Again according to Mr Dyer, when a spot was haunted by the spirit of a murderer or suicide who lay buried there, a magic circle was made just over the grave, and he who was daring enough to venture there, at midnight, preferably when the elements were at their worst, would conjure the ghost to appear and give its reason for haunting the spot. In answer to the summons there was generally a long, unnatural silence, which was succeeded by a tremendous crash, when the phantasm would appear, and, in ghastly, hollow tones answer all the questions put to it. Never once would it encroach on the circle, and on its interrogator promising to carry out its wishes, it would suddenly vanish and never again walk abroad. If the hauntings were in a house, the investigator entered the haunted room at midnight with a candle, and compass, and a crucifix or Bible. After carefully shutting the door, and describing a circle on the floor, in which he drew a cross, he placed within it a chair, and table, and on the latter, put the crucifix, a Bible, and a lighted candle. He then sat down on the chair and awaited the advent of the apparition, which either entered noiselessly or with a terrific crash. On the promise that its wishes would be fulfilled, the ghost withdrew, and there were no more disturbances. Sometimes the investigator, if he were a priest, would sprinkle the phantasm with holy water and sometimes make passes over it with the crucifix, but the results were always the same; it responded to all the questions that were put to it and never troubled the house again.
How different from what happens in reality! Though I have seen and interrogated many ghosts, I have never had a reply, or anything in the shape of a reply, nor perceived any alteration in their expression that would in any way lead me to suppose they had understood me; and as to exorcism—well, I know of innumerable cases where it has been tried, and tried by the most pious of clergy—clergy of all denominations—and singularly failed. It is true I have never experimented with a magic circle, but, somehow, I have not much faith in it.
In China the method of expelling ghosts from haunted houses has been described as follows:—An altar containing tapers and incense sticks is erected in the spot where the manifestations are most frequent. A Taoist priest is then summoned, and enters the house dressed in a red robe, with blue stockings and a black cap. He has with him a sword, made of the wood of the peach or date tree, the hilt and guard of which are covered with red cloth. Written in ink on the blade of the sword is a charm against ghosts. Advancing to the altar, the priest deposits his sword on it. He then prepares a mystic scroll, which he burns, collecting and emptying the ashes into a cup of spring water. Next, he takes the sword in his right hand and the cup in his left, and, after taking seven paces to the left and eight to the right, he says: “Gods of heaven and earth, invest me with the heavy seal, in order that I may eject from this dwelling-house all kinds of evil spirits. Should any disobey me, give me power to deliver them for safe custody to rulers of such demons.” Then, addressing the ghost in a loud voice, he says: “As quick as lightning depart from this house.” This done, he takes a bunch of willow, dips it in the cup, and sprinkles it in the east, west, north, and south corners of the house, and, laying it down, picks up his sword and cup, and, going to the east corner of the building, calls out: “I have the authority, Tai-Shaong-Loo-Kivan.” He then fills his mouth with water from the cup, and spits it out on the wall, exclaiming: “Kill the green evil spirits which come from unlucky stars, or let them be driven away.” This ceremony he repeats at the south, west, and north corners respectively, substituting, in turn, red, white, and yellow in the place of green. The attendants then beat gongs, drums, and tom-toms, and the exorcist cries out: “Evil spirits from the east, I send back to the east; evil spirits from the south, I send back to the south,” and so on. Finally, he goes to the door of the house, and, after making some mystical signs in the air, manœuvres with his sword, congratulates the owner of the establishment on the expulsion of the ghosts, and demands his fee.
In China the sword is generally deemed to have psychic properties, and is often to be seen suspended over a bed to scare away ghosts. Sometimes a horse’s tail—a horse being also considered extremely psychic—or a rag dipped in the blood from a criminal’s head, are used for the same purpose. But no matter how many, or how varied, the precautions we take, ghosts will come, and nothing will drive them away. The only protection I have ever found to be of any practical value in preventing them from materialising is a powerful light. As a rule they cannot stand that, and whenever I have turned a pocket flashlight on them, they have at once dematerialised; often, however, materialising again immediately the light has been turned off.
The cock was, at one time, (and still is in some parts of the world) regarded as a psychic bird; it being thought that phantasms invariably took their departure as soon as it began to crow. This, however, is a fallacy. As ghosts appear at all hours of the day and night, in season and out of season, I fear it is only too obvious that their manifestations cannot be restricted within the limits of any particular time, and that their coming and going, far from being subject to the crowing of a cock, however vociferous, depend entirely on themselves.
