“Got your man outside?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Slago.
“Come along, then, the two of you.”
We rose and followed him into the dark hall and then out through the front doorway into the silent road. Here we found a plain-clothes policeman waiting, leaning up against a wall. At a low whistle from the inspector, he came swiftly across and saluted. Then the doctor turned and led the way towards the tank.
Though the night was distinctly warm, I shuddered. There was a sense of danger in the air that got on one’s nerves. I was quite in the dark as to what was going to happen. We reached the lower end of the railed passage. Here the doctor halted us and began to give directions.
“You have your lantern, inspector?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And your man, has he?”
“Yes, sir,” replied the man for himself.
“Well, I want you to give yours to my friend for the present.”
The man in plain-clothes passed me his lantern and awaited further commands.
“Now,” said Dr. Tointon, facing me, “I want you and the inspector to take your stand in the left-hand corner of the tank top. Have your lanterns ready, and mind, there must not be a sound or everything will be spoiled.”
He tapped the plain-clothes man on the shoulder. “Come along,” he said.
Reaching the tank top, we took up positions as he had directed, while he went over with the inspector’s man to the far right-hand corner. After a moment, he left the officer, and I could just make out the figure of the latter leaning negligently against the railings.
The doctor came over to us and sat down between us.
“You’ve put him just about where our man was when we found him,” said the inspector in a whisper.
“Yes,” replied Dr. Tointon. “Now, listen, and then there mustn’t be another sound. It’s a matter of life and death.” His manner and voice were impressive. “When I call out ‘ready,’ throw the light from your lanterns on the officer as smartly as you can. Understand?”
“Yes,” we replied together, and after that no one spoke.
The doctor lay down between us on his stomach, the muzzle of his gun directed a little to the right of where the other man stood. Thus we waited.
Half an hour passed—an hour, and a sound of distant bells chimed up to us from the valley; then the silence resumed sway. Twice more the far-off bells told of the passing hours, and I was getting dreadfully cramped with staying in one position.
Then abruptly, from somewhere across the tank there came a slight, very slight, slurring, crawling sort of noise. A cold shiver took me, and I peered vainly into the darkness till my eyes ached with the effort. Yet I could see nothing. Indistinctly, I could see the lounging figure of the constable. He seemed never to have stirred from his original position.
The strange rubbing, slurring sound continued. Then came a faint clink of iron, as if someone had kicked against the padlock that fastened down the iron trap over the manhole. Yet it could not be the policeman, for he was not near enough. I saw Dr. Tointon raise his head and peer keenly. Then he brought the butt of his gun up to his shoulder.
I got my lantern ready. I was all tingling with fear and expectation. What was going to happen? There came another slight clink, and then, suddenly, the rustling sound ceased.
I listened breathlessly. Across the tank, the hitherto silent policeman stirred almost, it seemed to me, as if someone or something had touched him. The same instant, I saw the muzzle of the doctor’s gun go up some six inches. I grasped my lantern firmly, and drew in a deep breath.
“Ready!” shouted the doctor.
I flashed the light from my lantern across the tank simultaneously with the inspector. I have a confused notion of a twining brown thing about the rail a yard to the right of the constable. Then the doctor’s gun spoke once—twice, and it dropped out of sight over the edge of the tank. In the same instant the constable slid down off the rail on to the tank top.
“My God!” shouted the inspector, “has it done for him?”
The doctor was already beside the fallen man, busy loosening his clothing.
“He’s all right,” he replied. “He’s only fainted. The strain was too much. He was a plucky devil to stay. That thing was near him for over a minute.”
From somewhere below us in the dark there came a thrashing, rustling sound. I went to the side and threw the light from my lantern downwards. It showed me a writhing yellow something, like an eel or a snake, only the thing was flat like a ribbon. It was twining itself into knots. It had no head. That portion of it seemed to have been blown clean away.
