The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions

by William Hope Hodgson; Douglas A. Anderson

  “The powder’s in, two and a half measures, and them two wads as you wanted in, one on ’em dry an’ one on ’em wet,” said Bowden.

  “Jack,” I said, “keep an eye on the frigate, and shout the moment you see a gun hauled out. Larg, get your tongs, and I’ll help you with the shot. It’s red-hot.”

  We lifted it out of the hand-forge with two big tongs that he had made at the smithy, and in a minute we had it into the gun and well-rammed down, and a ring wad on top of it.

  “Out with her, before the shot burns through to the powder!” I shouted. “Hasten, all! Hasten, all!”

  We hove the gun out with a will, and a burst of musket-balls came all over the mouth of the cave as the long muzzle showed.

  We depressed the big gun until it bore direct on the bright copper.

  “They’ve pushed out six guns on the main deck,” said my brother. “Look out!”

  “Into the side of the cave, all of you!” I shouted.

  As I spoke there came six flashes, and a great thud of sound as the six reports made one, and, blending with them, there was a horrible splintering and crashing of heavy shot on rock all about us, and the thud of masses of rock falling from the roof of the cave. And in the midst of the uproar I dashed down my burning tow on the touch-hole and leaped right away from the gun.

  The bang was enormous, and the great gun flung herself right up on end, and came down on her side with a crunch, just missing crushing me to death as I jumped again.

  The cave-mouth was full of smoke, and I could not see whether my shot had succeeded. I stared round.

  “Is anyone hurt?” I asked.

  I felt hoarse, and I realised my shoulder hurt badly. A falling lump of rock had struck it, but I had scarcely noticed it in that supreme moment.

  “I’m all right,” said Jack.

  But Larg was lying senseless. The three others had obeyed me and got away safely to the side.

  I ran across to Larg and looked at him. He was not dead, for he breathed heavily, and I felt his head. There was a great lump on it, full as big as my fist, but no other hurt about him, so far as I could see.

  “Get some water and bathe his face,” I told my brother. I stood up and ran to the mouth of the cave. “Dear Lord!” I shouted. “She’s sinking fast!”

  At my cry they all left Larg and came crowding to the edge of the cave-mouth.

  “Back!” I shouted.

  As I spoke a musket volley came from the nearer frigate, and three of us were struck by that one volley; yet not a wound to count more than a bad cut or a graze, only it was a good lesson to us all to keep in shelter.

  As for the outer frigate, my eyes never looked with fiercer gladness on any sight than that of the despoiler, sinking helpless away below us. For my last shot had struck her low down on her copper, as she lay over. She had rolled under the concussion of her own gun-fire, and this is what I had waited for when I fired; and my shot had ripped clean through her far under the water-line, just on the bend of the stern run. The blow had smashed clean through the outer skin and one of her great ribs, and a butt had started, so that a fathom of one of her planks had sprung off from the ribs, and the water was rushing into her in tons. As she rolled a little, the place where the shot had struck showed, and it was plain to us that she could not float many minutes.

  Twenty minutes later she sank, rightly and going down on a level keel, until only her topsail-yards showed above water. We saw at least fifty of her men drown before our eyes; for the other frigate could not pick them up, most of her boats being ashore, wailing for the recalled sailors.

  These were even then on the beach, and, so evil was their mood, we saw them deliberately shoot with their muskets four of the village men they had caught among the woods, one of them being an uncle by marriage of the Cartwrights, as they could tell even at that distance by the make of his smock,

  “The other gun now!” I said. “We will pay them for that!”

  We trained the gun down on their one vessel, which was busy receiving the boats of the sunk frigate, crowded with men. Then, as the shore boats arrived and clustered alongside, we slued the gun a little, in spite of a heavy musketry fire, and I touched her off. Two of the shore boats were blown literally to pieces by the bombs, and the broken flints must have spread over boats and ship like a hail of death; for I saw dozens of men fall about the decks of the frigate.

  VIII.

