“Now, I’m not talking mere words to you when I tell you that it went against my grain to denounce my old schoolfellow and shipmate, and at first I resolved that I wouldn’t. But, after all, a chap’s own interests have to be counted first, and as Gibson had been mean hound enough to drug me and carry off money under my care, I didn’t see why I should screen him. So I denounced him, and in a very short time he was under arrest. But even then he might have escaped conviction had it not been for his stupidity in keeping the bank-notes. His friend, who was also arrested, turned out to be a notorious character with a most evil reputation, and was looked upon as an expert in picking locks. The task they had set themselves of stealing the money was comparatively easy, as all the conditions were in their favour, and I fell a too easy victim to their cunning.
“Well, of course, I had to attend the trial and give evidence. The crime was considered very serious indeed, as Government property had been stolen and Government seals unlawfully broken. The offence was called a first-class one, and the penalty was death. No such sensation had been provided for Havana for many a long day. It was considered better than a bullfight.
“To make a long story short, the result of it all was that the two rascals were convicted and sentenced to be shot. The verdict cut me to the heart, and as only a short shrift was allowed the culprits, as the sentence was to be carried out in twenty-four hours, I obtained permission to visit Gibson. I found him in rather a dejected state, seated in a courtyard of the gaol which was guarded by soldiers. As soon as he saw me he seemed to go mad, reviled me in language that was of would haunt me and drive me to madness by appearing to me a pretty fiery character, then cursed me and swore that he on dark nights at sea. ‘You are a doomed man,’ he said, ‘and will come to a sudden and terrible end. I leave my curse to you.’
“I tried to reason with him, but I might as well have tried to reason with an enraged wild cat in the jungle. He did nothing but utter curses on me, and recognizing how hopeless it was to try and appease him, I withdrew, and the next morning he and his pal were shot at daybreak.
“Although I was much cut up by the way he had treated me, I did not attach any importance to either his curses or his threats. I wasn’t altogether free from superstition, what sailor is, but I quite believed that when a person was dead he was done with. I soon began to find out, however, that I was wrong, for some weeks later, when we were on our passage back to Bilbao, I had the middle watch one night, just as we got into the Bay of Biscay. It was a wild night, and we were close hauled under double reefed topsails. Suddenly out of the waves came a glowing figure. It was Gibson’s spectre. He shrieked at me, and I heard his curses again, and again he told me I was doomed.
“Since then I’ve seen him often. He has kept his word. He has haunted me, and is driving me mad and hounding me to death. Yes, I am doomed. I feel it and know it. Nothing can avert the doom.
“You know my story now. Don’t ridicule it; don’t laugh at me; for to me it’s a terribly serious business, and I feel that I shall never see the dear woman I love again.”
He ceased speaking, and I noticed the wild, scared look in his eyes which I had seen before. The perspiration was streaming down his face, he appeared to be suffering great mental agony.
I tried to soothe him, but it was no use, and he kept on repeating that he was doomed.
Now let me say here at once that I did not believe the captain had seen any real supernatural appearance. I regarded him as a highly imaginative and sensitive man. On such a man Gibson’s curses and threats would be sure to make a very deep impression. It could hardly be otherwise, seeing that the two men had practically grown up together. They had been schoolmates and shipmates, and Gibson’s violent end must have affected his once friend in no ordinary degree. Long dwelling upon the dramatic scene in the prison at Havana, the day previous to the execution, had taken such a hold on the skipper’s imagination that he had worried himself into a belief in a mere chimera of the brain. To him, no doubt, the visions were real enough, although they were nothing more than disturbed brain fancies.
Such was the theory I consoled myself with, and I determined there and then to use every possible endeavour to get the captain out of his morbid condition, and prove to him by gentle reasoning that he was simply a victim to his own gloomy fears. I was so far successful at that moment that I induced him to turn in, having first of all called the mate down and given him certain instructions; then I compounded him a simple soothing draught from ingredients in the medicine chest, and at his own request I sat by him and read certain passages in the Bible, until he fell into a sound sleep.
I was considerably exercised in my own mind as to the proper course I ought to adopt, and I was tempted at first to take the Spanish lady into my confidence, and discuss the matter with her. But this idea was put out of my head at once, for she was sitting in the cuddy, as she usually did in the evening, where she passed her time either reading or in doing needlework. She saw that I came from the captain’s cabin, and tackled me.
“How is the skipper?” she asked.
“He is a little indisposed tonight, but will be all right tomorrow, no doubt,” I answered.
“Not he,” she exclaimed. “I tell you that man’s a haunted man, and will either go mad or commit suicide.”
Remembering how dogmatically she had expressed herself on a previous occasion on the subject of supernatural visitations, I deemed it desirable not to enter into any discussion, and I also made up my mind that it would be a fatal mistake to let her know the captain’s story, so I merely said, in answer to her statement, “I hope not,” and passed to my cabin.