“He’ll do now,” I heard Dr. Tointon say, and the next instant he was standing beside me. He pointed downwards at the horrid thing. “There’s the murderer,” he said.
* * * *
It was a few evenings later, and the inspector and I were sitting in the doctor’s study.
“Even now, doctor,” I said. “I don’t see how on earth you got at it.”
The inspector nodded a silent agreement.
“Well,” replied Dr. Tointon, “after all it was not so very difficult. Had I not been so unfortunately taken ill while away, I should have cleared the matter up a couple of months ago. You see, I had exceptional opportunities for observing things, and in both cases I was very soon on the spot. But all the same, it was not until the second death occurred that I knew that the deed was not due to a human hand. The fact that there were no footprints in the mud proved that conclusively, and having disposed of that hypothesis, my eyes were open to take in details that had hitherto seemed of no moment. For one thing, both men were found dead almost in the same spot, and that spot is just over the over-flow pipe.”
“It came out of the tank?” I questioned.
“Yes,” replied Dr. Tointon. “Then on the railings near where the thing had happened, I found traces of slime; and another matter that no one but myself seems to have been aware of, the collar of the policeman’s coat was wet, and so was Mr. Marchmount’s. Lastly, the shape of the marks upon the necks, and the tremendous force applied, indicated to me the kind of thing for which I must look. The rest was all a matter of deduction.
“Naturally, all the same, my ideas were somewhat hazy; yet before I saw the brute, I could have told you that it was some form of snake or eel, and I could have made a very good guess at its size. In the course of reasoning the matter out, I had occasion to apply to little black Dufirst. From him, I learned that the tank was supposed to be cleaned out annually, but that in reality it had not been seen to for some years.”
“What about Dufirst?” I asked.
“Well,” said Dr. Tointon dryly, “I understand he is to be granted a free pardon. Of course, the little beast stole those things; but I fancy he’s had a fair punishment for his sins.”
“And the snake, doctor?” I asked. “What was it?”
He shook his head. “I cannot say,” he explained. “I have never seen anything just like it. It is one of those abnormalities that occasionally astonish the scientific world. It is a creature that has developed under abnormal conditions, and, unfortunately, it was so shattered by the heavy charges of shot that the remains tell me but little—its head, as you saw, was entirely shot away.”
I nodded. “It’s queer—and frightening,” I replied. “Makes a chap think a bit.”
“Yes,” agreed the doctor. “It certainly ought to prove a lesson in cleanliness.”
THE ALBATROSS
I
“Confound that brute!” I shouted in sheer desperation. Then I sang out to the ’prentice who was keeping “time” on the lee side of the poop to bring me a piece of spun-yarn and a marlinspike.
I was first mate of the Skylark, full-rigged ship, and we were off the Horn on a cold, absolutely windless night. It was the twelve to four watch in the early morning, and four bells (two o’clock) had just gone.
All the watch there had been an enormous albatross flying round and
round the vessel; sometimes he would actually fly across the decks, which is a thing I have never known to happen before.
When the boy brought the marlinspike and the yarn, I bent on about two fathoms of the latter, so that I had a sort of handy little harpoon. Then I slipped quickly up the mizzen rigging and out on to the cross-jack yard, where I waited with the spike ready in one hand and the end of the line held fast in the other.
Presently, away forward in the still night, I heard the dismal squark of the great bird, and immediately a spate of blasphemy from the man on the lookout, who was evidently getting as much bothered as I by the actions of the creature.
Not a sound then for maybe ten minutes; and then suddenly I saw something float between me and the dim sky-line and come inboard. I lost it for a moment; but immediately there came the loud, dismal squark out of the night to my left, and directly afterward I saw vaguely that something was passing under the yard. I raised the marlinspike and drove down at the thing with all my strength, letting the line fly out to its full length. There was a rustle of feathers and a tugging on the line, and the bird squarked twice. Then a jerk and the snap of something breaking, and the great albatross was gone free.
