The Last Galley; Impressions and Tales

by Arthur Conan Doyle

  "DE PROFUNDIS"

  So long as the oceans are the ligaments which bind together the greatbroad-cast British Empire, so long will there be a dash of romance inour minds. For the soul is swayed by the waters, as the waters are bythe moon, and when the great highways of an empire are along such roadsas these, so full of strange sights and sounds, with danger ever runninglike a hedge on either side of the course, it is a dull mind indeedwhich does not bear away with it some trace of such a passage. Andnow, Britain lies far beyond herself, for the three-mile limit of everyseaboard is her frontier, which has been won by hammer and loom and pickrather than by arts of war. For it is written in history that neitherking nor army can bar the path to the man who having twopence in hisstrong box, and knowing well where he can turn it to threepence, setshis mind to that one end. And as the frontier has broadened, the mind ofBritain has broadened too, spreading out until all men can see that theways of the island are continental, even as those of the Continent areinsular.

  But for this a price must be paid, and the price is a grievous one. Asthe beast of old must have one young human life as a tribute every year,so to our Empire we throw from day to day the pick and flower of ouryouth. The engine is world-wide and strong, but the only fuel that willdrive it is the lives of British men. Thus it is that in the grey oldcathedrals, as we look round upon the brasses on the walls, we seestrange names, such names as they who reared those walls had neverheard, for it is in Peshawar, and Umballah, and Korti and Fort Pearsonthat the youngsters die, leaving only a precedent and a brass behindthem. But if every man had his obelisk, even where he lay, then nofrontier line need be drawn, for a cordon of British graves would evershow how high the Anglo-Celtic tide had lapped.

  This, then, as well as the waters which join us to the world, has donesomething to tinge us with romance. For when so many have their lovedones over the seas, walking amid hillmen's bullets, or swamp malaria,where death is sudden and distance great, then mind communes with mind,and strange stories arise of dream, presentiment or vision, where themother sees her dying son, and is past the first bitterness of her griefere the message comes which should have broken the news. The learnedhave of late looked into the matter and have even labelled it with aname; but what can we know more of it save that a poor strickensoul, when hard-pressed and driven, can shoot across the earth someten-thousand-mile-distant picture of its trouble to the mind which ismost akin to it. Far be it from me to say that there lies no such powerwithin us, for of all things which the brain will grasp the last willbe itself; but yet it is well to be very cautious over such matters, foronce at least I have known that which was within the laws of nature seemto be far upon the further side of them.

  John Vansittart was the younger partner of the firm of Hudson andVansittart, coffee exporters of the Island of Ceylon, three-quartersDutchman by descent, but wholly English in his sympathies. For years Ihad been his agent in London, and when in '72 he came over to Englandfor a three months' holiday, he turned to me for the introductions whichwould enable him to see something of town and country life. Armed withseven letters he left my offices, and for many weeks scrappy notes fromdifferent parts of the country let me know that he had found favourin the eyes of my friends. Then came word of his engagement to EmilyLawson, of a cadet branch of the Hereford Lawsons, and at the very tailof the first flying rumour the news of his absolute marriage, for thewooing of a wanderer must be short, and the days were already crowdingon towards the date when he must be upon his homeward journey. Theywere to return together to Colombo in one of the firm's own thousand-tonbarque-rigged sailing ships, and this was to be their princelyhoneymoon, at once a necessity and a delight.

  Those were the royal days of coffee-planting in Ceylon, before a singleseason and a rotten fungus drove a whole community through years ofdespair to one of the greatest commercial victories which pluck andingenuity ever won. Not often is it that men have the heart when theirone great industry is withered to rear up in a few years another as richto take its place, and the tea-fields of Ceylon are as true a monumentto courage as is the lion at Waterloo. But in '72 there was no cloudyet above the skyline, and the hopes of the planters were as high andas bright as the hillsides on which they reared their crops. Vansittartcame down to London with his young and beautiful wife. I was introduced,dined with them, and it was finally arranged that I, since businesscalled me also to Ceylon, should be a fellow-passenger with them on the_Eastern Star_, which was timed to sail on the following Monday.

  It was on the Sunday evening that I saw him again. He was shown upinto my rooms about nine o'clock at night, with the air of a man who isbothered and out of sorts. His hand, as I shook it, was hot and dry.

  "I wish, Atkinson," said he, "that you could give me a little lime juiceand water. I have a beastly thirst upon me, and the more I take the moreI seem to want."

