Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  He came round, like a shot, and took a flying kick at me; but I declined to be at home, and his foot took the edge of the cabin table, instead, and kicked a strip clean off it, fore and aft, about six inches wide.

  ‘‘Captain, dear,” I said, “you’ll not have a bit of furniture left; the way you and the Hogge carry on.”

  He rushed me a third time, putting his head down to butt me in the stomach; but I brought up my knee quickly, and made him straighten wonderfully.

  “Now, Bully Dunkan,” I said, as he tried twice to hit me with his elbows, “here’s what’s coming to a brute and a bully and a murderer like you!” And with that, I slipped a left-handed swing of his, and punched him hard on the short ribs with my left hand; then, I crossed in over with my right hand, as his head came forward; and I hit him clean on the side of his chin, close up to the point. I hit with my body and leg to help the blow; and Bully Dunkan went down with a crash, as he had laid many a poor devil of a sailorman out.

  Miles had finished now with the Hogge, who lay on the deck, showing no interest in anything; and I decided we had done enough, both for pleasure and for common justice.

  “Come along, Miles,” I said. “They’ll keep in a restful state of mind for a bit, I reckon. Pity we can’t lynch them.”

  Outside on the deck, Sandy Meg nearly hugged us. “My oath!” he said. “My oath; but that did me good to see!”

  Miles and I went forrard and rummaged our sea-chests; the chests themselves we decided not to bother with, and presented them to two of the men who were without. Then we said good-bye to the old ship; and went ashore. We had enough to buy new sea-chests, we decided, if ever we were fools enough to need such things again.

  The next day, I sent the following letter to Bully Dunkan and the Mate: —

  “Dear Captain and Hogge,

  “Let me commend to your earnest notice the following observations: —

  1. — Handcuffs have keys.

  2. — Lazarette-hatches have the same weakness.

  3. — Dope (especially ‘Frisco quality) is most effective, particularly when put into, say, a kettle of hot grog-water, left on the deck near a lazarette hatch.

  4. — Gold, in almost any form; but especially in gold-dollar shape, is a peculiarly useful and likeable metal.

  5. — A punch on the point of the jaw is an instant cure for most evils. N.B. How is your jaw? Hope I didn’t hit too hard.

  6. — Hogges grunt. Get rid of the habit or the Hogge.

  7. — There is a little, unknown island, somewhere in the Pacific, known to you and the Hogge. If you will supply us with the latitude and the longitude of same, we shall be pleased to hand the information over to the police, with all particulars. Failing which, we must appropriate certain useful metal to our own use.

  “From an old shipmate.”

  THE STONE SHIP

  Rum things! — Of course there are rum things happen at sea — As rum as ever there were. I remember when I was in the Alfred Jessop, a small barque, whose owner was her skipper, we came across a most extraordinary thing.

  We were twenty days out from London, and well down into the tropics. It was before I took my ticket, and I was in the fo’cas’le. The day had passed without a breath of wind, and the night found us with all the lower sails up in the buntlines.

  Now, I want you to take good note of what I am going to say: —

  When it was dark in the second dog-watch, there was not a sail in sight; not even the far off smoke of a steamer, and no land nearer than Africa, about a thousand miles to the Eastward of us.

  It was our watch on deck from eight to twelve midnight, and my lookout from eight to ten. For the first hour, I walked to and fore across the break of the fo’cas’le head, smoking my pipe and just listening to the quiet…. Ever heard the kind of silence you can get away out at sea? You need to be in one of the old-time wind-jammers, with all the lights dowsed, and the sea as calm and quiet as some queer plain of death. And then you want a pipe and the lonesomeness of the fo’cas’le head, with the caps’n to lean against while you listen and think. And all about you, stretching out into the miles, only and always the enormous silence of the sea, spreading out a thousand miles every way into the everlasting, brooding night. And not a light anywhere, out on all the waste of waters; nor ever a sound, as I have told, except the faint moaning of the masts and gear, as they chafe and whine a little to the occasional invisible roll of the ship.

