The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions

by William Hope Hodgson; Douglas A. Anderson

  Now, when the captain had so wittily described his intention, he pulled out a small powder flask from his side pocket, and proceeded, in a considerable silence, to recharge the fired pistol, which he did with a quite peculiar dexterity, speaking of immense practice, and this despite his half-drunken condition. When he had finished ramming down a couple of soft-lead bullets upon the charge of powder, he primed the lock, replaced the flask, and announced his intention of turning-in (i.e. going to bed), which he achieved with remarkable speed, by dragging the two chests together in the middle of the tap-room and using them as a couch, with his rolled up coat for a pillow; and so in a moment he composed himself with a grunt, his loaded pistols stuffed in under the coat, and his great right hand resting on the butts.

  And so he seemed to be instantly asleep; yet it is a curious thing that once, when Long John stepped over towards him, after a bout of hoarse whispering with several of the men in the room, Cap’n Danblasten opened one bleary eye, and—without undue haste—thrust out one of his big pistols in an indifferent manner at the body of Long John, whereat that gentleman stepped back without even attempting to enter into any argument on the score of intention.

  After this little episode, the cap’n once more returned to his peculiar method of slumbering; but there was no longer any whispering on the part of Long John Kenstone and his mates. Instead, a quite uncomfortable silence reigned in the tap-room, broken presently by the departing feet of this man and that man, until the place was empty, save for the fat landlord who leaned against the great beer-tub, and regarded the sleeping captain in a meditative and puzzled fashion.

  The landlord’s pondering was interrupted disagreeably; for slowly one of the sleeping captain’s eyes opened, and a curiously disturbing look was fixed silently upon the fat landlord, for the space of perhaps a full minute. Then Captain Danblasten extended a great hand towards the landlord, and in the hand was one of his big brass-bound pistols, the muzzle towards the Master Drinquobier. For a little space the captain directed the pistol thus, whilst the landlord shrivelled visibly in a queer speechless fashion.

  “Tenons de la verge d’une ancre!” said Captain Danblasten, even as he had said it once before that evening. He tapped the pistol with his other hand, to emphasise his remark; and sat up on the bigger chest, still looking at the landlord.

  “So,” he said, at last, speaking in English, “you’re thinkin’ to go halves with Long John o’ Kenstone, ye gowk tunbelly. You’m waitin’ now, beer-hog, to give them the signal to enter when I’m gone over, ye swine; and think to fool Dan Danblasten easyways; and I knowin’ what ye meant, an’ they only without in the enter-porch, ye fat fool. Out with you, smartly! Out, I say!” And therewith he flung the leaded pistol at the landlord’s head; but he dodged, quite cleverly for so fat a man, and the weapon exploded against the wall with a great crash of sound; whilst Drinquobier ran heavily for the door, tore it open, and fell headlong out into the passage-way, whilst within the empty tap-room, the captain sat on the chest and shook with a kind of grim laughter.

  Presently, he rose from the chest, after he had heard the landlord go scrambling away in clumsy fright upon his hands and knees. He stood a few moments, listening intently; then, seeming to hear something, he ran with surprising nimbleness to the door, pushed it silently to, and set down the socket-bar across from side to side, so that the door would have to be broken down before anyone could enter. Then he bent forward to listen, and in a little while, heard the faint sound of bare feet without in the passage, and soon a soft, gentle fumbling at the door.

  “Dépasser!” he shouted, roaring with a kind of half-laughter, half-anger. Then, in English: “You’ve over-run your reckoning, my lads! Get below an’ turn in!” And with the word, he turned unconcernedly from the door, and went back to his rough couch, and presently was sleeping unemotionally, whilst without the door, the men who had come with some hope of surprising him, departed with muffled but considerable fluency, and an unabated avarice.

  And thus, and in this manner exactly, was the home-coming of Captain Danblasten, Pirate (presumably), and now (certainly) a most desirable citizen of the Port of Geddley.

  Captain Danblasten waked early, and rolled off his uncomfortable bed. He walked across to the shelf where the brandy-kegs were stored, and helped himself to a generous tot; after which he went over to the door, unbarred and opened it, and bellowed the landlord’s name, calling him also old tunbelly and beer-hog, and cursing him between whiles in both French and English until he came tumbling down the creaking stairs, in a very fluster of dismay.

