Complete Works of William Hope Hodgson

by Hodgson, William Hope

  We had pulled round the Northward end of the island, and found it, as I have told, something more than the half of a mile wide, or maybe three-quarters for all that we could be sure. And here let me tell concerning the height of the island above the sea, which we judged now, being very low down in the boats and looking upward at the weed, to be about twenty or twenty-five feet good above the ocean, the greatest height being in the middle parts, inland as it were of the island, looking as if it had been a low thick wood with the greater trees in the centre, and all lost in jungle of strange creeping plants. And this is the best likeness I can give of that island to any landward thing.

  Having pulled round the North end of the island we made Southward all along the Western coast of the weed, being minded to go entirely about it and chance discovering the cause and the place of that strange calling in the dawn. And indeed it was a dree place to by by; for constantly we would open out some dark, cavern-place of dark green and gloom that went inward of the weed, amid those great stems; and often there seemed to be things moving therein; and always there was a quietness in all that desolate waste save when some small wind played strangely across it, making the yellow fronds of the weed stir a little in this place and that with little sighings of sound, as if doleful beings lurked in all that mass of quiet darkness. And when the little wind had gone away over the sea there came a double silence by the contrast, so that I was glad that the boat was kept well off from the weed.

  In this way, with growing caution and quietness because of the dreeness of that dank and lonesome island which had begun now to affect our spirits somewhat, we went downward to the South along that coast of the Westward side of the island; and as we went a greater and a greater hush and caution came upon us, so that the men scarcely dipped their oars with any sound, but pulled daintily, each one staring very keen and tensely into the shadows within that mighty mass of weed.

  It chanced that one of the men ceased suddenly to pull upon his oar, looking very eagerly and fearfully at something that he perceived amid the gloom that lurked among the monstrous stems of the weed. And at that, every man ceased likewise to work upon his oar, and peered fearfully into the dark places of the weed, being assured that the man saw something very dreadful.

  The Captain made no attempt to chide the men, but stared himself, as even as I did, to see what manner of thing it was that the man saw. And presently each one discovered the Thing for himself; but at the first it seemed only as if we peered at a great and ugly bunching of the weed-stems, far inward from the edge of the island; but in a little while the thing grew plainer to the eye, and we saw that it was some kind of a devil-fish or octopus lying among the weed, very quiet, and shaded with the same gloom and colour as the weed which was its home. The thing was enormous, as my eyes told me, seeming to spread all ways among the weed.

  Captain Johnson got up out of the stern of the boat, and called in a low voice to the men to dip their oars very gently so as to have way upon the boat again; and this they did with great care while the Captain steered the boat outward awhile from the island, and we became presently happier in our minds as we drew afar off from so dreadful and horrible a brute.

  In this way we pulled nearly a good mile Southward, keeping well from the shore of the island, and soon we saw the weed come outward in something of a ness or cape from the main body. We came round this with a fair offing, and found the shore of the island ran inward in a deep bay, and in the weed in the bight of the bay we saw something that made us suppose we had discovered the place whence came that unnatural calling in the dawn; for there was the hull of a vessel all mastless in among the weed, near the edge, yet not very plain to be seen, because it was so hidden and smothered by the weed.

  We were all vastly excited at this, and the Captain bid the men give way with heartiness; and indeed we lost suddenly the fear of lurking monsters which had before made us so quiet and cautious. And because the men set their strength into the oars, we came very soon to the bight of the bay where lay the derelict ship and found that she was no more than maybe a dozen yards or so inward of the weed which was pretty low and flat in that place around her; but beyond the ship the weed was piled up very dark and gloomy for twenty feet high and more, and growing all over her.

  We paused now wondering how we should best come up to the ship; and all the time while the Captain considered, I spied through my glasses at the wreck, having little hope that we should find any aboard of her; for it was plain to me now how old she was and all crumbled with time and weather, and the weed girting her in all parts, seeming to grow through the wood of her sides, though this was very incredible; yet so we found it to be when we came near her. Afterwards I searched the weed all near her to see whether there were any monster fish about; Captain Johnson doing the same; but we found nothing. And the Captain then gave orders to put the boat in among the weed, and we cut our way through the low weed to the side of the ship.

  Now as we made way through the weed it amazed us to see how much life had been hidden there, very still; for all the weed now about the boat was a-swarm with small crabs, running along the fronds and smaller stems; while the water that showed between the growths of the weed was full of living things, great shrimps that seemed bigger than prawns, darting a thousand ways at once, and coloured fish that passed very swiftly. From the weed itself numberless insects of a peculiar kind jumped like any flea, only that they were a hundred times greater. And twice and trice as we put the boat through the weed we disturbed great crabs that were lain there sullen or waiting for their prey; one of them as big across the back as a dish-cover, which caught at the oar of one of the men with its pincers, and nipped the thin wood of the blade through quick and cleanly. Afterwards it went away, rough and active, shaking the weed in its passage, which will show you the vigour and strength that was in the creature.

  In a few minutes we had cut a way in to the ship, using the axes and the men’s knives and the oars; but the cutlasses the Captain would not have used on the weed because they were weapons and to be kept as such.

