Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  Who would be That One?

  “W’y the ‘ell don’t ‘e get ‘er out?” the Mate had asked the First Hand, who knew all the story, having sailed years with big John Carlos. But the First Hand had raised his arms in horror, and made plain in broken English his opinion of the sacrilege, though that was not how he had pronounced it.

  “Sacrilege be jiggered!” the Mate had replied, humping his twisted shoulders. “I s’pose though there’d be a ‘oly rumpus, hey?”

  The First Hand had intimated very definitely that there would be a “rumpus,” which, the Mate ferreted out, might involve some very unpleasant issues both for the man and the woman guilty of such a thing. The First Hand spoke (in broken English) as if he were the Religious Conscience of his nation. Such things could not be tolerated. His phraseology did not include such words; but he was sufficiently definite.

  “Nice ‘ealthy lot o’ savages, you!” the Mate had explained, after listening to much intolerant jabbering. “Strike me! If you ain’t canniballs!” And straightway saddled on to the unfortunate Catholic Faith the sins peculiar to a hot-blooded and emotional People, whose enthusiasms and prejudices would have been just as apparent, had they been called forth by some other force than their Faith, or by a Faith differently shaped and Denominated.

  It was the little crooked Mate who was speaking to Big John Carlos, in the evening of the sixth day of their stay beside the old wharf. And the big man was listening, in a stunned kind of silence. Through those six days the little man had watched the morning and evening tragedy, and the sanity of his free thoughts had been as a yeast in him. Now he was speaking, unlading all the things that he had to say.

  “W’y the ‘ell don’t you take ‘er out?” he had asked in so many words. And to him it had seemed, that very evening, that the woman’s eyes had been saying the same thing to the Captain, as she looked her brief, dumb agony of longing across the little space that had lain between; yet which, as it were, was in verity the whole width of Eternity. And now the little Mate was putting it all into definite words — standing there, an implement of Fate or Providence or the Devil, according to the way that you may look at it, his twisted shoulder heaving with the vehemence of his speech: —

  “You didn’t orter do it, Capting,” he said. “You’re breakin’ ‘er up, an’ you’re breakin’ you up; an’ no good to it. W’y the ‘ell don’t you do somefink! Rescue ‘er, or keep away. If it’s ‘ell for you, it’s just ‘s much ‘ell for ‘er! She’ll come like a little bloomin’ bird. See ‘ow she looks at you. She’s fair askin’ you to come an’ take ‘er out of it all — an’ you just standin’ there! My Gord!”

  “What can I do,” said the Captain, hoarsely; and put his hands suddenly to his head. He did not ask a question, or voice any hopelessness; but just gave out the words, as so many sounds, mechanically; for he was choked, suffocating during those first few moments, with the vast surge of hope that rose and beat upward in him, as the little twisted Mate’s words crashed ruthlessly through the shrouding films of Belief.

  And suddenly he knew. He knew that he could do this thing; that all scruples, all bonds of belief, of usage, of blind fears for the future, and of the Hereafter, were all fallen from him, as so much futile dust. Until that moment, as I have shown to you before, he had not known that he could do it — had not known of his steady and silent development. But now, suddenly, all his soul and being, lighted with Hope, he looked inward, and saw himself, as the man he was — the man to which he had grown and come to be. He knew. He knew.

  “Would she ... would she?” The question came unconsciously from his lips; but the little twisted man took it up.

  “Arsk ‘er! Arsk ‘er!” he said, vehemently. “I knows she’ll come. I seen it in ‘er eyes to-night w’en she looked out at you. She was sayin’ as plain as your ‘at, ‘W’y the ‘ell don’t you take me out? W’y the ‘ell don’t you?’ You arsk ‘er, an’ she’ll come like a bird.”

  The little Mate spoke with the eagerness of conviction, and indulged in no depressing knowledge of incongruities. “Arsk ‘er!” was his refrain. “You arsk ‘er!”

  “How?” said the Captain, coming suddenly to realities.