  Breakfast, was Cap’n Danblasten’s demand. Breakfast, and speedily and plentifully; and if the maids were not up yet, then it was time they turned out, or old tunbelly could prepare the meal himself and serve it to him there in the tap-room, upon one of his big chests. Meanwhile, he applied himself methodically to the brandy-keg, varying his occupation by occasional bellows through the quiet of the inn, for the breakfast he had ordered.

  It came presently, and, squatted sideways upon the narrower chest, he set to work. As he ate, he asked the landlord questions, about this and that woman of the port, who—when he had gone off to sea all those twenty years gone—had been saucy maids, but were now mostly mothers of families, if he could believe all that the fat Drinquobier told him.

  “Eh,” said Cap’n Danblasten, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, “there was some saucy young ones among that lot, when I was a younker. An’ how’s young Nancy Drigg doin’?”

  “She be Nancy Garbitt these thirteen year, Cap’n Danblasten, sir,” said the landlord. Whereat the cap’n ceased his eating, a moment, to hark the better.

  “Eh?” he said, in a curious voice, at last. “Married that top o’ my thumb, Jimmy Garbitt? Dieu! but I’ll cut the throat of him this same day of our Lord! Dieu! The sacre man-sprat! The blandered bunch o’ shakin’s! Dieu!”

  “He’m dead these yere two years, cap’n,” said Drinquobier, staring hard at Captain Danblasten, with half-frightened and wholly curious eyes. “I heard oncest ‘s ye was sweet-ways on Nancy. No offence! No offence, cap’n! Seven, Jimmy left be’ind, an’ all on ‘em maids, at that.”

  “What!” cried Captain Danblasten, with a sudden, strange anger, and threw his brandy-mug at the landlord’s head. But afterwards he was silent for a time, neither eating nor speaking; only frowning away to himself. “An’ Nancy Drigg, herself?” he asked, at length. “How’m she lookin’ these days, ye old tunbelly? Seven on ‘em! Seven on ‘em, an’ to that blandered bunch o’ shakin’s…. Why don’t ye answer, you bilge-guzzlin’ beer-cask! Open your face, ye—ye—”

  “Fair, cap’n, sir; fair an’ bonny like, Cap’n Danblasten,” old Drinquobier interjected with frightened haste, his frontal appendage quivering like a vast jelly, until the form shook on which he sat.

  “Ah!” said the captain, and was quiet again; but a minute afterwards he made it pointedly clear to the landlord that he needed a timber-sled to be outside of the inn speedily. “An’ half a dozen of thy loafer lads, tunbelly, do ye hear! An’ smart, or I’ll put more than beer betwixt thy wind and water, ye old cut-throat, that must set a respectable townsman to sleep with his pistols to hand all the long night in this inn o’ yours, lest ye an’ your louts do him a mischief! Smartly, ye beer-swiller, wi’ yon sled, an’ smartly does it, or I’ll be knowin’ the why!”

  And evidently smartly he did do it, as we say; for in a very few minutes Captain Danblasten was superintending, pistol in hand, the transferring of his two great chests to the sled, by the hands of a dozen brawny longshore men, who had been fished out of various handy sleeping places, by the fear-driven landlord.

  Cap’n Danblasten sat himself down upon his chests, and signalled to the horse-boy to drive on. But as he started to move, the fat landlord discovered somewhere in his monstrous body the remnant of a one-time courage, and came forward towards the sled, crying out that he would be paid for his liquor, bed and board. At this, Cap’n Danblas
ten raised one of his pistols, evidently with the full intention of ending—once and for all—the entire agitation of the landlord’s avaricious soul; but suddenly thinking better of it, he drew out a couple of guineas, which he hove in among the little crowd of shore-boys, shouting to them to get their fill of good beer at the hatchways, and the change might go to pay his debts to Drinquobier. This he did, knowing full well that no change would the landlord ever see out of those two guineas; and so sat back, roaring with laughter, and shouting to the horse-boy to “crack on sail an’ blow the sticks out o’ her!” Which resulted in the lad laying his cudgel repeatedly and forcibly across the hindquarters of the animal, which again resulted in the beast changing its walk to a kind of absurd amble, which in its turn resulted in the sled bounding and bumping along down the atrociously paved street, dignified by the name High Street Alley, so that the last the group around the doorway of the Tunbelly saw, was the broad heavy figure of Cap’n Danblasten jolting and rolling on the top of his great chests, and trying to take aim at the horse-boy with one of his big brass-bound pistols, the while he bellowed to the lad to shorten sail, and likewise be damned, as before.

