Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  I pushed my way through the men and found the Captain in the saloon in his sleeping gear, looking both drowsy and angry, though perhaps bewilderment topped every other feeling. He held his cabin lamp in his hand, and shone the light over the huddle of men.

  I hurried to explain, and told him of the incredible disappearance of the Mate, and of my conviction that some extraordinary thing was lurking near the ship out in the mist and the darkness. I mentioned the curious smell, and told how the Mate had suggested that we had drifted down near some old-time, sea-rotted derelict. And, you know, even as I put it into awkward words, my imagination began to awaken to horrible discomforts; a thousand dreadful impossibilities of the sea became suddenly possible.

  The Captain (Jeldy was his name) did not stop to dress, but ran back into his cabin, and came out in a few moments with a couple of revolvers and a handful of cartridges. The Second Mate had come running out of his cabin at the noise, and had listed intensely to what I had to say; and now he jumped back into his berth and brought out his own lamp and a large Smith and Wesson, which was evidently ready loaded.

  Captain Jeldy pushed one of his revolvers into my hands, with some of the cartridges, and we began hastily to load the weapons. Then the Captain caught up his lamp and made for the stairway, ordering the men into the saloon out of his way.

  “Shall you want them, Sir?” I asked.

  “No,” he said. “It’s no use their running any unnecessary risks.” He threw a word over his shoulder: “Stay quiet here, men; if I want you I’ll give you a shout; then come spry!”

  “Aye, aye, Sir,” said the watch in a chorus; and then I was following the Captain up the stairs, with the Second Mate close behind. We came up through the companionway on to the silence of the deserted poop. The mist had thickened up, even during the brief time that I had been below, and there was not a breath of wind. The mist was so dense that it seemed to press in upon us, and the two lamps made a kind of luminous halo in the mist, which seemed to absorb their light in a most peculiar way.

  “Where was he?” the Captain asked me, almost in a whisper.

  “On the port side, Sir,” I said, “a little foreside the charthouse and about a dozen feet in from the rail. I’ll show you the exact place.”

  We went forrard along what had been the weather side, going quietly and watchfully, though, indeed, it was little enough that we could see, because of the mist. Once, as I led the way, I thought I heard a vague sound somewhere in the mist, but was all unsure because of the slow creak, creak of the spars and gear as the vessel rolled slightly upon an odd, oily swell. Apart from this slight sound, and the far-up rustle of the canvas slatting gently against the masts, there was no sound at all throughout the ship. I assure you the silence seemed to me to be almost menacing, in the tense, nervous state in which I was.

  “Hereabouts is where I left him,” I whispered to the Captain a few seconds later. “Hold your lamp low, Sir. There’s blood on the deck.”

  Captain Jeldy did so, and made a slight sound with his mouth at what he saw. Then, heedless of my hurried warning, he walked across to the rail, holding his lamp high up. I followed him, for I could not let him go alone; and the Second Mate came too, with his lamp. They leaned over the port rail and held their lamps out into the mist and the unknown darkness beyond the ship’s side. I remember how the lamps made just two yellow glares in the mist, ineffectual, yet serving somehow to make extraordinarily plain the vastitude of the night and the possibilities of the dark. Perhaps that is a queer way to put it, but it gives you the effect of that moment upon my feelings. And all the time, you know, there was upon me the brutal, frightening expectancy of something reaching in at us from out of that everlasting darkness and mist that held all the sea and the night, so that we were just three mist-shrouded, hidden figures, peering nervously.

  The mist was now so thick that we could not even see the surface of the water overside, and fore and aft of us the rail vanished away into the fog and the dark. And then, as we stood here staring, I heard something moving down on the main-deck. I caught Captain Jeldy by the elbow.

  “Come away from the rail, Sir,” I said, hardly above a whisper; and he, with the swift premonition of danger, stepped back and allowed me to urge him well inboard. The Second Mate followed, and the three of us stood there in the mist, staring round about us and holding our revolvers handily, and the dull waves of the mist beating in slowly upon the lamps in vague wreathings and swirls of fog.