I hauled in on the spun-yarn until I had the marlinspike again in my hand; as I passed it between my fingers I felt that there was something caught round the butt, something that felt like a piece of rag. I loosed it from the spike. Then I went down again on to the poop, and at once to the light of the main binnacle, to see what it was that had got caught round the marlinspike. I could not see the thing very plainly at first, and I took the lamp out of the holder, so as to have a better light. I found then that it was a strip of red silk, such as might be torn from a girl’s blouse. At one end was a piece of broken tape. For some minutes I examined the thing very carefully. It was in this way that I found presently a single long hair, tangled in the knot of the tape. I picked it loose, gently, and looked at it; then I coiled it round and round my forefinger. It was a girl’s hair, brown, with a glint of gold in it! What did it mean? We were off Cape Horn—one of the grim, lonely places of the ocean!
After a while, I replaced the lamp in the binnacle and resumed my ordinary tramp of the weather-side of the poop. All the while I was turning this matter over in my brain, and presently I went back again to the light, so that I might have another look at the piece of silk. I saw then that it could not have been very long since it had been torn; for it was very little frayed at the tear and had no appearance of having been weatherworn for more than a few days. Also, the material was new and seemed to be of very fine quality. I grew more puzzled.
Of course it was possible that there was another sailing-ship within a hundred miles of us; it was also possible that such a vessel had a girl aboard, perhaps the captain’s daughter; it was also possible that they had caught this particular albatross on a line and tied the silk to it and let it go again. But it was also exceedingly improbable. For sailors will always keep an albatross for the sake of the wing-bones, which make pipe-stems, and the webs, which make purses, and the breast, which makes a gorgeous fire-screen; while others prize the great bill and the beautiful wing-tips.
Moreover, even if the bird had been loosed, why had some one torn up a new silk garment, when a piece of old bunting would have done just as well? You can see how my thoughts were trending. That piece of silk and that long pretty hair coming to me suddenly out of the night in that lonely and desolate sea had stirred me with vague wonderings. Yet I never put my wonderments actually into words, but went back to my constant pacing fore and aft. And so, presently, the second mate came up at eight bells to relieve me.
* * * *
The next day, through all the eight to twelve forenoon watch, I kept a pretty keen lookout for albatross, but the whole sea was lonely, and though there was such an absolute calm, there was not even a Mother Carey’s chicken in sight—only everywhere, so far as the sight might reach, an everlasting gray desolation of water.
The afternoon watch, I went below for a sleep. Then, in the first dog-watch, a little before three bells, I saw a great albatross swing and glide against the gray of the sky, about a mile astern. I reached for my glasses and had a good look. I saw the bird plainly, a huge, bony-shouldered albatross, with a queer bulge below the breast. As I stared at him, I grew suddenly excited, for I saw that the bulge was really a packet of some kind tied on to the creature, and there was something fluttering from it.
In the second dog-watch, I asked two of my ’prentices to come down with me into the sail-locker and help me root out an old seine-net that we carried for occasional sport. I told them I was going to have a try for the big albatross that night, if he started flying across the decks again, and they were nearly as keen as I, though I had asked them to do this sail-tossing in their watch below.
When my watch came, from eight until midnight, I did nothing until the “Old Man” had turned in for the night; then I had my boys rig lines for the big net from the main and the mizzen masts, so that we could hoist it up at any moment and let it hang like a curtain between the masts.
The night was very quiet and dark, and though it was difficult to see anything, it would have been easy to hear the bird at a great distance. Yet for over an hour after this there was no sign of anything, and I began to think that we were not to have a visit.
However, just after four bells had gone (ten o’clock) there came from far away over the sea the strange lonely squark, squark of an albatross, and a few minutes later I had a vague glimpse of him flying silently round and round the ship, in the way common enough with his kind. Presently he gave out a loud squark and turned inboard to fly over the poop.