  And suddenly, across all this silence, I heard Jensen’s voice from the head of the starboard steps, say: —

  “Did you hear that, Duprey?”

  “What?” I asked, cocking my head up. But as I questioned, I heard what he heard — the constant sound of running water, for all the world like the noise of a brook running down a hill-side. And the queer sound was surely not a hundred fathoms off our port bow!

  “By gum!” said Jensen’s voice, out of the darkness. “That’s damned sort of funny!”

  “Shut up!” I whispered, and went across, in my bare feet, to the port rail, where I leaned out into the darkness, and stared towards the curious sound.

  The noise of a brook running down a hill-side continued, where there was no brook for a thousand sea-miles in any direction.

  “What is it?” said Jensen’s voice again, scarcely above a whisper now. From below him, on the main-deck, there came several voices questioning:— “Hark!” “Stow the talk!” “…there!” “Listen!” “Lord love us, what is it?” …And then Jensen muttering to them to be quiet.

  There followed a full minute, during which we all heard the brook, where no brook could ever run; and then, out of the night there came a sudden hoarse incredible sound: — ooaaze, oooaze, arrrr, arrrr, oooaze — a stupendous sort of croak, deep and somehow abominable, out of the blackness. In the same instant, I found myself sniffing the air. There was a queer rank smell, stealing through the night.

  “Forrard there on the lookout!” I heard the Mate singing out, away aft. “Forrard there! What the blazes are you doing!”

  I heard him come clattering down the port ladder from the poop, and then the sound of his feet at a run along the main-deck. Simultaneously, there was a thudding of bare feet, as the watch below came racing out of the fo’cas’le beneath me.

  “Now then! Now then! Now then!” shouted the Mate, as he charged up on to the fo’cas’le head. “What’s up?”

  “It’s something off the port bow, Sir,” I said. “Running water! And then that sort of howl…. Your night-glasses,” I suggested.

  “Can’t see a thing,” he growled, as he stared away through the dark. “There’s a sort of mist. Phoo! what a devil of a stink!”

  “Look!” said someone down on the main-deck. “What’s that?”

  I saw it in the same instant, and caught the Mate’s elbow.

  “Look, Sir,” I said. “There’s a light there, about three points off the bow. It’s moving.”

  The Mate was staring through his night-glasses, and suddenly he thrust them into my hands: —

  “See if you can make it out,” he said, and forthwith put his hands round his mouth, and bellowed into the night:— “Ahoy there! Ahoy there! Ahoy there!” his voice going out lost into the silence and darkness all around. But there came never a comprehensible answer, only all the time the infernal noise of a brook running out there on the sea, a thousand miles from any brook of earth; and away on the port bow, a vague shapeless shining.

  I put the glasses to my eyes, and stared. The light was bigger and brighter, seen through the binoculars; but I could make nothing of it, only a dull, elongated shining, that moved vaguely in the darkness, apparently a hundred fathoms or so, away on the sea.

  “Ahoy there! Ahoy there!” sung out the Mate again. Then, to the men below:— “Quiet there on the main-deck!”

  There followed about a minute of intense stillness, during which we all listened; but there was no sound, except the constant noise of water running steadily.

  I was watc
hing the curious shining, and I saw it flick out suddenly at the Mate’s shout. Then in a moment I saw three dull lights, one under the other, that flicked in and out intermittently.

  “Here, give me the glasses!” said the Mate, and grabbed them from me.

  He stared intensely for a moment; then swore, and turned to me: —

  “What do you make of them?” he asked, abruptly.

  “I don’t know, Sir,” I said. “I’m just puzzled. Perhaps it’s electricity, or something of that sort.”

  “Oh hell!” he replied, and leant far out over the rail, staring. “Lord!” he said, for the second time, “what a stink!”

  As he spoke, there came a most extraordinary thing; for there sounded a series of heavy reports out of the darkness, seeming in the silence, almost as loud as the sound of small cannon.

  “They’re shooting!” shouted a man on the main-deck, suddenly.

  The Mate said nothing; only he sniffed violently at the night air. “By Gum!” he muttered, “what is it?”

