The Dream of X and Other Fantastic Visions

by William Hope Hodgson; Douglas A. Anderson

  To revert to Cap’n Dan Danblasten, as I have said, he “concluded” his house, and “shipped back” his masons to their varied and distant homes; by this means hiding from the men of Geddley all possible details concerning the construction of his stronghold.

  Presently, he removed, with his two great chests of treasure, to his new house, and thereafter very little of his doings appear to have been worthy of remark; for, saving an odd walk down to Nancy Garbitt’s little cot, or a still rarer visit to the Tunbelly (now under the care of a new landlord), Cap’n Danblasten, sir, as he was latterly always addressed, appeared but little beyond his own great rudder-door.

  After his removal, he still continued to pay Nancy her guinea per week, and often assured her that when he died, she should own the whole of his treasure.

  And presently, as I have intimated, he died. And certain grave lawyers, if that be the right term, came all the way from Bristol to read his will; which was quaint, but simple. The whole of his wealth he left to Nancy Garbitt and her seven daughters; the one condition being that they must first find it; one day in each year being allowed only for the search; and if they had no success within and including seven years from his death, then the whole of the treasure, when found, must be handed over entire to a certain person named in the codicil to the will, which was not to be read, save in the event of the gold not being found within the said seven years.

  As may be imagined, the sensation which this will provoked was profound, not only within the Parish of Geddley, but throughout the whole county, and beyond. Eventually, certain of the masons who had assisted in the building of the Stone Ship House heard of the will, and sent word that there was a specially built strong room under the foundations of the house, very cunningly hidden, and under it, again, there was a sealed vault. For a remuneration, one of their number would come by coach, and assist the locating of the place. This, of course, increased the excitement and general interest; but it was not until the twenty-seventh day of September of that year, that the search might be made, between the hours of sunrise and sunset; the Stone Ship House being occupied, meanwhile, by the lawyers’ caretakers, and seals liberally spread about.

  On September 26th, the mason arrived, accompanied by two of his fellows—the three of them being hired by Nancy Garbitt to act as expert searchers on their behalf. For, very wisely, she had steadfastly refused the enormous amount of “free” aid that had been tendered by the men of Geddley, collectively and singly from day to day.

  The 27th dawned; the anniversary, had Nancy but remembered, of that day, so many years gone, when she and young Dan had broken their silver penny. Surely the date was significant!

  Nancy Garbitt and her seven daughters and the men of Geddley stood near the door of the Stone Ship House, with the three masons. As the sun rose into sight, the lawyer knocked on the door, and the caretakers opened and stood back for Nancy, her daughters and the three masons to enter. But the men of Geddley had to remain outside, and there waiting, many of them remained the whole of that livelong day, if we are to believe the worthy John Stockman.

  Within the house, the masons went confidently to work; but at the end of a short time, had to acknowledge themselves bewildered. There had been surely other masons to work, since they had been sent away; or else the grim old sea-dog himself had turned mason in those last months of his life; for no signs of the hidden entrance to the strong room could they discover.

  At this, after some little discussion, it was resolved to break down through the stone-built floor, direct into the strong room, which the masons asserted to be immediately below a certain point which they had ascertained by measurements. Yet, the evening of that day found them labouring, still lacking the whereabouts of the strong room. And presently sunset had put an end to the search for a year; and Nancy Garbitt and her seven daughters had to return treasureless to their small cot in the alley.

  The second and the third and the fourth years, Nancy and her daughters returned, likewise lacking in treasure; but in the fifth year, it was evident to Nancy and her maidens that they had come upon signs of the long lost strong room. Yet the sunset of the “day of grace” cut short their delving, before they could prove their belief.

  Followed a year of tense excitement and conjecture, in which Nancy could have married off her daughters to the pick of the men of Geddley; for to every sanguine male it was apparent that the treasure was almost in sight.