  And so they went rattling and banging round the corner, out of sight, the clatter and crashing of the heavy sled punctuated twice by the reports of the cap’n’s pistols; after which he was content to hold on, and curse the boy, horse, sled, the landlord of the Tunbelly, and the road, all with equal violence, until in a minute the lad had once more got the horse controlled to a walk, and was cursing back pluckily at the cap’n for loosing off his pistols at him. And this way they came presently to a little house in the lower end of the alley, where the boy stopped the sled and his cursing all in the same moment, and pointed with his horse-cudgel to the door of the little house, meaning that they had come to the place.

  At this, Cap’n Danblasten got down lumberingly from the tops of his big chests; and suddenly, before the boy knew his intention, he had caught him by the collar of his rough jacket and hoist him bodily from the ground; whereupon the lad, full as ever of his strange pluck, set-to to curse him again (so well he might, being half-strangled) and to striking at him with the horse-cudgel. Immediately, the captain plucked the cudgel from him, and then, setting the lad’s feet to the road again, he hauled forth a great handful of gold-pieces, which he crammed forcibly down the back of the boy’s neck, shaking with queer, noiseless laughter all the while.

  “A good plucked un, Dieu! A good plucked un!” he said, and loosed the lad suddenly, applying one of his big sea-boots with indelicate dexterity to intimate that he had no further need of his services. Whereupon the lad, who had ceased now to curse, ran off down the alley a little way, and commenced to shake himself, until all the gold had come through; after which he gathered it up, and calling to his horse, mounted the sled, and away so fast as the brute could go.

  Meanwhile, Cap’n Danblasten was pounding at the door of the house, and shouting lustily the name of Nancy Drigg, outside the door of Nancy Gaddley (Garbitt); until presently a startled feminine face came out of a lattice above, and, seeing him, she screamed suddenly: “Dan! Da-an!” And withdrew hurriedly from sight.

  “What do you want?” she asked presently, from within the room, and not showing herself.

  “Open!” shouted the cap’n, “afore I has the door down. I’m coom to board wi’ ye, Nance. Open! I say!” And he commenced to kick at the door with his great sea-boots.

  “Husht now, Dan! You’ve the drink in you, or you’d no think to shame a lone woman in this fashion. Husht now, an’ I’ll coom down and let ‘ee in.”

  Whereupon the cap’n ceased from his kicking, and turned round to survey the various heads that had been thrust from the casements of the alley about, to discover the cause of the disturbance.

  “Bon quart! Bon quart!” he called, at first good humouredly; but changing his tone, as he saw they still continued to stare at him. “Bon quart! Bon quart!!” he roared angrily, and aimed with one of his discharged pistols at the head of the nearest. The flint snapped harmlessly, and the head dodged back; but the captain hauled a fresh weapon from the skirts of his long coat, and seeing that he was still spied upon from a window higher up, he let drive in sound earnest, and very near ended the life of the onlooker; after which the alley might have held only the dead, for all of the living that displayed themselves to his view. He turned again, and commenced to kick upon the door, shouting.

  And in the same instant, it was opened by Nancy, hurriedly wrapped about with her quilt.

  “Husht now! Husht now, Dan, an’ coom in sober-like,” she said, “or ‘tis only the outside of the door I’ll have to ‘ee.”

  The cap’n stepped inside, and turned on her:

  “Nice wumman, ye, Nancy Drigg, to splice that blandered bunch of shakin’s, Jimmy Garbitt. An’ seven ye’ve had to him; an’ not a man in the lot; an’ little wonder; ye that could not wait for y’r own man to come home wi’ the fortun’ I promis’d ye; but must take a top-o-my-thumb to bed-mate. Shame on ye for a poor sperreted wench; an’ me this moment wi’ the half o’ oor silver penny to my knife-chain, that we broke all them years gone; an’ never a throat I cut, but I ses: ‘there be another gold piece to my Nancy. An’ you to go brood-mare to that blandered—’”

  “Husht, Dan!” said Nancy, at last; not loudly, but with surprising firmness. “You be proper an’ decent ways wi’ me, Dan, an’ good care I’ll take of’ee, an’ put up wi’ ‘ee, so well as I may, fr owd sake’s sake. But no word at poor Jimmy, an’ nowt to trouble my maids, or out ye go to the sharks o’ Geddley, an’ clean they’ll pluck ye, as well ye know.”