  I put my hand over my nose; for there was a terrible, charnel-like stench filling all the night about us.

  “Take my glasses, Duprey,” said the Mate, after a few minutes further watching. “Keep an eye over yonder. I’m going to call the Captain.”

  He pushed his way down the ladder, and hurried aft. About five minutes later, he returned forrard with the Captain and the Second and Third Mates, all in their shirts and trousers.

  “Anything fresh, Duprey?” asked the Mate.

  “No, Sir,” I said, and handed him back his glasses. “The lights have gone again, and I think the mist is thicker. There’s still the sound of running water out there.”

  The Captain and the three Mates stood some time along the port rail of the fo’cas’le head, watching through their night-glasses, and listening. Twice the Mate hailed; but there came no reply.

  There was some talk, among the officers; and I gathered that the Captain was thinking of investigating.

  “Clear one of the life-boats, Mr. Celt,” he said, at last. “The glass is steady; there’ll be no wind for hours yet. Pick out half a dozen men. Take, ’em out of either watch, if they want to come. I’ll be back when I’ve got my coat.”

  “Away aft with you, Duprey, and some of you others,” said the Mate. “Get the cover off the port life-boat, and bail her out.”

  “ ‘i, ‘i, Sir,” I answered, and went away aft with the others.

  We had the boat into the water within twenty minutes, which is good time for a wind-jammer, where boats are generally used as storage receptacles for odd gear.

  I was one of the men told off to the boat, with two others from our watch, and one from the starboard.

  The Captain came down the end of the main tops’l halyards into the boat, and the Third after him. The Third took the tiller, and gave orders to cast off.

  We pulled out clear of our vessel, and the Skipper told us to lie on our oars for a moment while he took his bearings. He leant forward to listen, and we all did the same. The sound of the running water was quite distinct across the quietness; but it struck me as seeming not so loud as earlier.

  I remember now, that I noticed how plain the mist had become — a sort of warm, wet mist; not a bit thick; but just enough to make the night very dark, and to be visible, eddying slowly in a thin vapour round the port side-light, looking like a red cloudiness swirling lazily through the red glow of the big lamp.

  There was no other sound at this time, beyond the sound of the running water; and the Captain, after handing something to the Third Mate, gave the order to give-way.

  I was rowing stroke, and close to the officers, and so was able to see dimly that the Captain had passed a heavy revolver over to the Third Mate.

  “Ho!” I thought to myself, “so the Old Man’s a notion there’s really something dangerous over there.”

  I slipped a hand quickly behind me, and felt that my sheath knife was clear.

  We pulled easily for about three or four minutes, with the sound of the water growing plainer somewhere ahead in the darkness; and astern of us, a vague red glowing through the night and vapour, showed where our vessel was lying.

  We were rowing easily, when suddenly the bow-oar muttered “G’lord!” Immediately afterwards, there was a loud splashing in the water on his side of the boat.

  “What’s wrong in the bows, there?” asked the Skipper, sharply.

  “There’s somethin’ in the water, Sir, messing round my oar,” said the man.

  I stopped rowing, and looked round. All the men did the same. There was a further sound of splashing, and the water was driven right over the boat in showers. Then the bow-oar called out:— “There’s somethin’ got a holt of my oar, Sir!”

  I could tell the man was frightened; and I knew suddenly that a curious nervousness had come to me — a vague, uncomfortable dread, such as the memory of an ugly tale will bring, in a lonesome place. I believe every man in the boat had a similar feeling. It seemed to me in that moment, that a definite, muggy sort of silence was all round us, and this in spite of the sound of the splashing, and the strange noise of the running water somewhere ahead of us on the dark sea.

  “It’s let go the oar, Sir!” said the man.

  Abruptly, as he spoke, there came the Captain’s voice in a roar:— “Back water all!” he shouted. “Put some beef into it now! Back all! Back all!… Why the devil was no lantern put in the boat! Back now! Back! Back!”