  I rang and ordered a carafe and glasses. "You are flushed," said I. "Youdon't look the thing."

  "No, I'm clean off colour. Got a touch of rheumatism in my back, anddon't seem to taste my food. It is this vile London that is choking me.I'm not used to breathing air which has been used up by four millionlungs all sucking away on every side of you." He flapped his crookedhands before his face, like a man who really struggles for his breath.

  "A touch of the sea will soon set you right."

  "Yes, I'm of one mind with you there. That's the thing for me. I wantno other doctor. If I don't get to sea to-morrow I'll have an illness.There are no two ways about it." He drank off a tumbler of lime juice,and clapped his two hands with his knuckles doubled up into the small ofhis back.

  "That seems to ease me," said he, looking at me with a filmy eye. "Now Iwant your help, Atkinson, for I am rather awkwardly placed."

  "As how?"

  "This way. My wife's mother got ill and wired for her. I couldn'tgo--you know best yourself how tied I have been--so she had to go alone.Now I've had another wire to say that she can't come to-morrow, but thatshe will pick up the ship at Falmouth on Wednesday. We put in there,you know, and in, though I count it hard, Atkinson, that a man shouldbe asked to believe in a mystery, and cursed if he can't do it. Cursed,mind you, no less." He leaned forward and began to draw a catchy breathlike a man who is poised on the very edge of a sob.

  Then first it came to my mind that I had heard much of the hard-drinkinglife of the island, and that from brandy came those wild words andfevered hands. The flushed cheek and the glazing eye were those of onewhose drink is strong upon him. Sad it was to see so noble a young manin the grip of that most bestial of all the devils.

  "You should lie down," I said, with some severity.

  He screwed up his eyes like a man who is striving to wake himself, andlooked up with an air of surprise.

  "So I shall presently," said he, quite rationally. "I felt quite swimmyjust now, but I am my own man again now. Let me see, what was I talkingabout? Oh ah, of course, about the wife. She joins the ship at Falmouth.Now I want to go round by water. I believe my health depends upon it.I just want a little clean first-lung air to set me on my feet again. Iask you, like a good fellow, to go to Falmouth by rail, so that in casewe should be late you may be there to look after the wife. Put up atthe Royal Hotel, and I will wire her that you are there. Her sister willbring her down, so that it will be all plain sailing."

  "I'll do it with pleasure," said I. "In fact, I would rather go byrail, for we shall have enough and to spare of the sea before we reachColombo. I believe too that you badly need a change. Now, I should goand turn in, if I were you."

  "Yes, I will. I sleep aboard tonight. You know," he continued, as thefilm settled down again over his eyes, "I've not slept well the lastfew nights. I've been troubled with theolololog--that is to say,theolological--hang it," with a desperate effort, "with the doubts oftheolologicians. Wondering why the Almighty made us, you know, and whyHe made our heads swimmy, and fixed little pains into the small of ourbacks. Maybe I'll do better tonight." He rose and steadied himself withan effort against the
corner of the chair back.

  "Look here, Vansittart," said I, gravely, stepping up to him, and layingmy hand upon his sleeve, "I can give you a shakedown here. You arenot fit to go out. You are all over the place. You've been mixing yourdrinks."

  "Drinks!" He stared at me stupidly.

  "You used to carry your liquor better than this."

  "I give you my word, Atkinson, that I have not had a drain for two days.It's not drink. I don't know what it is. I suppose you think this isdrink." He took up my hand in his burning grasp, and passed it over hisown forehead.

  "Great Lord!" said I.

  His skin felt like a thin sheet of velvet beneath which lies aclose-packed layer of small shot. It was smooth to the touch at any oneplace, but to a finger passed along it, rough as a nutmeg grater.

  "It's all right," said he, smiling at my startled face. "I've had theprickly heat nearly as bad."

  "But this is never prickly heat."

  "No, it's London. It's breathing bad air. But tomorrow it'll be allright. There's a surgeon aboard, so I shall be in safe hands. I must beoff now."

  "Not you," said I, pushing him back into a chair. "This is past a joke.You don't move from here until a doctor sees you. Just stay where youare."

  I caught up my hat, and rushing round to the house of a neighbouringphysician, I brought him back with me. The room was empty and Vansittartgone. I rang the bell. The servant said that the gentleman had ordered acab the instant that I had left, and had gone off in it. He had told thecabman to drive to the docks.

  "Did the gentleman seem ill?" I asked.