  “An’ well they fear me, an’ well can I mind my own helium!” said the captain warmly; yet unmistakably more civil in his manner, for he felt that if Nancy Garbitt would take him in, then at least he need fear no “traitors in the camp,” as the saying goes.

  “I’m troubled wi’ a sick pain in th’ heart, Nancy, an’ can’t last long,” he said, after a little pause. “Will I pay ye a gold piece every week-ending, or will I pay ye nothin’, an’ you have the will of me when I go below?”

  “I’ll trade on no man’s death, Dan; an’ least on yours,” said Nancy. “Pay me the guinea-piece each week, an’ well I’ll do by ‘ee as you know, Dan. An’ do ‘ee be easy with drinkin’ an’ ill-livin’, an’ many a year you’m boun’ to live yet.”

  And so it was arranged.

  “An’ you keep the seven — brats out o’ my course—!” said the cap’n. “Dan!” said Nancy.

  “Pardieu, Nance! No ill to it! No ill to it!” apologised Cap’n Danblasten. “You’re pretty-lookin’ yet, wi’ the sperret that’s in ye, Nance,” he concluded. At which complement Nance’s eyes softened a little, so that it was like enough she had still in a corner of her heart a gentle-feeling towards this uncouth sea-dog of a man, who had been her lover in her youth.

  And this way came, and settled, and presently died, Captain Dan Danblasten, and with his death there arose the seven-year mystery of die treasure, which to this day may be read in the Records of the Parish of Geddley, by John Stockman, 1797.

  And regarding the length of life still coming to him, Cap’n Danblasten was right; for he lived no more than some eighteen or nineteen months (date uncertain) after the arrangement mentioned above. And these are the concluding details of his life:

  For some months he lived quietly enough with Nancy Garbitt, paying her regularly, and amenable to her tongue, even in his most fantastic fits of humour, whether bred of drink, or of his state of health. Eventually, however, his little room was broken into one dark night, whilst he slept. But the cap’n proved conclusively that he was well able to defend both life and fortune; for he used his pistols, and—later—his cutlass, to such effect that when the raiders drew off, there lay three dead and one wounded on the floor of his room, whose groans so irritated Cap’n Danblasten that he went over to him, and picking up one of their overturned lanterns from the floor, passed his cutlass twice or
thrice through him, to quieten him, remarking as he did so: “I knew I’d ha’ to fix ‘ee, tunbelly, afore I was done wi’ ye.” (For he recognised the landlord’s corporation, despite the masks which he and all the robbers had worn.) “An’ here’s luck—an’ you’m sure goin’ easy.” And he jabbed him, conscientiously, for the last time.

  The direct result of this raid was that Captain Danblasten resolved to build himself a house that would make him and his treasure secure in future from an attack of this sort. To this end, he had masons by coach from a great distance—as distances were counted great on those days—and acting as his own architect, he planned out a strange great house in the form of a ship, in masonry, with a double tier of iron-barred windows in place of ports, and three narrow towers, like modern lighthouses, to take the place of masts, with stairs inside, so that they could be used for lookout posts. There was one great door in the stern, which was hung on pintles, from the sternpost, like a huge and somewhat abnormally-shaped rudder. Somewhere below this ship-house, there was built a strong room: though this was not known until later; for as soon as the masons had done their work, they were sent back to their own towns, and in this way the secrets of the house were hidden from the men of Geddley. It may be as well to say here that this peculiar house, minus its three towers, which had long since been removed, was to be seen almost intact, as late as 1874. It had become built in, ‘bow-and-stern’ into a terrace of houses which still form what is known as Big Fortune Terrace, and was then an inn, run by one Thomas Walker, under the name of The Stone Ship Inn. . . . “Very much in!” used to be the local and extraordinary witty joke, according to the New Records of Geddley, which we owe to Richard Stetson, a citizen, I imagine, of that same quaint seaport.