  We backed fiercely, with a will; for it was plain that the Old Man had some good reason to get the boat away pretty quickly. He was right, too; though, whether it was guess-work, or some kind of instinct that made him shout out at that moment, I don’t know; only I am sure he could not have seen anything in that absolute darkness.

  As I was saying, he was right in shouting to us to back; for we had not backed more than half a dozen fathoms, when there was a tremendous splash right ahead of us, as if a house had fallen into the sea; and a regular wave of sea-water came at us out of the darkness, throwing our bows up, and soaking us fore and aft.

  “Good Lord!” I heard the Third Mate gasp out. “What the devil’s that?”

  “Back all! Back! Back!” the Captain sung out again.

  After some moments, he had the tiller put over, and told us to pull. We gave way with a will, as you may think, and in a few minutes were alongside our own ship again.

  “Now then, men,” the Captain said, when we were safe, aboard, “I’ll not order any of you to come; but after the Steward’s served out a tot of grog each, those who are willing, can come with me, and we’ll have another go at finding out what devil’s work is going on over yonder.”

  He turned to the Mate, who had been asking questions: —

  “Say, Mister,” he said, “it’s no sort of thing to let the boat go without a lamp aboard. Send a couple of the lads into the lamp locker, and pass out a couple of the anchor-lights, and that deck bull’s-eye, you use at nights for clearing up the ropes.”

  He whipped round on the Third:— “Tell the Steward to buck up with that grog, Mr. Andrews,” he said, “and while you’re there, pass out the axes from the rack in my cabin.”

  The grog came along a minute later; and then the Third Mate with three big axes from out the cabin rack.

  “Now then, men,” said the Skipper, as we took our tots off, “those who are coming with me, had better take an axe each from the Third Mate. They’re mighty good weapons in any sort of trouble.”

  We all stepped forward, and he burst out laughing, slapping his thigh.

  “That’s the kind of thing I like!” he said. “Mr. Andrews, the axes won’t go round. Pass out that old cutlass from the Steward’s pantry. It’s a pretty hefty piece of iron!”

  The old cutlass was brought, and the man who was short of an axe, collared it. By this time, two of the ‘prentices had filled (at least we supposed they had filled them!) two of the ship’s anchor-lights; also they had brought out the bull’s-eye lamp we used
when clearing up the ropes on a dark night. With the lights and the axes and the cutlass, we felt ready to face anything, and down we went again into the boat, with the Captain and the Third Mate after us.

  “Lash one of the lamps to one of the boat-hooks, and rig it out over the bows,” ordered the Captain.

  This was done, and in this way the light lit up the water for a couple of fathoms ahead of the boat; and made us feel less that something could come at us without our knowing. Then the painter was cast off, and we gave way again toward the sound of the running water, out there in the darkness.

  I remember now that it struck me that our vessel had drifted a bit; for the sounds seemed farther away.

  The second anchor-light had been put in the stern of the boat, and the Third Mate kept it between his feet, while he steered. The Captain had the bull’s-eye in his hand, and was pricking up the wick with his pocket-knife.

  As we pulled, I took a glance or two over my shoulder; but could see nothing, except the lamp making a yellow halo in the mist round the boat’s bows, as we forged ahead. Astern of us, on our quarter, I could see the dull red glow of our vessel’s port light. That was all, and not a sound in all the sea, as you might say, except the roll of our oars in the rowlocks, and somewhere in the darkness ahead, that curious noise of water running steadily; now sounding, as I have said, fainter and seeming farther away.

  “It’s got my oar again, Sir!” exclaimed the man at the bow oar, suddenly, and jumped to his feet. He hove his oar up with a great splashing of water, into the air, and immediately something whirled and beat about in the yellow halo of light over the bows of the boat. There was a crash of breaking wood, and the boat-hook was broken. The lamp soused down into the sea, and was lost. Then, in the darkness, there was a heavy splash, and a shout from the bow-oar:— “It’s gone, Sir. It’s loosed off the oar!”

  “Vast pulling, all!” sung out the Skipper. Not that the order was necessary; for not a man was pulling. He had jumped up, and whipped a big revolver out of his coat pocket.