  With all her boats towing, she went out of the cove, and we fired one more charge of chain-shot at her rigging as she went. Three lengths of chain I fired, and there was scarce a sound piece of gear aloft in her after that last shot. And so she passed out into the Channel; and as she went, filled with her dead and her wounded, with her gear shot to pieces, we stood there in the mouth of our lofty cave (the Gun Cave they call it these days) and cheered the Dutch.

  Much had we to sorrow for—poor Larg dying, as we found later, many killed, our village burned, and my father’s house sorely injured by the fire of a boat-gun that the Dutch had taken ashore with them, as we learned later.

  But in all this sorrow we had no cause for shame, for only to remember that proud ship of war being towed out, laden with her dead and her dying, was a balm for all who had lost or suffered in that raid. And those three masts that stood up above the waters of our cove were a sight to ease the whole angry countryside for many a long day.

  But one more thing there is to tell, and I had it from a man that saw it all. The good ship Henry Bolt, a small English frigate, met the Dutch frigate Van Ruyter outside in the Channel and gave her lather, and sank her in two hours, she having more than a hundred wounded men in her, and so much cut about in her top hamper that she could sail neither to fight nor run.

  And this is the true history and telling of that day of adventure in our cove, and a thing I remember often, though now I am old.

  Jem Binney and the Safe

  at Lockwood Hall

  Drat it!” muttered Jem, as a big thorn scratched his face in the darkness. Jem Binny, the dandy Anglo-American cracksman, was doing some cross-country work in a manner that might have excited the professional poachers of the district to envy. Silence and speed marked his progress as masterly, so that the dark October night saw no more than a swift shadow that passed from hedge to hedge.

  Binny had left his lodgings at the White Lyon, in the little Kentish village of Bartol, by the window, and was “stretching himself”—as he would have phrased it—to reach the railway embankment at the Lower Bend, where the ten o’clock express was forced to slow down to some five miles per hour for a few hundred yards. His intention was to board the train during those seconds of lagging, and so reach town both quickly and secretly.

  Yet you must not suppose that Jem Binny was doing anything so vulgar as a “bunk” from his lodgings because of an uncomfortable cash shortage, or for any other reason. It was very much the other way. In fact, his one desire was to get back as smartly as possible; for he was working what Mr. Weller would have termed “a halibi.”

  You see, Jem had a little bit of “business” on hand which must be begun and concluded between dusk and dawn. It included this flying visit into town to make certain arrangements with men whose business was done—shall we say?—on the shady side of the fence.

  He had to return by the Boat Express, which passed the Lower Bend at precisely 3 a.m., as he had taken good care to ascertain. Here, once more, he intended to avail himself of that convenient “five-mile limit” round the curve, and disembark himself and gear as inconspicuously and speedily as possible.

  Then would follow two miles of cross-country work in the dark, preceding the little “operation” which he—as an expert—contemplated upon the safe at Lockwood Hall, where were stored some very remarkable solid items of gold and silver that no melting-pot need turn up its nose at.

  The business of the night would end in the corner of a certain field, where a large stone already concealed a hole prepared. The “goods” would be afterwards removed as
circumstance and caution decided.

  Meanwhile, Jem Binny would have done a further mile and a half to his lodgings in the White Lyon, where, having ascended via the window to his virtuous couch, he would contemplate affectionately a certain wax phonograph record within the machine that stood beside his bed.

  It may be wondered wherein lay the “halibi,” and I would reply: “In that same record,” which was entirely a notion of the sagacious Binny; for the record gave a very fair reproduction of Binny’s cough, which had earned for him at the White Lyon much sympathy, and the name of “that young fellow with the cough.”

  Now, normally—that is, when engaged upon his nocturnal trade—Binny was not given to coughing. He would have considered it unprofessional, as being something of a physical trait inclined to hamper him in climbing to the proudest heights of his career. In fact, he never coughed except at the White Lyon, or when in the company of the villagers.

  Yet this wise conserving of his vocal efforts was his own secret, and, had you ventured to suggest the truth to any of the customers of the White Lyon, you would have been disappointed in its reception.