The next instant there was a loud squarking up in the night, and a constant beating of heavy wings. I shouted to the boys at the lines to lower away, and a moment later I was shining the binnacle light on a fluster of beating wings and tangled net.
I sang out to the nearest ’prentice to hold the lamp while I disentangled the albatross and found out what the package was that was made fast to him. The parcel was done up in layer after layer of oilskin, and from the outside there was another such streamer of red silk as the one that had caught on my spike the night before. Then I had come to the last of the wrappings of oilskin and there were a couple of pages torn from a log-book and folded very tight and compact. I opened them and found that they were covered with hasty feminine handwriting. This is what I read:
This is written aboard the Unicorn, derelict, on the twenty-first day of March, 1904. She was run down by an unknown steamer ten days ago. I am here alone, living in the chart-house. I have food and water sufficient to last me for about a week longer, if I am very careful. The vessel seems to be floating with her decks just a little above the water, and every time the sea is a bit rough it just pours aboard of her.
I am sending this message tied round the neck of an albatross. The Captain shot it the day before we were run down, and hurt the poor creature’s wing. I told him he was an inhuman brute. I am sorry now, for he, along with every other soul, is dead, drowned. He was a brave man. The men crowded into the boats, and he stood with his revolver and tried to stop them, saying that no one should leave the ship before I was safe. He shot two of them, but the others threw him into the sea. They were mad. They took the boats and went away; and my maid went with them. But it was terribly rough, and I saw them sink just a little way from the ship.
I have been alone ever since, except for the albatross. I have nursed it, and now it seems as if it should be able to fly. I pray God that this message be found before it is too late! If any find it, come and save a girl from an awful and lonely death. The position of the ship is written down in the logbook here in the chart-house, so I will give it; then you will know where to search for me. It is Latitude 62° 1' S. and Longitude 67°10'W.
I have sent other messages corked up in bottles; but this is the one in which I have all my hope. I shall tie a piece of something red to it, so that any one seeing my albatros
s will know it is carrying something and try to catch it. Come, come, come, as quickly as ever you can!
There are enormous numbers of rats about. I suppose the water has driven them up out of the holds and places; but they make me afraid to sleep. Remember, the food I have won’t last more than a week, and I am here all alone. But I will be brave. Only don’t give up searching for me. The wind has been blowing from the north ever since the night when the boats sank. It is quite calm now. Perhaps these things will help you to know where to look for me, as I can see that the wind must make the ship drift. Don’t give me up! Remember I’m waiting, waiting, and trying to be brave.
Mary Doriswold.
You can imagine how I felt, when I had finished reading this paper. Our position that day was 58°S. and 67°30'W.; so that we were at least two hundred and fifty miles to the north of the place where the derelict had been eighteen days earlier; for it was now the twenty-ninth day of March. And there, somewhere away to the southward of us, a girl was dying of hunger and lonesomeness! And there was absolutely no sign of wind.
* * * *
After a little while I told the boys to clear away the net and take the albatross down on to the main deck and tie it to one of the ring-bolts. Then I took a turn or two up and down the poop, and finally decided to go down and call the “Old Man” and set the matter before him.
When he had heard what I had to tell, he slipped into his clothes and came out into the saloon, where he read the letter twice, very carefully. Then he had a look at the barometer, and afterward came up with me on to the poop and had a look at the weather; but there were certainly no immediate signs of wind.
Through all the rest of the watch he walked up and down with me, discussing the thing, and went several times to the binnacle to make fresh examinations of the letter. Once I suggested the possibility of manning one of the life-boats and trying down to the southward, letting the ship follow on so soon as the wind came. But, of course, he would not listen to this, and very rightly, too. For not only would it have been to risk the lives of all who went in the boat, but to risk the vessel also, because we should have had to leave her undermanned. And so the only thing we could do was to pray for wind.
The William Hope Hodgson Megapack Page 11