  The little man halted, and stumbled over his unreadiness. He had no plan; nothing but his feelings. He sought around in his mind, and grasped at an idea.

  “Write it on an ‘atch cover, wiv chalk,” he said, triumphant. “Lean the ‘atch cover by you. W’en she comes, point to it, ‘n she’ll read it.”

  “Ha!” said the Captain, in a strange voice, as if he both approved, and, at the same time, had remembered something.

  “Then she’ll nod,” continued the little man. “No one else ever looks outer that winder, scarcely, not to think to read writin’, anyway. An’ you can cover it, till she’s due to show. Then we’ll plan ‘ow to get ‘er out.”

  All that night, Big John Carlos paced the deck of his little craft, alone, thinking, and thrilling with great surges of hope and maddened determination.

  In the morning, he put the plan to the test; only that he wrote the question on the hatch-cover in peculiar words, that he had not used all those long grey years; for he made use of a quaint but simple transposition of letters, which had been a kind of love-language between them, in the olden days. This was why he had called “Ha!” so strangely, being minded suddenly of it, and to have the sweetness of using it to that one particular purpose.

  Slowly, the line of grey moving figures came into view, descending. Big John Carlos kept the hatch-cover turned to him, and counted; for well he knew just when she would appear. The one hundred and ninth mute would pass, and the one hundred and tenth would show the face of his Beloved. The order never changed through the years, in that changeless world within.

  As the hundred and seventh figure passed the narrow window, he turned the hatch-cover, so that the writing was exposed, and pointed down to it, so that his whole attitude should direct her glance instantly to his question, that she might have some small chance to read it, in the brief moment that was hers as she went slowly past the narrow panes. The hundred and ninth figure passed down from sight, and then he was looking dumbly into her face, as she moved into view, her eyes already strained to meet his. His heart was beating with a dull, sickening thudding, and there seemed just the faintest of mists before his vision; but he knew that her glance had flown eagerly to the message, and that her white face had flashed suddenly to a greater whiteness, disturbed by the battle of scores of emotions loosed in one second of time. Then she was gone downward out of his sight, and he let the hatch-cover fall, gripping the shrouds with his left hand.

  The little twisted man stole up to him.

  “She saw, Capting! She ‘adn’t time to answer. Not to know if she was on ‘er ‘ead or ‘er ‘eels. Look out to-night. She’ll nod then.” He brought it all out in little whispered jerks, and the big man, wiping his forehead, nodded.

  Within the convent, a woman (outwardly a nun) was even then descending the stairs, with shaking knees, and a brain that had become in a few brief instants a raging gulf of hope. Before she had descended three steps below the level of the window, even whilst her sight-memory still held the message out for her brain to read and comprehend, she had realised that spiritually she was clothed only with the ashes of Belief and Fear and Faith. The original garment had become charred to nothing in the Fire of Love and Pain, with which the years had enveloped her. No bond held her; no fear held her; nothing in all the world mattered, except to be his for all the rest of her life. She took and realised the change in her character, in a moment of time. Eight long years had the yeast of love been working in her, which had bred the chemistry of pain; but only in that instant did she know and comprehend that she was developed so extensively, as to be changed utterly from the maid of eight years gone. Yet, in the next few steps she took, she had adapted herself to the new standpoint of her fresh knowledge of herself. She had no pause or doubt; but acknowledged with an utter startled joyfulness th
at she would go — that all was as nothing to her, now, except that she go to him. Willing, beyond all words that might express her willingness, to risk (aye, even to exchange) the unknown Joy of the Everlasting for this certain “mess of pottage” that was so desired of her hungry heart. And having acknowledged to herself that she was utterly willing, she had no thought of anything but to pass on the knowledge of her altered state to the man who would be waiting there in the little onion boat at sunset.

  That evening, just before the dusk, Big John Carlos saw the hundred and tenth grey figure nod swiftly to him, in passing; and he held tightly to the shroud, until the suffocation of his emotion passed from him.