  They had all heard him cough. Did he not cough between drinks, or would not the point of many a somewhat racy tale be unduly delayed by the inevitable paroxysm? Finally, was not the landlady of the White Lyon often awakened in the night-time by the distressful throat of her lodger?

  “Poor lad!” she would mutter sleepily; and fall again into the pit of slumber. And next morning she would ask Binny how he felt, and assure him—to his enormous gratification—that she had heard him in the night, and pitied him.

  I have said that the news proved gratifying to Binny. You will the better understand this when I tell you that Jem Binny refused to lie awake and cough in the night, even to have the pleasure of disturbing the rest of the landlady. He invariably slept, or just as invariably opened his bedroom window and slipped out into the darkness.

  Yet, all through his absences, or his sleep, there would come at pleasingly regular intervals, the well-known “A-haa! A-haa! A-haa!” which told all the world—in the shape of his wakeful landlady—of his whereabouts.

  This was, as will be now understood, a convenient kind of thing to occur in the case of a man who designed to earn for himself the reputation of extreme regularity of habit, and an “early-to-bed-fear-the-night-air-y’-know” kind of disposition. He could take his night walks and investigations in peace, assured that he had left his cough behind him to signify his innocence. For it was clear that if a man lay coughing in his bedroom he could not be confounded with some unknown law-breaker who may have had a penchant for safe-testing in other peoples’ houses.

  And the way of it all was so delightfully simple, a constant mark of exclamation to the sagacity of Jem Binny’s character. All the village knew that he had a phonograph. All the village—that is, all those who came in for their malt extract—had heard many of his records, yet none of them—knowingly— had heard one in particular; for that was reserved for the nightly concert of which the landlady—and occasionally her husband— formed, in their innocence, the audience.

  Neither, I may add, had anyone any knowledge of a neatly designed piece of clockwork which, when attached to the phonograph o’ nights, allowed that machine to run only in little jerks, spaced twenty minutes apart, so that a portion of the unknown record would be played thrice in the hour thus: “A-haa! A-haa! Humm!” Then the twenty minutes’ pause, and repetition. It was really most ingenious. And it was doing its work faithfully enough on this night when its owner and constructor was bent on boarding the London express at the sharp curve in the Lower Bend.

  Binny reached the Bend some minutes ahead of the train, and sat down on the embankment to wait. He was feeling very fairly contented with himself, for he had that evening concluded the exhaustive survey of the fine piece of “property” which was to be the scene of his operations that night.

  As I have remarked, Binny was in a contented and self-satisfied frame of mind, which was marred only by one trifle of anxiety, that he kept pushing into the background.

  “Not ’im—’e never saw me!” he muttered to himself once or twice, with the intent to assure himself. “Too bloomin’ slow, these folk, to see a ’ouse! Guess it’s all right, anyway.”

  Yet it was obvious, from Binny’s recurring to the subject, that he was not absolutely assured on the point.

  His thoughts and comments referred to a trifling incident of the evening, just as the dusk had begun to come down on the countryside. He had been scouting through the shrubberies at the rear of the big hall that he had arranged to “investigate,” and behind him there had been an old, long-disused quarry, lying at the back of the laurels. It was fenced off artistically, so that it formed a great, rough, basin-like depression in the grounds, all boulder bestrewn and grown with rough bushes, and made an excellent foil of natural wildness to the more cultured beauty of the surrounding gardens und estate.

  It was here that, suddenly, Binny had seen a man, dressed something like one of “them gamekeeper fellers,” who seemed to be striving to keep himself out of sight in a rather suspicious fashion; yet to be staring in his direction.

