Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  A strange, extraordinary thrill, that made him shiver vaguely, travelled swiftly over the back of his head. Then, without a word, he dashed the oars into the water, and drove the boat towards the sound.

  “Strike a light, Cap’n…. Quick!” he whispered tensely. But instead of the Captain obeying, he backed suddenly upon Cargunka, in the darkness, with a muttered:— “Let’s get out of here! Let’s get out of here!”

  “My Oath! Yes…. When I’M done!” said Cargunka, and crammed him down savagely onto a thwart. He drew out his own box of matches, and struck a light. He found that he had driven the punt close beside the bell, and that the bell was now partly submerged by the rising tide, which detail, he realised, had likely enough caused the sound to be muffled. The Captain had himself in hand by now, and fished out his own matches, which he struck and held, whilst his Owner examined the bell, feeling all about it, inside and out.

  Presently, Cargunka stood upright, his hands and sleeves dripping sea-water.

  “My Oath, Cap’n!” he said. “What sort of funny devil-work have we sure struck now!”

  “I don’t know, Sir,” said the Captain, in a low voice. “I don’t like to say what I think. I’m not a fanciful sort of man; but I don’t like this; and I don’t think we’re being wise to be here just now in the dark. I think we ought to get away ashore right now.”

  “I’m wiv you, Cap’n,” replied Cargunka, quietly. “It’s just a peg outside my understandin’; and I don’t like it, no how.”

  He reached for the oars, which were still lying loosely in the thole-pins, and drove the boat astern, clear away from the wreck; then headed her round for the shore, where the sailormen had grouped together, talking in low tones. Behind the men, the fire showed the gloom of the near border of the forests that covered the island. Whilst above, against the starlight, loomed vaguely the three great Peaks, from which the island had gained its name.

  “The song about the bells, Sir! … and then that bell striking like that!” said the Captain, suddenly, as they neared the shore. “It’s making me think along pretty rum lines.”

  “My Oath, yes, Cap’n,” said Cargunka, and drove the boat ashore near the group of seamen, who hauled her up, questioning a hundred questions, and voicing a score of quaint superstitions, as they did so. But it was Durritt, the bo’sun, who said nakedly the quaintest and perhaps the ugliest: —

  “That’s a dead man’s bell, Cap’n,” he said, earnestly. “Strike me! but there’s no good’ll come messin’ round wiv that!”

  “You go an’ boil yourself, my lad!” said Cargunka. “Now then, stow all this talk, an’ spread out and find the steward.”

  But not a man of them would budge, declaring there was something rum about the island, and Durritt was so badly scared that he offered to forgo his prospective share of any of old Captain Barstow’s money that might be found, if only Cargunka would up anchor and away.

  Cargunka, however, consigned him to the devil, and ordered him and all the crew aboard, with their gear; telling them to leave the punt. Then he called to the Captain, and the two of them made their way through the darkness towards where they had last heard the steward. From time to time, as they went, they would catch the faint sound of his voice in the distance, which was some sort of a guide; though puzzling, as the man appeared to be on the road the whole time. Eventually, however, they ran him down; and persuaded him to be sensible, and come aboard, which he did; though in a heavy and silent fashion, as if he were dazed with the emotions of hope and despair through which he had been passing.

  Chapter V

  The following morning, Cargunka sent the men ashore, with the Second Mate, to make a thorough search of the island, and he allowed the steward to accompany them. Meanwhile, he and the Mate superintended the getting of the diving gear into one of the lifeboats, which had been lowered over-side.

  The bell of the wreck had been submerged, during the remainder of the night; and there had been no more of that incredible ringing in the darkness; nor had there been any uncomfortable repetition of the sound in the daylight.

  Because of this, and because things of a seeming infernalness always appear less dreadful and more capable of normal explanation in the daytime, Durrit, the bo’sun, had got his courage back again, and there was no more talk of running out to sea, without even an attempt do discover the hidden money.

  This was a fortunate thing; as Durrit was the only man aboard who had ever been down in a diving suit, and he alone understood perfectly the use of all the apparatus.