  Some suggestion there was of carrying the Stone Ship House by assault, and prosecuting the search to its inevitable end without further ridiculous delay; but this Nancy would not listen to. Moreover, the strength of the building, and the constant presence of the armed legal guardians thereof forbad any hope of success along these lines.

  In the sixth year Nancy Garbitt died, just before sunset on the day of the search. Her death was possibly due, in part at least, to the long continued excitement, and the nearing of the hour when the search must be delayed for another whole year. Her death ended the search for that time; though a portion of the actual built-in door of the strong room itself had been uncovered. Yet, already, as I have said, it had been close to the time when the search must cease.

  When the twenty-seventh day of September in the seventh year arrived, the men of Geddley made a holiday, and accompanied the seven Misses Garbitts with a band to the door of the Stone Ship House. By midday the door of the long-shut strong room was uncovered, and a key the lawyer produced was found to fit. The door was unlocked, and the seven maidens rushed in—to emptiness.

  Yet, after the first moment of despair, someone remembered the sealed vault which lay under the strong room. A search was made, and the covering stone found; but it proved an intractable stone, and sunset was nigh before it was removed. A candle was lowered into the vault and a small chest discovered; otherwise the vault was as empty as the strong room.

  The box was brought out into the light and broken open. Inside was found nothing but the half of a broken silver penny.

  At that moment, watch in hand, the lawyer decreed that the hour of sunset had arrived, and motioned for silence where was already the silence of despair. He drew from his pocket the package that held the codicil, broke the seal, and proceeded to read to the seven maidens its contents. They were brief and startling and extraordinary in the revelation of the perversity of the old sea-dog’s warped and odd nature. The codicil revealed that the gold for which they had so long searched was still left to Nancy; but that it lay under the stone flags of their own living-room, where the captain had buried it at nights, all the long years gone when he had lived at Nancy’s, storing the removed earth in the chests in place of the gold.

  “Seven children have you had, Nancy Drigg, to that top-o’-my-thumb, Jimmy Garbitt,” the codicil concluded, “and seven years shall you wait—you that could not wait!”

  That is all. The money went to the children of Nancy Garbitt; for by the whimsy of Fate, the woman for whose reproval all this had been planned was never to learn, and the bitter taunt of the broken silver penny was never to reach its mark; for Nancy, as you know, was dead. And so ended the seven years’ search. And likewise this history of the strange and persistent love affair of Captain Dan Danblasten, sea-dog and pirate.

  Copyright Versions

  The Ghost Pirates

  The Figure Out of the Sea

  He began without any circumlocution.

  “I joined the ‘Mortzestus’ in ’Frisco. I heard, before I signed on, that there were some funny yarns floating round about her; but I was pretty nearly on the beach, and too jolly anxious to get away to worry about trifles. Besides, by all accounts, she was right enough, so far as grub and treatment went. When I asked fellows to give it a name, they generally could not. All they could tell me was that she was unlucky, and made thundering long passages, and had more than a fair share of dirty weather. Also that she had twice had the sticks blown out of her, and her cargo shifted. Besides all these, a heap of other things that might happen to any packet, and
would not be comfortable to run into. Still, they were the ordinary things, and I was willing enough to risk them, to get home. All the same, if I had been given the chance, I should have shipped in some other vessel, as a matter of preference.

  “When I took my bag down, I found that they had signed on the rest of the crowd. You see, the ‘home lot’ cleared out when they got into ’Frisco; that is, all except one young fellow, a cockney, who had stuck by the ship in port. He told me afterwards, when I got to know him, that he intended to draw a payday out of her, whether anyone else did or not.

  “The first night I was in her I found that it was common talk among the other fellows that there was something queer about the ship. They spoke of her as if it were an accepted fact that she was haunted; yet they all treated the matter as a joke, all, that is, except the young cockney—Williams—who, instead of laughing at their jests on the subject, seemed to take the whole matter seriously.

  “This made me rather curious. I began to wonder whether there was, after all, some truth underlying the vague stories I had heard; and I took the first opportunity to ask him whether he had any reasons for believing that there was any truth in the yarns about the ship.