  “What was it you heard, mister?” asked the Captain after a few moments.

  “Ssst!” I muttered. “There it is again. There’s something moving down on the main-deck!”

  Captain Jeldy heard it himself now, and the three of us stood listening intensely. Yet it was hard to know what to make of the sounds. And then suddenly there was the rattle of a deck ringbolt, and then again, as if something or someone were fumbling and playing with it.

  “Down there on the main-deck!” shouted the Captain abruptly, his voice seeming hoarse close to my ear, yet immediately smothered by the fog. “Down there on the main-deck! Who’s there?”

  But there came never an answering sound. And the three of us stood there, looking quickly this way and that, and listening —

  Abruptly the Second Mate muttered something:

  “The look-out, Sir! The look-out!”

  Captain Jeldy took the hint on the instant.

  “On the look-out there!” he shouted.

  And then, far away and muffled-sounding, there came the answering cry of the look-out man from the fo’cas’le head:

  “Sir-r-r?” A little voice, long drawn out through unknowable alleys of fog.

  “Go below into the fo’cas’le and shut both doors, an’ don’t stir out till you’re told!” sung out Captain Jeldy, his voice going lost into the mist. And then the man’s answering “Aye, aye, Sir!” coming to us faint and mournful. And directly afterwards the clang of a steel door, hollow-sounding and remote; and immediately the sound of another.

  “That puts them safe for the present, anyway,” said the Second Mate. And even as he spoke there came again that indefinite noise down upon the main-deck of something moving with an incredible and unnatural stealthiness.

  “On the main-deck there!” shouted Captain Jeldy sternly. “If there is anyone there, answer, or I shall fire!”

  The reply was both amazing and terrifying, for suddenly a tremendous blow was stricken upon the deck, and then there came the dull, rolling sound of some enormous weight going hollowly across the main-deck. And then an abominable silence.

  “My God!” said Captain Jeldy in a low voice, “what was that?” And he raised his pistol, but I caught him by the wrist. “Don’t shoot, Sir!” I whispered. “It’ll be no good. That — that — whatever it is I — mean it’s something enormous, Sir. I — I really wouldn’t shoot—” I found it impossible to put my vague idea into words; but I felt there was a force aboard, down on the maindeck, that it would be futile to attack with so ineffectual a thing as a puny revolver bullet.

  And then, as I held Captain Jeldy’s wrist, and he hesitated, irresolute there came a sudden bleating of sheep and the sound of lashings being burst and the cracking of wood; and the next instant a huge crash, followed by crash after crash, and the anguished m-aa-a-a-ing of sheep.

  “My God!” said the Second Mate, “the sheep-pen’s being beaten to pieces against the deck. Good God! What sort of thing could do that?”

  The tremendous beating ceased, and there was a splashing overside; and after that a silence so profound that it seemed as if the whole atmosphere of the night was full of an unbearable, tense quietness. And then the damp slatting of a sail, far up in the night, that made me start — a lonesome sound to break suddenly through that infernal silence upon my raw nerves.

  “Get below, both of you. Smartly now!” muttered Captain Jeldy. “There’s something run either aboard us or alongside; and we can’t do anything till daylight.”

  We went belo
w and shut the doors of the companionway, and there we lay in the wide Atlantic, without wheel or look-out or officer in charge, and something incredible down on the dark main-deck.

  II

  For some hours we sat in the Captain’s cabin talking the matter over whilst the watch slept, sprawled in a dozen attitudes on the floor of the saloon. Captain Jeldy and the Second Mate still wore their pyjamas, and our loaded revolvers lay handy on the cabin table. And so we watched anxiously through the hours for the dawn to come in.

  As the light strengthened we endeavoured to get some view of the sea from the ports, but the mist was so thick about us that it was exactly like looking out into a grey nothingness, that became presently white as the day came.

  “Now,” said Captain Jeldy, “we’re going to look into this.”