  When everything had been got ready, Cargunka, Durrit, the Mate and Captain Gell put off in the lifeboat to the wreck. One of the reasons for sending the men ashore, was to insure their being out of the way, as much as possible; for Cargunka thought it might be possible to get at the money readily, and so bring it safely aboard the brig, without any of the crew knowing. Therefore, he drove them all in the boat to haste, and in a very few minutes they were moored securely alongside the temporarily unsubmerged port rail of the poop; this being now above water, as was the deck of the fo’cas’le head, away forrard, owing to the tide being lower than either of the other tides they had witnessed since they approached the island.

  Durrit, who had got into his gear and helmet, climbed out of the boat, and in over the port rail of the poop,. He walked knee-deep across the sodden, water-covered poop-deck, and stumped heavily aft to the companionway, which was open, and then with a wave of this hand, began to climb down the weed covered steps, backwards, sailor-fashion. The Mate was pumping, whilst the Captain and Cargunka attended the air-pipe and life-line. They watched the big copper helmet vanish with a jerky bob below the water; and then, after that, for a few seconds, there was merely the eddying of the water, growing quieter and quieter, in the mouth of the companionway, and the line and air-tube being taken slowly down.

  Suddenly, there was a terrific twitch upon the life-line, dragging it clean out of Captain Gell’s hands.

  “Something wrong there!” said Cargunka, and leaped out of the boat, up to his knees on the submerged poop-deck, and grabbed the life-line out of the water. He raced to the mouth of the companionway, and leaped over it, while he took a strain upon the line; but though the Captain came to his aid, they could not budge it.

  “I’m going down,” said Cargunka, after a few seconds’ pulling. He threw off his coat, and stuffed it on to the slide of the companionway; then, taking a deep breath, he ducked his head underwater, caught at the life-line, and hauled himself down, head foremost. In a score of seconds, he had reached the dank, weed-hung alleyway below; and here, not a fathom beyond the foot of the steps, he found Durrit, lying in a dimly-seen heap. Cargunka forced himself lower, and caught at the diver, to lift him; then he thought of the fouled life-line, and traced it to the point where it had fouled. He discovered that it had become hitched around the heavy, brass knob of the steward’s pantry, which opened into the alleyway, opposite the bottom of the stairs. He fumbled a moment, and then had it free of the green verdigris-caked knob.

  He pulled himself swiftly back to the huddled diver, and caught him up in his arms. The man was easily lifted, despite the weight of his boots and helmet; yet he sagged so inertly, that Cargunka had to drag him clumsily to the steps, slipping and staggering to resist the upsetting buoyancy of the water. At the bottom of the steps, Cargunka dropped Durrit with a thud, and made one mad dash upward for breath, bursting out through the water in the companionway, with a swirl and a gasp that made Captain Gell jump back.

  “I’ve got him to the steps’ bottom,” said Cargunka, as he drew the air eagerly into his lungs. “We’ll lug ‘im out wiv the line.”

  The two of them tailed on, and in a few seconds they had the limp figure of Durrit above water. They carried him to the boat and removed his helmet, and soon the man stirred, and swallowed some of the rum that Captain Gell was trying to force into him. He was quite himself again within ten minutes, and able and willing to put on his helmet and go down again. Yet he
could not explain the cause of his collapse, nor the curious hitching of his line about the door-handle. All he knew was that, when he got to the bottom of the steps, he had faced round towards the main cabin. Then, as he began to go down the alleyway, he had felt a sudden, horrible pain between his shoulder blades. That was all that he could remember, until he found himself back in the boat again.

  “Are you sure you ain’t got a weak ‘eart, my lad?” asked Cargunka. “It may have been the pressure of the water affected you?”

  But Durrit was enormously indignant at the suggestion. He was absolutely sound and fit, he insisted. He said that the pain was not an “inside” pain; but like the pain a blow might give. He wriggled his shoulders, and complained that his neck hurt low down at the back. Perhaps he had knocked himself, as he turned….

  “Strip your gear off your upper half, my lad,” interrupted Cargunka. “You ain’t goin’ down yonder, ‘nless I feel sure you ain’t got a gammy ‘eart.”