  “At first he was inclined to be a bit offish; but presently he came ’round and told me that he did not know of any particular incident which could be called unusual in the sense in which I meant. Yet, at the same time, there were lots of little things which, if you put them together, made you think a bit. For instance, she always made such long passages and had so much dirty weather—nothing but that, and calms and head winds. Then other things happened—sails that he knew himself had been properly stowed were always blowing adrift at night. And then he said a thing that surprised me.

  “ ‘There’s too many bloomin’ shadders about this ’ere packet; they gets onter yer nerves like nothin’ as ever I seen before in me nat’ral.’

  “He blurted it all out in a heap, and I turned ’round and looked at him.

  “ ‘Too many shadders!’ I said. ‘What on earth do you mean?’ But he refused to explain himself, or tell me anything further—just shook his head stupidly when I questioned him. He seemed to have taken a sudden, sulky fit. I felt certain that he was acting dense purposely. I believe the truth of the matter is that he was, in a way, ashamed of having let himself go like he had in speaking out his thoughts about ‘shadders.’That type of man may think things at times; but he doesn’t often put them into words. Anyhow, I saw it was no use asking any further questions, so I let the matter drop there. Yet, for several days afterward, I caught myself wondering at times what the fellow had meant by ‘shadders.’

  “We left ’Frisco next day, with a fine, fair wind that seemed a bit like putting the stopper on the yarns I’d heard about the ship’s ill luck. And yet—”

  He hesitated a moment, and then went on again:

  “For the first couple of weeks out nothing unusual happened, and the wind still held fair. I began to feel that I had been rather lucky, after all, in the packet into which I had been shunted. Most of the other fellows gave her a good name, and there was a pretty general opinion growing among the crowd that it was all a silly yarn about her being haunted. And then, just when I was settling down to things, something happened that opened my eyes no end.

  “It was in the 8-to-12 watch, and I was sitting on the steps on the starboard side leading up to the fo’cas’le head. The night was fine and there was a splendid moon. Away aft I heard the timekeeper strike four bells, and the lookout—an old fellow named Jaskett, answered him. As he let go the bell lanyard, his eye caught sight of me, where I sat, quietly smoking. He leant over the rail, and looked down at me.

  “ ‘That you, Jessop?’ he asked.

  “ ‘I believe it is,’ I replied.

  “ ‘We’d ’ave our gran’mothers an’ all the rest of our petticoated relash’ns comin’ to sea, if ’twere always like this,’ he remarked, reflectively—indicating, with a sweep of his pipe and hand, the calmness of the sea and sky.

  “I saw no reason for denying that, and he continued:

  “ ‘If this ole packet is ’aunted, as some on ’em seems to think, well, all as I can say is, let me ’ave the luck to tumble across another of the same sort. Good grub, an’ duff fer Sundays, an’ a decent crowd of ’em aft, an’ everythin’ comfertable like, so as yer can feel yer knows where yer are. As fer ’er bein’ ’aunted, that’s all nonsense. I’ve comed ’cross lots of ’em before as was said to be ’aunted, an’ so some on ’em was; but ’twasn’t with ghosteses. One packet I was in they was that bad yer couldn’t sleep a wink in yer watch below, until yer’d ’ad every stitch out yer bunk an’ ’ad a reg’lar ’unt. Sometimes—’

  “At that moment the relief, one of the ordinary seamen, went up the other ladder onto the fo’cas’le head, and the old chap turned to ask him ‘why the ’ell’ he’d not relieved him a bit smarter. The ordinary made some reply, but what it was I did not catch, for, abruptly, away aft, my rather sleepy gaze had lighted on something altogether extraordinary and outrageous. It was nothing less than the form of a man stepping inboard over the starboard rail, a little abaft the main rigging. I stood up and caught at the handrail and stared.

  “Behind me, someone spoke. It was the lookout, who had come down off the fo’cas’le head, on his way aft to report the name of his relief to the Second Mate.