  When we came close in upon the ship we found that the weed grew completely through her side as though the weed had rooted in the wood of her; and we were all somewhat astonished at this thing, and many another which we discovered; for when we came to clamber up her side, we found the wood had gone soft and rotted to a sponginess, so that we could kick our shod toes into the wood, and thereby make each an immediate ladder upwards.

  When we came to the top level of the hulk, and could look aboard there was nothing to her but the shell of her sides and of her bows and stern; for all the decks were gone, and the beams that had held the decks were part missing, and few of those which remained were complete. The bottom of the ship was rotted nigh out of her so that the weed came upward in plenty that way with the water showing down below very gloomy and dark. And the weed grew through the sides of the vessel, or over the rails, just as it had seemed to suit the convenience of that strange vegetable, if I may call it so.

  It was very dismal looking downward into that desert hull which had been upheld from its sinking by the grip of the weed through a hundred or maybe two hundred years. When I asked the Captain about this he set her age to be something more than four hundred years, speaking learnedly concerning the rotted stern and bow, and the way and set of the frame-timbers; so that it was plain to me that he had considerable knowledge on such matters.

  Presently, because there was nothing more to be done, we came down again to the boat, kicking our toes into the soft hull of the old ship for our footholds. And before we left her I broke away a lump of one of her smaller timbers for a memento of the adventure.

  And after that we backed out from the weed, glad to be free of it now that the lust of adventure had somewhat died out of us, and the memory of what lurked therein still strong upon us. So we made the complete round of that island which was more than seven good miles in all to circumnavigate. And afterwards we pulled to our own ship with very good appetites for our
breakfast, as you may think.

  All that day it remained calm, and often I turned my glass upon the weed islets that studded the sea in other parts; but none was very great or high, though I reminded myself that they would have appeared higher had we approached them in a boat. And this we found to be true; for we used that afternoon to go from one small islet to another, in the boat; and crabs and fish and small living things we found in plenty but never any sign of a wreck or of human life. We returned to our ship in the evening, and had much talk upon the strangeness of that calling that had come to us in the dawn; but no reasonable explanation could we make. And presently I went to my bed, being weary by the lack of rest on the night that had passed.

  I was waked in the early morn by the Captain shaking me, and when I had come properly to my senses he told me to hasten on deck, that it was still calm and they had heard the voice again in the dawn that was just breaking.

  On hearing this I made speed to go with Captain Johnson on deck, and here, upon the poop, I found the Second Mate with his glass, staring Eastward across the sea towards the weed island which was barely seen save as a vague shadow, low upon the water.

  The Second Mate held up his hand to us and whispered “Hist!” and we all fell to listening; but there came no sound for a time, and meanwhile I was greatly aware of the very solemn beauty of the dawn; for the Eastward sky seemed lost in waters of quiet emerald, from a strange and apparent green to a translucence of shimmering green that surely stretched to the very borders of the Eternal, in palest lights that carried the consciousness through aethereal deeps of space, until the soul went lost through the glimmering dawn, greeting unknown spirits. And this is but a clumsy wording of the way that the holiness of that dim light and wonder hushed my very being with a silent happiness. Then, even as I came to this condition of mind, out of the Eastward sea and of all that quiet of the dawn, there came again that far attenuated voice:

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!” coming faint and thin and incredible out of the utter stillness of the wonder and silent glamour of the East. The green of the lower sky faded even as we listened, breathless, and upward there stole the stain of purple lights that blended into a growing bloom of fire-clouds in the middle and lower sky, and so to warmer lights and then to the silver-grey paling of the early morning. And still we waited.

  Presently, Eastward, there came a golden warmth upward into the pearly-quiet of the lower sky, and the edge of the sun rose up calm and assured out of the mists, casting a roadway of light over the sea. And in that moment the far, lost voice came again:

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!” drifting to us strangely over the hushed sea, seeming to come out of immense and infinite distances — a voice thin and lonesome, as might be thought to be the call of a spirit crying in the morning. As we looked at one another, questioning wordless things, there came a vague, impossible piping far away and away over the sea, to be presently lost again in the quietness. And we were all adrift to know what it might portend.

  After breakfast that day Captain Johnson ordered the boat to be lowered, and put a large crew into her, all armed as before. Then we put off to the weed island; but before we left the ship the Captain had dismounted the smaller ship’s bell that was upon the poop, and this we had with us in the boat, also his speaking trumpet.

  All that morning we spent circumnavigating the great weed island again, and at each hundred fathoms I beat upon the bell, and the Captain sent his voice inland, speaking through the trumpet and asking whether there were any derelict ship with lost humans hid in the heart of the weed. Yet whether his voice carried through the weed or was smothered we could not know, but only of this could we be certain, that there came never an answer out of all that desolation of the weed, neither to the bell nor to our callings.