  "Ill!" The man smiled. "No, sir, he was singin' his 'ardest all thetime."

  The information was not as reassuring as my servant seemed to think, butI reflected that he was going straight back to the _Eastern Star_, andthat there was a doctor aboard of her, so that there was nothing which Icould do in the matter. None the less, when I thought of his thirst, hisburning hands, his heavy eye, his tripping speech, and lastly, of thatleprous forehead, I carried with me to bed an unpleasant memory of myvisitor and his visit.

  At eleven o'clock next day I was at the docks, but the _Eastern Star_had already moved down the river, and was nearly at Gravesend. ToGravesend I went by train, but only to see her topmasts far off, witha plume of smoke from a tug in front of her. I would hear no more of myfriend until I rejoined him at Falmouth. When I got back to my offices,a telegram was awaiting me from Mrs. Vansittart, asking me to meet her;and next evening found us both at the Royal Hotel, Falmouth, where wewere to wait for the _Eastern Star_. Ten days passed, and there came nonews of her.

  They were ten days which I am not likely to forget. On the very day thatthe _Eastern Star_ had cleared from the Thames, a furious easterly galehad sprung up, and blew on from day to day for the greater part of aweek without the sign of a lull. Such a screaming, raving, long-drawnstorm has never been known on the southern coast. From our hotelwindows the sea view was all banked in haze, with a little rain-swepthalf-circle under our very eyes, churned and lashed into one tossingstretch of foam. So heavy was the wind upon the waves that little seacould rise, for the crest of each billow was torn shrieking from it, andlashed broadcast over the bay. Clouds, wind, sea, all were rushing tothe west, and there, looking down at this mad jumble of elements, Iwaited on day after day, my sole companion a white, silent woman, withterror in her eyes, her forehead pressed ever against the window, hergaze from early morning to the fall of night fixed upon that wallof grey haze through which the loom of a vessel might come. She saidnothing, but that face of hers was one long wail of fear.

  On the fifth day I took counsel with an old seaman. I should havepreferred to have done so alone, but she saw me speak with him, and wasat our side in an instant, with parted lips and a prayer in her eyes.

  "Seven days out from London," said he, "and five in the gale. Well, theChannel's swept clear by this wind. There's three things for it. She mayhave popped into port on the French side. That's like enough."

  "No, no; he knew we were here. He would have telegraphed."

  "Ah, yes, so he would. Well, then, he might have run for it, and if hedid that he won't be very far from Madeira by now. That'll be it, marm,you may depend."

  "Or else? You said there was a third chance."

  "Did I, marm? No, only two, I think. I don't think I said anything of athird. Your ship's out there, depend upon it, away out in the Atlantic,and you'll hear of it time enough, for the weather is breaking. Nowdon't you fret, marm, and wait quiet, and you'll find a real blueCornish sky tomorrow."

  The old seaman was right in his surmise, for the next day broke calmand bright, with only a low dwindling cloud in the west to mark the lasttrailing wreaths of the storm-wrack. But still there came no word fromthe sea, and no sign of the ship. Three more weary days had passed, theweariest that I have ever spent, when there came a seafaring man to thehotel with a letter. I gave a shout of joy. It was from the captain ofthe _Eastern Star_. As I read the first lines of it I whisked my handover it, but she laid her own upon it and drew it away. "I have seenit," said she, in a cold, quiet voice. "I may as well see the rest,too."

  "DEAR SIR," said the letter,

  "Mr. Vansittart is down with the small-pox, and we are blown so faron our course that we don't know what to do, he being off his head andunfit to tell us. By dead reckoning we are but three hundred miles fromFunchal, so I take it that it is best that we should push on there,get Mr. V. into hospital, and wait in the Bay until you come. There'sa sailing-ship due from Falmouth to Funchal in a few days' time, as Iunderstand. This goes by the brig _Marian_ of Falmouth, and five poundsis due to the master, Yours respectfully,

  "JNO. HINES."

  She was a wonderful woman that, only a chit of a girl fresh from school,but as quiet and strong as a man. She said nothing--only pressed herlips together tight, and put on her bonnet.

  "You are going out?" I asked.

  "Yes."

  "Can I be of use?"

  "No; I am going to the doctor's."

  "To the doctor's?"

  "Yes. To learn how to nurse a small-pox case."

  She was busy at that all the evening, and next morning we were off witha fine ten-knot breeze in the barque _Rose of Sharon_ for Madeira. Forfive days we made good time, and were no great way from the island; buton the sixth there fell a calm, and we lay without motion on a sea ofoil, heaving slowly, but making not a foot of way.