  “ ‘What is it, mate?’ he asked, curiously, seeing my intent attitude.

  “The thing—whatever it was—had disappeared into the shadows on the lee side of the deck.

  “ ‘Nothing!’ I replied, shortly, for I was too bewildered then at what my eyes had just shown me to say any more. I wanted to think.

  “The old shellback glanced at me; but only muttered something, and went on his way aft.

  “For a minute, perhaps, I stood there, watching; but could see nothing. Then I walked slowly aft, as far as the after end of the deckhouse. From there I could see most of the main deck; but nothing showed, except, of course, the moving shadows of the ropes and spars and sails, as they swung to and fro in the moonlight.

  “The old chap who had just come off the lookout had returned forrard again, and I was alone on that part of the deck. And then, all at once, as I stood peering into the shadows to leeward, I remembered what Williams had said about there being too many ‘shadders.’ I had been puzzled to understand his real meaning then. I had no difficulty now. There were too many shadows. Yet, shadows or no shadows, I realized that, for my own peace of mind, I must settle, once and for all, whether the thing I had seemed to see stepping aboard out of the ocean had been a reality or simply a phantom, as you might say, of my imagination. My reason said it was nothing more than imagination, a rapid dream—I must have dozed; but something deeper than reason told me that this was not so. I put it to the test, and went straight in amongst the shadows. There was nothing.

  “I grew bolder. My common sense told me I must have fancied it all. I walked over to the mainmast, and looked behind the pinrail that partly surrounded it, and down into the shadow of the pumps; but here again was nothing. Then I went in under the break of the poop. It was darker under there than out on deck. I looked up both sides of the deck and saw that they were bare of anything such as I looked for. The assurance was comforting. I glanced at the poop ladders, and remembered that nothing could have gone up there without the Second Mate or the timekeeper seeing it. Then I leant my back up against the bulkhead, and thought the whole matter over, rapidly sucking at my pipe and keeping my glance about the deck. I concluded my think, and said ‘No!’ out loud. Then something occurred to me, and I said ‘Unless—’ and went over to the starboard bulwarks, and looked over and down into the sea; but there was nothing but sea; and so I turned and made my way forrard. My common sense had triumphed, and I was convinced that my imagination had been playing tricks with me.

  “I reached the door on the port side leading into the fo’cas’le, and was about to enter, when something made me lo
ok behind. As I did so I had a shaker. Away aft, a dim, shadowy form stood in the wake of a swaying belt of moonlight that swept the deck a bit abaft the mainmast.

  “It was the same figure that I had just been attributing to my fancy. I will admit that I felt more than startled; I was quite a bit frightened. I was convinced now that it was no mere imaginary thing. It was a human figure. And yet, with the flicker of the moonlight and the shadows chasing over it, I was unable to say more than that. Then, as I stood there, irresolute and funky, I got the thought that someone was acting the goat, though for what reason or purpose I never stopped to consider. I was glad of any suggestion that my common sense assured me was not impossible; and, for the moment, I felt quite relieved. That side to the question had not presented itself to me before. I began to pluck up courage. I accused myself of getting fanciful; otherwise I should have tumbled to it earlier. And then, funnily enough, in spite of all my reasoning, I was still afraid of going after to discover who that was standing on the lee side of the main deck. Yet I felt that, if I shirked it, I was only fit to be dumped overboard; and so I went, though not with any great speed, as you can imagine.

  “I had gone half the distance, and still the figure remained there, motionless and silent—the moonlight and the shadows playing over it with each roll of the ship. I think I tried to be surprised. If it were one of the fellows playing the fool, he must have heard me coming, and why didn’t he scoot while he had the chance? And where could he have hidden himself before? All these things I asked myself, in a rush, with a queer mixture of doubt and belief; and, you know, in the meantime, I was drawing nearer. I had passed the house, and was not twelve paces distant when, abruptly, the silent figure made three quick strides to the port rail and climbed over it into the sea.