  After all, the Rescue — if it can be named by a term so heroic — proved a ridiculously easy matter. It was the spiritual prison that had held the woman so long — the Physical expression of the same, was easily made to give up its occupant.

  In the morning, expectant, she read in her fleeting glance at the onion boat, a message written on the hatch-cover. She was to be at the window at midnight. That evening, as she ascended in the long grey line of mutes for the last weary time, she nodded her utter agreement and assent.

  After night had fallen thickly on the small, deserted wharf, the little twisted Mate and the Captain reared a ladder against the convent side. By midnight, they had cut out entirely the lead framing of all the lower part of the window.

  A few minutes later, the woman came. The Captain held out his big hands, in an absolute silence, and lifted the trembling figure gently down on to the ladder. He steadied her firmly, and they climbed down to the wharf, and were presently aboard the vessel, with no word yet between them to break the ten years of loneliness and silence; for it was ten years, as you will remember, since Big John Carlos had sailed on that voyage of dismay.

  And now, full grown man and woman, they stood near to each other, in a dream-quietness, who had lived on the two sides of Eternity so long. And still they had no word. Youth and Maiden they had parted with tears; Man and Woman they met in a great silence — too grown and developed to have words over-easily at such a moment-of-life. Yet their very quiet, held a speech too full and subtle, aye and subtile, for made-words of sound. It came from them, almost as it were a soul-fragrance, diffused around them, and made visible only in the quiet trembling of hands — that reached unknowing unto the hands of the other. For the two were full-grown, as I have said, and had come nigh to the complete awaredness of life, and the taste of the brine of sorrow was yet in them. They had been ripened in the strange twin Suns of Love and Pain — that ripen the unseen fruit of the soul. Their hands met, trembling, and gripped a long, long while, till the little twisted Mate came stumbling aft, uneasy to be gone. Then the big man and the fragile woman stood apart, the woman dreaming, while the big man went to give the little Mate a hand.

  Together, the two men worked to get the sail upon the small vessel, and the ropes cast off. They left the First and Second Hands sleeping. Presently, with light airs from the land, they moved outward to the sea.

  There was no pursuit. All the remainder of that night, the small onion boat went outward into the mystery of the dark, the big man steering, and the woman close beside him; and for a long while the constant silence of communion.

  As I have said, there was no pursuit, and at dawn the little twisted man wandered. He searched the empty sea, and found only their own shadow upon the almost calm waters. Perhaps the First Hand had held a wrong impression. The Peoples of the Coast may have been shocked, when they learned. Maybe they never learned. Convents, like other institutions, can keep their secrets, odd whiles. Possibly this was one of those times. Perhaps they remembered, with something of worldly wisdom, that they held the Substance; wherefore trouble overmuch concerning the shadow — of a lost nun. Certainly, not to the bringing of an ill-name upon their long holiness. Surely, Satan can be trusted, etc. We can all finish the well-hackneyed thought. Or, maybe, there were natural human hearts in diverse places, that — knowing something of the history of this love-tale — held sympathy in silence, and silence in sympathy. Is this too much to hope?

  That evening, the man and the woman stood in the stern, looking into the wake, whilst the Second-Hand steered. Forrard, in the growing dusk, there was a noise of scuffling. The little humped Mate was having a slight difference of opinion with the First Hand, who had incautiously made use of a parallel word for “Sacrilege,” for the second time. The scuffling continued; for the little twisted man was emphatic: —

  “Sacrilege be jiggered! Wot the ‘ell — —”

  The physical sounds of his opinion, drowned the monotonous accompaniment of his speech. The small craft sailed on into the sunset, and the two in the stern stared blindly into distances, holding hands like two little children.

  THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

  It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the Northern Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for the sun had been hidden during the course of a weary, breathless week, by a thin haze which had seemed to float above us, about the height of our mastheads, at whiles descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.

  With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck. The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forrard in their den; while Will — my friend, and the master of our little craft — was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin.

  Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there came a hail: —

  “Schooner, ahoy!”