  In this way we went full round about that island, and naught came of it, save once when we were very near inshore I saw a truly monstrous crab, double as big as any I had ever seen, far in among the great weed stems; and the crab was dark hued as though to match the darker colour of that inward weed; and by this I judged that it lived far inward amid the gloom of the centre parts of that strange island. And truly, as I thought, what could we do even though we found a ship far inward of the weed; for how could any man face a monstrous thing like that, and surely there would be multitudes of such brutes in the middle part of the island, taking no count of the devil fish which also inhabited the weed of that desolate and lonesome island.

  In the end we came back to our own ship, having passed again that doleful hulk within the edge of the weed island; and I remember how I thought of the long centuries that had gone since that old craft was lost.

  When we came back to the ship Captain Johnson went up the mainmast, and I with him; and from the crosstrees we made a further examination through the glasses of the inward parts of the great island; but the weed went everywhere in a riot of ugly yellow and in this place and that the colour changed to a dull greenish hue where the weed was hidden from the light. And presently we ceased to spy upon the island; for the over-arching and entanglement of those monstrous fronds would have hidden with ease a great fleet of ships if the same had been lacking their masts.

  Now whether there was a ship hidden in all that desolation of weed, who shall say? And if there had been a ship hidden and caught far inward of that weed and all overgrown with it, how was it likely that any living being was aboard of her? For you must bear in mind the human needs of any that would be so held; and further you must remember the monstrous brutes that roamed in that great bulk of the weed…. And again if there had been a ship inward of that weed and a living human still within her, why should he make that strange crying in the dawn, over the sea and yet give no answer to our callings? On all this I have pondered a thousand times and oft, but have no ready answer to myself, save that there might have been some poor mad soul yet holding off desperately from death through the lonesome years, in a lost ship hidden within that weed. This is the only explanation that I have found to come anywhere near the need of my reasoning. And truly it would be strange if such a one could be anything but a lonesome madman, greeting each dawn with wild and meaningless words and singings that might seem to be of meaning to a poor demented brain.

  But whether this was so or whether there was some matter in the adventure beyond our indifferent knowledge, I cannot altogether decide. I can only tell you that in the dawn of the third day of that calm, we heard again that far and strange calling, coming to us through the hush and the greyness, out of the Eastward sea where the weed island lay. Very thin and lonesome was the cry:

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!” coming to us in a long drawn out attenuation of sound, as if out of an immense distance. The dawn was ruddy, showing plain signs of wind; yet before the wind came down upon us the upward edge of the sun rose above the black-gloomed horizon, very sombre seeming and bearded with the wind-haze. The sea had gone leaden, and the sun threw a roadway of crimson light upon us, very grand yet somewhat dreary, and in that moment we heard the far, faint voice again for the last time:

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!

  “Son of Man!”

  And afterwards that vague, attenuated piping that had grown so weak sounding we scarcely knew whether we heard it or not; for the coming of the wind made a little almost unperceived noise over the sea. And presently the wind darkened the Northward sea, and our sails filled as the yards were swung by the sailors. And we sailed beyond the long desolation of the great weed island, and continued our voyage, leaving the mystery of the voice to the hush of the sea and the companionship of its constant mystery.

  The Short Stories

  The High Street, Borth (near Aberystwyth, Wales) where Hodgson’s family moved in 1904

  LIST OF SHORT STORIES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

  THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER


  THE HOUSE AMONG THE LAURELS

  THE WHISTLING ROOM

  THE HORSE OF THE INVISIBLE

  THE SEARCHER OF THE END HOUSE

  THE THING INVISIBLE

  ON THE BRIDGE

  THE SEA HORSES

  THE DERELICT

  MY HOUSE SHALL BE CALLED THE HOUSE OF PRAYER

  FROM THE TIDELESS SEA

  THE LOSING OF THE HOMEBIRD

  FROM THE TIDELESS SEA

  THE FIFTH MESSAGE

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE ONION BOAT

  THE VOICE IN THE NIGHT

  THROUGH THE VORTEX OF A CYCLONE

  THE MYSTERY OF THE DERELICT

  THE SHAMRAKEN HOMEWARD-BOUNDER

  GREY SEAS ARE DREAMING OF MY DEATH

  CAPTAIN GUNBOLT CHARITY AND THE PAINTED LADY

  THE ISLAND OF THE UD

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE HEADLAND

  THE GETTING EVEN OF “PARSON” GUYLES

  THE ADVENTURE WITH THE CLAIM JUMPERS

  THE BELLS OF THE “LAUGHING SALLY”

  WE TWO AND BULLY DUNKAN

  THE STONE SHIP

  MY LADY’S JEWELS

  THE DIAMOND SPY

  THE CASE OF THE CHINESE CURIO DEALER

  THE RED HERRING

  THE DRUM OF SACCHARINE

  THE PROBLEM OF THE PEARLS

  FROM INFORMATION RECEIVED

  CONTRABAND OF WAR

  THE GERMAN SPY

  THE ADVENTURE OF THE GARTER

  FROM THE TIDELESS SEA PART ONE

  FROM THE TIDELESS SEA PART TWO

  THE MYSTERY OF THE DERELICT

  THE THING IN THE WEEDS

  THE FINDING OF THE GRAIKEN

  THE CALL IN THE DAWN