Now I want to repeat here, and for very obvious reasons, what were the views I held at this stage. I considered that the captain was suffering from a distressing nervous illness, the result of long pondering over an incident which could not fail to make a tremendous impression on him. But not for a moment did I entertain any belief in the supernatural. Necessarily I was exceedingly anxious, for there was no doctor on board, I had no medical knowledge myself, and we could not hope to reach our destination for another three weeks. There was every prospect then of the prognostications about a fine and rapid passage being falsified. The barometer had been steadily falling for some time, and all the indications were for bad weather. I knew that in that latitude, at that time of year, heavy storms were not uncommon, and it seemed likely that we should experience them. The anxious state of my mind kept me awake for some time, revolving all sorts of schemes, but nothing that seemed to me satisfactory. Eight bells midnight sounded, and I heard the mate come out of his room and go on deck to take the watch. I slipped out of bed, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, and stole over to the captain’s cabin. To my intense relief I found he was sleeping soundly.
As the motion of the vessel made it evident there was a heavy sea on, I went up the companion-way to see what the weather was like. It was a wild, weird night. A south-west gale was blowing and a tremendous sea running. There was no moon, but the stars shone with a superb lustre wherever the ragged, storm-driven scud allowed them to be seen. I passed a few words with the mate, and asked him what he thought of the weather.
“It’s a bad wind for us,’ he answered, “and the heavy squalls that come up every now and then prevent our setting much sail. But if I were skipper, I would crack on and let things rip. I’d drive the ship even at the risk of losing canvas.”
“Why don’t you do so, as it is?” I asked. “You’ve got charge of the deck for the next four hours, and have practically a free hand.”
“No I haven’t,” he answered. “I’ve got to obey orders, though I think sometimes, between you and me, sir, that the old man’s got a bee in his bonnet.”
“What makes you think that?” I queried, my interest in the skipper making me anxious to hear what the mate had to say.
“Well, I think it’s because he�
��s given to seeing the devil, or something as bad.”
I laughed, although I was serious enough; and being anxious to draw the officer out, I remarked;
“Well, I shouldn’t say it’s quite as bad as that; but he is ill, there is no doubt about it, and wants looking after.”
“I should think he does,” was the reply, given with peculiar decisiveness. Then, bending his head towards me, the better to make himself heard without raising his voice too much, for the howling of the wind made it difficult to hear sometimes, he added, “Look here, Mr. Gibling, will you give me your promise that, if I express an opinion, it won’t go any farther?”
“Yes, I think you may trust me,” I answered.
“Well, look here, sir, if you have any influence with the old man, you should persuade him to keep his room for the rest of the passage. And if he won’t, I say that in his own interest and the interest of everyone on board this craft, that he should be made to stay there.”
Never before had the mate been so outspoken to me, and it was further evidence, if I needed any, that the skipper’s condition had not escaped the observation of others; and I seriously determined to act on the suggestion, and use every effort to induce the captain to keep his room.
As a slight shift in the wind here necessitated the mate ordering the watch to trim the yards, I went below, and, feeling thoroughly exhausted, I drank a glass of whisky, and turning in, fell asleep. I must have slept between three and four hours, when I awoke with a start, for overhead was a tremendous hubbub. The tramping of heavily-booted feet, the rattling of cordage, the shaking of sails; while the ship, which was heeled over at an unusual angle, was quivering. I hastily donned my dressing-gown, and rushed on deck. A very heavy squall had struck us, and had torn the main-sail out of the bolt ropes. “All hands” had been called on deck, and what with the shrieking wind and roaring sea, and the hoarse voices of the sailors, the situation seemed alarming enough to a landsman like myself. A lurch of the ship drove me down to the lee rail against the mizzen shrouds, which I clung to for dear life. Suddenly I felt myself gripped round the waist, and a body seemed to fall at my feet. I realized in an instant that it was the captain. He had only his shirt and trousers on. His feet were bare, his head was bare. So much I was able to make out in the darkness that wasn’t altogether darkness, for a few stars still shone.
“For the love of God, for the sake of the Christ that was crucified, save me!” shrieked the unhappy man, as he crouched on his knees and linked his hands round my body.
“Don’t give way like this,” I said, feeling almost distracted myself. “Come, let me lead you down to your cabin. The mate will look after the ship. She is in good hands.”
It seemed as if the unhappy man did not understand what I had said to him, for pointing to the sea, he cried in a voice of acute terror:
“There, there, don’t you see it? There on that wave? Oh, my God, it’s awful!”
Mechanically I turned my eyes to where he pointed, and to my astonishment I saw what appeared to me to be a pale, lambent flame, shapeless and blue and nebulous. But I was conscious of thinking to myself that this was some natural phenomenon, like the well-known St Elmo’s fire. Slowly, however, even as I watched (for my eyes were riveted on that light by some strange fascination), I saw the shapeless mass grow brighter. Then for the first time it seemed to dawn upon me that I was gazing upon something unearthly. My heart leaped to my mouth at the conviction, and a cold shivering thrilled through my body. I tried to shut out the vision, but my eyes would not close; I was under some spell, against which I had no power of resistance.
As I gazed, the flame assumed shape; the shape of a human being. I distinguished a face, wan and ghastly. The eyes were lustreless and fixed, like those of a dead man. In the naked body were many wounds, and from these wounds blood spurted out in streams, and as it seemed to me made the sea around crimson.