  The cry was so unexpected that I gave no immediate answer, because of my surprise.

  It came again — a voice curiously throaty and inhuman, calling from somewhere upon the dark sea away on our port broadside: —

  “Schooner, ahoy!”

  “Hullo!” I sung out, having gathered my wits somewhat. “What are you? What do you want?”

  “You need not be afraid,” answered the queer voice, having probably noticed some trace of confusion in my tone. “I am only an old — man.”

  The pause sounded oddly; but it was only afterwards that it came back to me with any significance.

  “Why don’t you come alongside, then?” I queried somewhat snappishly; for I liked not his hinting at my having been a trifle shaken.

  “I — I — can’t. It wouldn’t be safe. I — —” The voice broke off, and there was silence.

  “What do you mean?” I asked, growing more and more astonished. “Why not safe? Where are you?”

  I listened for a moment; but there came no answer. And then, a sudden indefinite suspicion, of I knew not what, coming to me, I stepped swiftly to the binnacle, and took out the lighted lamp. At the same time, I knocked on the deck with my heel to waken Will. Then I was back at the side, throwing the yellow funnel of light out into the silent immensity beyond our rail. As I did so, I heard a slight, muffled cry, and then the sound of a splash, as though some one had dipped oars abruptly. Yet I cannot say that I saw anything with certainty; save, it seemed to me, that with the first flash of the light, there had been something upon the waters, where now there was nothing.

  “Hullo, there!” I called. “What foolery is this!”

  But there came only the indistinct sounds of a boat being pulled away into the night.

  Then I heard Will’s voice, from the direction of the after scuttle: —

  “What’s up, George?”

  “Come here, Will!” I said.

  “What is it?” he asked, coming across the deck.

  I told him the queer thing which had happened. He put several questions; then, after a moment’s silence, he raised his hands to his lips, and hailed: —

  “Boat, ahoy!”

  From a long distance away, there came back to us a faint reply, and my companion repeated his call. Presently, after a short period of silence, there grew on our hearing the muffled sound of oars; at which Will hailed again.

  This time there was a reply: —

  “Put away the light.”

&
nbsp; “I’m damned if I will,” I muttered; but Will told me to do as the voice bade, and I shoved it down under the bulwarks.

  “Come nearer,” he said, and the oar-strokes continued. Then, when apparently some half-dozen fathoms distant, they again ceased.

  “Come alongside,” exclaimed Will. “There’s nothing to be frightened of aboard here!”

  “Promise that you will not show the light?”

  “What’s to do with you,” I burst out, “that you’re so infernally afraid of the light?”

  “Because — —” began the voice, and stopped short.

  “Because what?” I asked, quickly.

  Will put his hand on my shoulder.

  “Shut up a minute, old man,” he said, in a low voice. “Let me tackle him.”

  He leant more over the rail.

  “See here, Mister,” he said, “this is a pretty queer business, you coming upon us like this, right out in the middle of the blessed Pacific. How are we to know what sort of a hanky-panky trick you’re up to? You say there’s only one of you. How are we to know, unless we get a squint at you — eh? What’s your objection to the light, anyway?”

  As he finished, I heard the noise of the oars again, and then the voice came; but now from a greater distance, and sounding extremely hopeless and pathetic.

  “I am sorry — sorry! I would not have troubled you, only I am hungry, and — so is she.”

  The voice died away, and the sound of the oars, dipping irregularly, was borne to us.

  “Stop!” sung out Will. “I don’t want to drive you away. Come back! We’ll keep the light hidden, if you don’t like it.”

  He turned to me: —

  “It’s a damned queer rig, this; but I think there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

  There was a question in his tone, and I replied.

  “No, I think the poor devil’s been wrecked around here, and gone crazy.”

  The sound of the oars drew nearer.

  “Shove that lamp back in the binnacle,” said Will; then he leaned over the rail, and listened. I replaced the lamp, and came back to his side. The dipping of the oars ceased some dozen yards distant.