  At ten o'clock that night Emily Vansittart and I stood leaning on thestarboard railing of the poop, with a full moon shining at our backs,and casting a black shadow of the barque, and of our own two headsupon the shining water. From the shadow a broadening path of moonshinestretched away to the lonely sky-line, flickering and shimmering in thegentle heave of the swell. We were talking with bent heads, chattingof the calm, of the chances of wind, of the look of the sky, when therecame a sudden plop, like a rising salmon, and there, in the clear light,John Vansittart sprang out of the water and looked up at us.

  I never saw anything clearer in my life than I saw that man. The moonshone full upon him, and he was but three oars' lengths away. His facewas more puffed than when I had seen him last, mottled here and therewith dark scabs, his mouth and eyes open as one who is struck withsome overpowering surprise. He had some white stuff streaming from hisshoulders, and one hand was raised to his ear, the other crooked acrosshis breast. I saw him leap from the water into the air, and in the deadcalm the waves of his coming lapped up against the sides of the vessel.Then his figure sank back into the water again, and I heard a rending,crackling sound like a bundle of brushwood snapping in the fire on afrosty night. There were no signs of him when I looked again, but aswift swirl and eddy on the still sea still marked the spot where he hadbeen. How long I stood there, tingling to my finger-tips, holding upan unconscious woman with one hand, clutching at the rail of the vesselwith the other, was more than I could afterwards tell. I had been notedas a man of-slow and unresponsive emotions, but this time at least I wasshak
en to the core. Once and twice I struck my foot upon the deck to becertain that I was indeed the master of my own senses, and that this wasnot some mad prank of an unruly brain. As I stood, still marvelling, thewoman shivered, opened her eyes, gasped, and then standing erect withher hands upon the rail, looked out over the moonlit sea with a facewhich had aged ten years in a summer night.

  "You saw his vision?" she murmured.

  "I saw something."

  "It was he! It was John! He is dead!"

  I muttered some lame words of doubt.

  "Doubtless he died at this hour," she whispered. "In hospital atMadeira. I have read of such things. His thoughts were with me. Hisvision came to me. Oh, my John, my dear, dear, lost John!"

  She broke out suddenly into a storm of weeping, and I led her down intoher cabin, where I left her with her sorrow. That night a brisk breezeblew up from the east, and in the evening of the next day we passed thetwo islets of Los Desertos, and dropped anchor at sundown in the Bayof Funchal. The _Eastern Star_ lay no great distance from us, with thequarantine flag flying from her main, and her Jack half-way up her peak.

  "You see," said Mrs. Vansittart, quickly. She was dry-eyed now, for shehad known how it would be.

  That night we received permission from the authorities to move on boardthe _Eastern Star_. The captain, Hines, was waiting upon deck withconfusion and grief contending upon his bluff face as he sought forwords with which to break this heavy tidings, but she took the storyfrom his lips.

  "I know that my husband is dead," she said. "He died yesterday night,about ten o'clock, in hospital at Madeira, did he not?"

  The seaman stared aghast. "No, marm, he died eight days ago at sea, andwe had to bury him out there, for we lay in a belt of calm, and couldnot say when we might make the land."

  Well, those are the main facts about the death of John Vansittart, andhis appearance to his wife somewhere about lat. 35 N. and long. 15 W. Aclearer case of a wraith has seldom been made out, and since then it hasbeen told as such, and put into print as such, and endorsed by a learnedsociety as such, and so floated off with many others to support therecent theory of telepathy. For myself, I hold telepathy to be proved,but I would snatch this one case from amid the evidence, and say thatI do not think that it was the wraith of John Vansittart, but JohnVansittart himself whom we saw that night leaping into the moonlightout of the depths of the Atlantic. It has ever been my belief that somestrange chance--one of those chances which seem so improbable and yet soconstantly occur--had becalmed us over the very spot where the man hadbeen buried a week before. For the rest, the surgeon tells me that theleaden weight was not too firmly fixed, and that seven days bring aboutchanges which fetch a body to the surface. Coming from the depth towhich the weight would have sunk it, he explains that it might wellattain such a velocity as to carry it clear of the water. Such is myown explanation of the matter, and if you ask me what then became ofthe body, I must recall to you that snapping, crackling sound, with theswirl in the water. The shark is a surface feeder and is plentiful inthose parts.