I shuddered with horror at this dreadful sight; my knees bent under me, and I was on the point of sinking down, when I made a supreme effort and rallied. For the skipper was still clinging to me. I felt his weight, I heard his groans, but I saw nothing save that spectral figure with the gory streams pouring from its body.
Panting and breathless, a cold perspiration bursting through every pore, and with a feeling as if the scalp of my head was shrinking to nothing, I continued to gaze. The figure remained motionless, but its dull, glazed, dead eyes riveted themselves upon me and I could not endure their gaze. I felt my brain maddening with terror; driven to frenzy I made a supreme effort to lift the captain in my arms and carry him bodily down to his room. But he broke from me. He made a flying leap from the poop to the waist of the ship; then another flying leap over the rail into the dark seething waters. I heard the heavy splash his falling body made. One long, piercing shriek filled the air as he floated astern.
I remember little more. There was a cry of “Man overboard!” a wild rush of feet; a hasty cutting away of lifebuoys; hoarse voices mingling with flapping sails. How I got below I don’t know, but I found myself lying in my berth with the Spanish lady standing over me, putting eau de cologne on my temples.
“Do you feel better now?” she asked in a not unkindly way.
“Yes, thank you,” I answered, feeling confused; “but tell me, what does it mean? What has happened?”
“Why, don’t you know?” she exclaimed; “the captain has jumped overboard. I told you what would happen. He was haunted and went mad, I suppose. Anyway the poor fellow’s gone.”
“And how did I get here?” I asked, with a dreadful sinking sensation at the heart and a dazed numb feeling in the brain.
“Well, you tumbled down the companion-way and were insensible when the stewards picked you up. You fainted, I suppose, with fright, eh?”
“I don’t know, I don’t know,” I murmured. “It’s all a dream.”
“Now tell me and speak the truth,” she said, in a commanding tone. “Did you see anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?”
“The vision of a bleeding man.”
“Ah!” she exclaimed triumphantly, “how about your scepticism now, eh?”
I had to confess that, according to my belief, I had seen the spectre of a man bleeding from several wounds; but still I thought it was nothing more than a delusion.
“But the captain was with you?”
“Yes.”
“And he saw it?”
“I have reason to think so.”
“Then were you both deluded? Anyway, poor fellow, he was deluded to his death. For he has perished.”
I could not enter into any argument. I felt too ill and distressed. I thanked her for her attention, and begged that she would leave me, as I thought I could sleep. She complied with this request, but I tossed and dreamed nightmare dreams, and dreamed and tossed for hours. It took me several days to recover from that awful shock to the nerves; indeed, I don’t think I have ever quite recovered, or that I ever shall. I need scarcely say that from the moment the poor demented captain took that flying leap into the sea nothing more was ever seen of him, and an entry of his suicide was made in the log-book, and I signed it. On our arrival at Havana an inquiry was held by the British Consul, and I was called upon to state what I knew. I confined myself to saying that the captain believed that he saw a vision occasionally. He was very greatly affected, and I presume his brain gave way. I did not attempt to speak of my own awful experience. It was not necessary. Even if I had done so how could I have hoped to be believed? And yet I had seen with my own eyes. I, a scoffer in such matters, had been convinced, and what I have written here I solemnly declare to be true. Perhaps somebody cleverer than I, and more learned than I, may be able to explain away the mystery, but for me it will remain an awful, appalling mystery until I cease to breathe. Then, perhaps—who knows?—I may be able to solve it.
THE GHOST-SHIP, by Richard Middleton
Originally published in 1912.
Fairfield is a little village lying near the Portsmouth Road about half-way between London and the sea. Strangers who find it by accident now and then, call it a pretty, old-fashioned place; we who live in it and call it home don’t find anything very pretty about it, but we should be sorry to live anywhere else. Our minds have taken the shape of the inn and the church and the green, I suppose. At all events we never feel comfortable out of Fairfield.
Of course the Cockneys, with their vasty houses and noise-ridden streets, can call us rustics if they choose, but for all that Fairfield is a better place to live in than London. Doctor says that when he goes to London his mind is bruised with the weight of the houses, and he was a Cockney born. He had to live there himself when he was a little chap, but he knows better now. You gentlemen may laugh—perhaps some of you come from London way—but it seems to me that a witness like that is worth a gallon of arguments.
Dull? Well, you might find it dull, but I assure you that I’ve listened to all the London yarns you have spun tonight, and they’re absolutely nothing to the things that happen at Fairfield. It’s because of our way of thinking and minding our own business. If one of your Londoners were set down on the green of a Saturday night when the ghosts of the lads who died in the war keep tryst with the lasses who lie in the church-yard, he couldn’t help being curious and interfering, and then the ghosts would go somewhere where it was quieter. But we just let them come and go and don’t make any fuss, and in consequence Fairfield is the ghostiest place in all England. Why, I’ve seen a headless man sitting on the edge of the well in broad daylight, and the children playing about his feet as if he were their father. Take my word for it, spirits know when they are well off as much as human beings.
The Sixth Ghost Story Megapack Page 40