  “Blow me, if I don’t reckon ’e ain’t trailin’ me!” Jem had muttered, after a cautious survey rearwards from the security of a thick laurel-bush. He had found cause—in the process of his varied “investigations”—to distrust and dislike all men who were dressed after the fashion of the man he was watching. “Gamekeeper fellers!” he called them, with something of a snort; for, whilst he resented and was wary of them, he had no respect for their abilities to trail him. “Nothin’ to do but loaf round in the blessed grounds!” had been his comment

  This was his distinctly incorrect description of a gamekeeper’s duties; but then it must be remembered that Jem Binny had on several occasions, as I have hinted, been in danger of discovery at inopportune moments by one of the prowling men in knickers and gaiters. Yet, on each occasion, his ability as a woodsman was such that he had managed to evade an actual meeting, and had crept away, sneering contemptuously; yet gradually the warning of their constant proximity had become impressed upon him, so that he found himself always alert—though with a jeer in his heart—for the approach of these “paid loafers,” as he imagined them truly to be.

  On this particular evening he had sat and watched the man for several minutes, as he moved stealthily from bush to bush in the quarry, always seeming to be making in his—Binny’s—direction, so that at last the cracksman had considered the advisability of a retreat.

  “ ’E can’t see me,” he had assured himself; “but then ’e may ’ave seen me. I’ll get a move on. Guess ’e thinks I’m after the chickens!”

  This was said with the air of a dynamiter who knows he is suspected of wishing to steal a halfpenny bun. Thereafter, Jem Binny made himself scarce in a very speedy and effective manner peculiar to his character and to his woodcraft; the second of these having been obtained in the course of years upon the borderlands of the great prairies.

  Jem Binny, as I hope you have now begun to understand, was really a very smart young man—almost as smart as he believed himself to be, and, indeed, this is very high praise, of a sort. By birth he was a Cockney, and by upbringing a Canadian, and that means much to those who know. And now, as he sat waiting on the embankment, he gave himself a final shake—mentally—and dismissed from his mind, for the time being, the vague wonder and uneasiness that had possessed him lest, after all, the man in the knickers and gaiters had seen him, and suspected his true intentions.

  Presently, away in the night, sounded the distant thunder of the express, laughing noisily over the miles. He walked to and fro, searching for a sound place from which to take his spring, then waited, looking to his right. The train drove into view, slowing evenly for the Bend, and Binny stepped back into a bush until the engine had passed him, for he had no intention to be seen, and possibly recognised later, by the driver or his man.

  The b
ig express went by, running smooth and slow; then Binny leapt to the place that he had decided would do for his purpose, and the next instant was crouching on the footboard. Very cautiously he raised his head and peeped into the window of the carriage; but it would not suit his purpose, for there were people inside. He moved carefully along from carriage to carriage, searching for the inevitable empty, and holding on strongly, for the big engine was once more taking up its mile-devouring song. At the sixth carriage, which happened to be a first-class, he had a nasty and violent shock, of one sort, which was changed to an even more painful shock of another kind, after he had gazed into the carriage for a few moments.

  The cause of the first shock was simple, and nowise complex. For there, sitting in the corner of the carriage, was the identical man who had been tracking him in the quarry earlier in the evening.

  “Goin’ up ter town fer ther bloomin’ ’tecks!” was Jem’s mental lightning-like thought, as he dropped swiftly and coolly from eight. “Guess ’e saw me, after all. But I’m on the right side of the ’edge, I am, every time, you bet!”

  He stole another cautious look at the man, and therewith got his second shock. By the man’s side stood a small grip-sack, stuffed to bursting, and his hand rested upon it in a way that betrayed very plainly he was conscious of the contents.

  “My gord!” said Binny. “My gord!” And studied the man’s face and clothes with a keen scrutiny, his hands shaking with the excitement which had suddenly affected his hitherto cool and well-balanced nervous system.

  “ ’Course ’e ain’t no bloomin’ keeper-man,” he said presently, with a temporary but bitter scorn of himself. “ ’E’s a blessed trike, same as me—same as me! And ’e’s done me one in the eye, proper! Just nipped in an’ lifted the ’ole blessed cabosh! Guess ’e saw I was onter it, an’ moved in ter night, w’ile ’e ’ad the charnce!”

  He ducked again, and squatted on the footboard, thinking hard and savagely.