  The man grumbled; but obeyed. Cargunka looked at his back, and saw at once that there was a heavy-red mark, vaguely circular, at the base of the neck, covering the lower cervical vertebrae. There was nothing more to be seen; but it was obvious that in some way the man had sustained a heavy knock or blow. It was not his heart that had been at fault.

  Cargunka told Durrit he might get into the gear again, and go down as soon as he felt fit. Yet he was vaguely uncomfortable. It was a funny thing for the man to have knocked himself sufficiently hard to stun himself, without being sure even that he had knocked against anything. And then the way that the line had got itself hitched round the pantry door-handle. That was a rum sort of thing to occur.

  He fell to wishing that there had been a second diving suit. He found his thoughts reverting insistently to the extraordinary ringing of the bell. And then, suddenly, he got up from the thwart on which he had been sitting, and gave himself a vigourous mental shake. They had come out to the island to get that money, and they were going to get it; and as Durrit was the only one with them accustomed to diving, it was no use putting troublesome fancies or ideas into his head, especially as he did not seem to associate his accident with the possibility of anything “queer,” as Cargunka phrased it.

  The Captain and Cargunka helped Durrit again into his diving-gear. The man had plainly got the gold-lust on him, and had apparently quite lost his overnight superstitions about the hulk. Moreover, as I have said, he had plainly never a thought to explain what had just happened, as being anything but a casual enough incident.

  Yet, as the man’s copper helmet jerked slowly below the surface of the water in the companionway, for the second time, Cargunka had an uncomfortable feeling at his heart, that he tried vainly to ridicule away. He was standing now close up to the companionway, letting the life-line carefully through his hands, whilst Captain Gell stood a fathom to his left, and did the same with the air-pipe.

  Very intently, Cargunka allowed the line to go out, feeling it daintily all the time, for the least suspicion of a signal. And extraordinarily enough, the thing happened again; for once more the line was jerked with a savage, desperate sort of jerk, as if Durrit were in instant need of help. Cargunka shouted; and the Captain jumped, floundering through the water on the deck, to help him. Together they hauled; yet again the line was fast, and they could not budge it.

  “My Oath!” muttered Cargunka. “What is it! What is it!”

  Then, without a word, he ducked his head again straight down into the water in the companionway, still gripping the line, and so hauled himself below from the Captain’s sight. As he neared the bottom of the steps, he kept glancing all about him through the water. He stared hard along the passage, and saw something upon the floor of the alley. He hauled himself to it, and found the diver lying, still and insensible. He hauled himself further along the line, and a queer little thrill of repulsion and apprehension came to him, as he realised that it was once more hitched to the knob of a door-handle — this time to the knob of the door leading into the big cabin.

  Cargunka slipped the hitch hastily, with clumsy fingers; then struggled back to the body upon the floor. He caught it up in his arms, and rolled and slipped to the foot of the stairs, where he dropped the man, and dashed to the surface again.

  “Haul him up! Haul him up!” he gasped, as he got his breath. After a few moments, he climbed out of the well-like companionway, and gave a hand with the line; yet the man did not come, and, with a sickening feeling, Cargunka took his breath deep, and went down into the water again. To his amazement, and real horror, he found that the bight of the line had been once more hitched by some unnatural means about the door-handle of the pantry. He cast off the line, for the third time, and lifted the man a little, so that he lay ready to be hauled up. As he did so, he had a sudden, incredible feeling of being watched — of being in danger, in some incomprehensible, deadly way. He whirled about clumsily in the water, and saw that the pantry door had been opened, showing the interior, a dank, pitch-black cavern of water and weed… and out of this, upside down, there was projected towards him an awful, sodden, bearded face, huge and horrible and blurred. With a courage that was partly a reflex of the sick, deadly fright that had him suddenly about the heart, Cargunka plunged clumsily through the water, at the thing, striking savagely, but ineffectually, with right and left; but it was gone, and only the black cavern of the long-drowned steward’s pantry, showed through the gloomy, weed-fringed oblong of the strangely opened doorway.

  Cargunka’s head struck the deck-beams of the alleyway; for, on letting go the line, he had floated up off his feet. He grabbed up at a beam now, and threw himself backwards, and dived swiftly up through the companionway. He threw out a gout of salt water, and gasped in his breath; then shouted “Pull!” to Captain Gell. He dragged himself up onto the top step, and staggered out onto the submerged deck, and even as he did so, the Captain had hauled the inert body of Durrit clear up into the daylight.