  He went out through the saloon to the companion stairs. At the top he opened the two doors, and the mist rolled in on us, white and impenetrable. For a little while we stood there, the three of us, absolutely silent and listening, with our revolvers handy; but never a sound came to us except the odd, vague slatting of a sail or the slight creaking of the gear as the ship lifted on some slow, invisible swell.

  Presently the Captain stepped cautiously out onto the deck; he was in his cabin slippers, and therefore made no sound. I was wearing gum-boots, and followed him silently, and the Second Mate after me in his bare feet. Captain Jeldy went a few paces along the deck, and the mist hid him utterly. “Phew!” I heard him mutter, “the stink’s worse than ever!” His voice came odd and vague to me through the wreathing of the mist.

  “The sun’ll soon eat up all this fog,” said the Second Mate at my elbow, in a voice little above a whisper.

  We stepped after the Captain, and found him a couple of fathoms away, standing shrouded in the mist in an attitude of tense listening.

  “Can’t hear a thing!” he whispered. “We’ll go forrard to the break, as quiet as you like. Don’t make a sound.”

  We went forward, like three shadows, and suddenly Captain Jeldy kicked his shin against something and pitched headlong over it, making a tremendous noise. He got up quickly, swearing grimly, and the three of us stood there in silence, waiting lest any infernal thing should come upon us out of all that white invisibility. Once I felt sure I saw something coming towards me, and I raised my revolver, but saw in a moment that there was nothing. The tension of imminent nervous expectancy eased from us, and Captain Jeldy stooped over the object on the deck.

  “The port hencoop’s been shifted out here!” he muttered. “It’s all stove!”

  “That must be what I heard last night when the Mate went,” I whispered. There was a loud crash just before he sang out to me to hurry with the lamp.”

  Captain Jeldy left the smashed hencoop, and the three of us tiptoed silently to the rail across the break of the poop. Here we leaned over and stared down into the blank whiteness of the mist that hid everything.

  “Can’t see a thing,” whispered the Second Mate; yet as he spoke I could fancy that I heard a slight, indefinite, slurring noise somewhere below us; and I caught them each by an arm to draw them back.

  “There’s something down there,” I muttered. “For goodness’ sake come back from the rail.”

  We gave back a step or two, and then stopped to listen; and even as we did so there came a slight air playing through the mist. “The breeze is coming,” said the Second Mate. “Look, the mist is clearing already.”

  He was right. Already the look of white impenetrability had gone, and suddenly we could see the corner of the after-hatch coamings through the thinning fog. Within a minute we could see as far forrard as the mainmast, and then the stuff blew away from us, clear of the vessel, like a great wall of whiteness, that dissipated as it went.

  “Look!” we all exclaimed together. The whole of the vessel was now clear to our sight; but it was not at the ship herself that we looked, for, after one quick glance along the empty main-deck, we had seen something beyond the ship’s side. All around the vessel there lay a submerged spread of weed, for, maybe, a good quarter of a mile upon every side.

  “Weed!” sang out Captain Jeldy in a voice of comprehension. “Weed! Look! By Jove, I guess I know now what got the Mate!” He turned and ran to the port side and looked over. And suddenly he stiffened and beckoned silently over his shoulder to us to come and see. We had followed, and now we stood, one on each side of him, staring.

  “Look!” whispered the Captain, pointing. “See the great brute! Do you see it? There! Look!”

  At first I could see nothing except the submerged spread of the weed, into which we had evidently run after dark. Then, as I stared intently, my gaze began to separate from the surrounding weed a leathery-looking something that was somewhat darker in hue than the weed itself.

  “My God!” said Captain Jeldy. “What a monster! What a monster! Just look at the brute! Look at the thing’s eyes! That’s what got the Mate. What a creature out of hell itself!”

