promising myself the pleasure of cutting loose, properly, just for five heavenly minutes on the Dunk.”

  IV

  Miles and I had talked everything over, a score of times before ever I started the row with the Hogge, which had landed us in our much-desired lazarette.

  We knew that the money must be in Bully Dunkan’s own cabin; for where else in a windjammer would he be likely to keep it! Also we knew that the trap of the lazarette opened directly under his cabin table; and, finally, I had a bunch of “master” keys, and if these wouldn’t do, I could possibly unscrew the lock with the screwdriver.

  “We’ll tackle the job tonight, Miles,” I said, after we had sat in the dark for a couple of minutes, listening. “He’ll not keep us down here more than a day or two. It would break his heart to have two or three hundred pounds of sailor-flesh sitting idle. He’ll probably give us nothing but water, like Billy Duckworth; more power to Billy for going for him! Then he’ll boot us out, as soon as he thinks he’s put the fear of God into us sufficiently.”

  “You mean, if we don’t do the job at once, we may be out of here again, before we get the chance,” he said.

  “Just that,” I answered. “Things are ideal for us now in every way. One of the minor reasons why I wanted to be ironed safely down here, was so that he could have no suspicion of either of us; for, I tell you, he’ll have the whole ship pretty well capsized, and every man and sea-chest aboard, searched, when he finds the loot is gone, like the little song says, away and away-oh!”