  Between them, they got the diver again into the lifeboat, and there they stripped off his diving tackle and took him aboard the ship; for it was at once evident to them that he had been badly hurt.

  Here, after they had tried for an hour to bring him round, they convinced themselves that he was actually dead, and they carried him out on to the main-hatch, and left him there, with a blanket over him. Cargunka had already told what he had found and seen; and he announced now that he was going to put on the gear himself, and go down into the sunk ship, and see what the unnatural thing was down there.

  Both the Captain and the Mate begged Cargunka to drop the whole business; but this he refused to do, and told them that if they would not give him the necessary help, he would simply wait for the crew to return from their tramp ashore, and get three or four of them to work the pump and attend the line and the pipe.

  Cargunka returned to the derelict, taking with him the Captain and the Mate, also the Carpenter, who had stayed aboard. He had taken careful notice of Durrit, and so had little real difficulty in getting into the suit.

  Cargunka climbed heavily out of the boat, and waded across the deck to the companionway. The Captain and the Carpenter accompanied him, wading a little above their knees, for the tide was now on the rise. Cargunka stopped at the waiting mouth of the water-filled companionway, and took a slow glance round, through his three windows, at the sky and sea, as if unconsciously saying a possible goodbye.

  Captain Gell took advantage of the opportunity to take something from his pocket and thrust it into Cargunka’s right hand. It was a heavy Colt; but Cargunka pushed it back at the Captain. The Captain put his face up against the helmet, and shouted:— “Take it, Sir. For God’s sake, don’t go down there with nothing but your hands. Take it, Sir, or I’m blowed if me and the Carpenter don’t hold you up here.”

  Inside his big helmet, Cargunka’s blue eyes flashed suddenly; then softened, as he allowed the genuine affection in his Captain’s voice to conquer his quick anger at the Captain’s suggestion of using force. He n
odded inside the helmet, and Captain Gell, who had been looking in at his front window, pushed the weapon again into his hand. Then he began to go down to the companionway; but, unlike the bo’sun, he went down frontways, not as a sailor goes, but as an average person goes downstairs.

  As he reached the bottom of the steps, he saw, with an extraordinary thrill, that the door of the steward’s pantry was shut again. He took a step towards it, across the alleyway, meaning to push it with his foot. But, in the very act of doing so, it began slowly to open. It swung noiselessly wide, apparently without anything visible touching it, and Cargunka found himself staring once more into the pitch-black, weed-draped cavern of the long-sunk pantry. He stared, tensely and fiercely ready, with the pistol gripped for an instant shot. Then, as he sent his gaze circling swiftly round, he saw something that set every nerve in him quivering. A great, sodden white hand was gripping the top of the door. The next instant, he saw something else, a great, water-blurred, bearded, weed-entangled face was coming down below the top of the door, into sight. As it was upside down, Cargunka backed one swift, clumsy step across the alleyway, and thrust his pistol at the thing. As he pulled the trigger, there was an enormous swirl, and something dankly-white and huge and enormously weighty dashed down at him, seemingly from the weed-grown ceiling of the pantry. Once, twice, thrice, he pulled the trigger, and the third time felt the muzzle of his pistol against the thing that was upon him. He could see nothing, for the boiling and swirling of the water. He was conscious of tremendous blows; and then, all in a moment, the boil of the water burst from him, and he was in the daylight above, with some huge thing gripped to him, thudding at him with enormous, mad, misdirected blows.

  What had happened on deck was this: —

  To the Captain and the Carpenter, waiting on the submerged poop-deck above, there had been a brief few moments of quiet suspense, after the big dome of Cargunka’s helmet had vanished under the water. They could not see him, owing to the sky-reflection on the surface, and the complete blackness below; but they had watched the line and the air-pipe trail jerkily after Cargunka, going slowly, foot by foot down into the gloom of the water, where it lay black and silent under the shadow of the half-drawn slide of the companion-hatch. And then there had come a pause; followed, abruptly, by three dull shocks, and a great swirl and commotion below the surface.