  I saw it plainly now; three of the massive feelers lay twined in and out among the clumpings of the weed; and then, abruptly, I realised that the two extraordinary round disks, motionless and inscrutable, were the creature’s eyes, just below the surface of the water. It appeared to be staring, expressionless, up at the steel side of the vessel. I traced, vaguely, the shapeless monstrosity of what must be termed its head. “My God!” I muttered. “It’s an enormous squid of some kind! What an awful brute! What—”

  The sharp report of the Captain’s revolver came at that moment. He had fired at the thing, and instantly there was a most awful commotion alongside. The weed was hove upward, literally in tons. An enormous quantity was thrown aboard us by the thrashing of the monster’s great feelers. The sea seemed almost to boil, in one great cauldron of weed and water, all about the brute, and the steel side of the ship resounded with the dull, tremendous blows that the creature gave in its struggle. And into all that whirling boil of tentacles, weed, and seawater the three of us emptied our revolvers as fast as we could fire and reload. I remember the feeling of fierce satisfaction I had in thus aiding to avenge the death of the Mate.

  Suddenly the Captain roared out to us to jump back, and we obeyed on the instant. As we did so the weed rose up into a great mound over twenty feet in height, and more than a ton of it slopped aboard. The next instant three of the monstrous tentacles came in over the side, and the vessel gave a slow, sullen roll to port as the weight came upon her, for the monster had literally hove itself almost free of the sea against our port side, in one vast, leathery shape, all wreathed with weed-fronds, and seeming drenched with blood and curious black liquid.

  The feelers that had come inboard thrashed round here and there, and suddenly one of them curled in the most hideous, snake-like fashion around the base of the mainmast. This seemed to attract it, for immediately it curled the two others about the mast, and forthwith wrenched upon it with such hideous violence that the whole towering length of spars, through all their height of a hundred and fifty feet, were shaken visibly, whilst the vessel herself vibrated with the stupendous efforts of the brute.

  “It’ll have the mast down, Sir!” said the Second Mate, with a gasp. “My God! It’ll strain her side open! My—”

  “One of those blasting cartridges!” I said to Jeldy almost in a shout, as the inspiration took me. “Blow the brute to pieces!”

  “Get one, quick!” said the Captain, jerking his thumb towards the companion. “You know where they are.”

  In thirty seconds I was back with the cartridge. Captain Jeldy took out his knife and cut the fuse dead short; then, with a steady hand, he lit the fuse, and calmly held it, until I backed away, shouting to him to throw it, for I knew it must explode in another couple of seconds.

  Captain Jeldy threw the thing like one throws a quoit, so that it fell into the sea just on the outward side of the vast bulk of the monster. So well had he timed it that it burst, with a stunning report, just as it struck the water. The effect upon th
e squid was amazing. It seemed literally to collapse. The enormous tentacles released themselves from the mast and curled across the deck helplessly, and were drawn inertly over the rail, as the enormous bulk sank away from the ship’s side, out of sight, into the weed. The ship rolled slowly to starboard, and then steadied. “Thank God!” I muttered, and looked at the two others. They were pallid and sweating, and I must have been the same.

  “Here’s the breeze again,” said the Second Mate, a minute later. “We’re moving.” He turned, without another word, and raced aft to the wheel, whilst the vessel slid over and through the weedfield.

  “Look where that brute broke up the sheep-pen!” cried Jeldy, pointing. “And here’s the skylight of the sail-locker smashed to bits!”

  He walked across to it, and glanced down. And suddenly he let out a tremendous shout of astonishment:

  “Here’s the Mate down here!” he shouted. “He’s not overboard at all! He’s here!”

  He dropped himself down through the skylight on to the sails, and I after him; and, surely, there was the Mate, lying all huddled and insensible on a hummock of spare sails. In his right hand he held a drawn sheath-knife, which he was in the habit of carrying, A.B. fashion, whilst his left hand was all caked with dried blood, where he had been badly cut. Afterwards, we concluded he had cut himself in slashing at one of the tentacles of the squid, which had caught him round the left wrist, the tip of the tentacle being still curled tight about his arm, just as it had been when he hacked it through. For the rest, he was not seriously damaged, the creature having obviously flung him violently away through the framework of the skylight, so that he had fallen in a studded condition on to the pile of sails.

  We got him on deck, and down into his bunk, where we left the steward to attend to him. When we returned to the poop the vessel had drawn clear of the weed-field, and the Captain and I stopped for a few moments to stare astern over the taffrail.