CHAPTER XI
OCCULT INHABITANTS OF THE SEA AND RIVERS
Phantom Ships
From time to time, one still hears of a phantom ship being seen, in various parts of the world. Sometimes it is in the Straits of Magellan, vainly trying to weather the Horn; sometimes in the frozen latitudes of the north, steering its way in miraculous fashion past monster icebergs; sometimes in the Pacific, sometimes in the Atlantic, and only the other day I heard of its being seen off Cornwall. The night was dark and stormy, and lights being suddenly seen out at sea as of a vessel in distress, the lifeboat was launched. On approaching the lights, it was discovered that they proceeded from a vessel that mysteriously vanished as soon as the would-be rescuers were within hailing. Much puzzled, the lifeboat men were about to return, when they saw the lights suddenly reappear to leeward. On drawing near to them, they again disappeared, and were once more seen right out to sea. Utterly nonplussed, and feeling certain that the elusive bark must be the notorious phantom ship, the lifeboat men abandoned the pursuit, and returned home.
A fisherman of the same town—the town to which the lifeboat that had gone to the rescue of the phantom ship belonged—told me, when I was out with him one evening in his boat, that one of the oldest inhabitants of the place had on one occasion, when the phantom ship visited the bay, actually got his hands on her gunwales before she melted away, and he narrowly escaped pitching headlong into the sea. Though the weather was then still and warm, the yards of the ship, which were coated with ice, flapped violently to and fro, as if under the influence of some mighty wind. The appearance of the phenomenon was followed, as usual, by a catastrophe to one of the local boats.
I very often sound sailors as to whether they have ever come across this ominous vessel, and sometimes hear very enthralling accounts of it. An old sea captain whom I met on the pier at Southampton, in reply to my inquiry, said: “Yes! I have seen the phantom ship, or at any rate a phantom ship, once—but only once. It was one night in the fifties, and we were becalmed in the South Pacific about three hundred miles due west of Callao. It had been terrifically hot all day, and, only too thankful that it was now a little cooler, I was lolling over the bulwarks to get a few mouthfuls of fresh air before turning into my berth, when one of the crew touched me on the shoulder, and ejaculating, ‘For God’s sake——’ abruptly left off. Following the direction of his glaring eyes, I saw to my amazement a large black brig bearing directly down on us. She was about a mile off, and, despite the intense calmness of the sea, was pitching and tossing as if in the roughest water. As she drew nearer I was able to make her out better, and from her build—she carried two masts and was square-rigged forward and schooner-rigged aft—as well as from her tawdry gilt figurehead, concluded she was a hermaphrodite brig of, very possibly, Dutch nationality. She had evidently seen a great deal of rough weather,
for her foretopmast and part of her starboard bulwarks were gone, and what added to my astonishment and filled me with fears and doubts was, that in spite of the pace at which she was approaching us and the dead calmness of the air, she had no other sails than her foresail and mainsail, and flying-jib.
“By this time all of our crew were on deck, and the skipper and the second mate took up their positions one on either side of me, the man who had first called my attention to the strange ship, joining some other seamen near the forecastle. No one spoke, but, from the expression in their eyes and ghastly pallor of their cheeks, it was very easy to see that one and all were dominated by the same feelings of terror and suspicion. Nearer and nearer drew the brig, until she was at last so close that we could perceive her crew—all of whom, save the helmsman, were leaning over the bulwarks—grinning at us. Never shall I forget the horror of those grins. They were hideous, meaningless, hellish grins, the grins of corpses in the last stage of putrefaction. And that is just what they were—all of them—corpses, but corpses possessed by spirits of the most devilish sort, for as we stared, too petrified with fear to remove our gaze, they nodded their ulcerated heads and gesticulated vehemently. The brig then gave a sudden yaw, and with that motion there was wafted a stink—a stink too damnably foul and rotten to originate from anywhere, save from some cesspool in hell. Choking, retching, and all but fainting, I buried my face in the skipper’s coat, and did not venture to raise it, till the far-away sounds of plunging and tossing assured me the cursed ship had passed. I then looked up, and was just in time to catch a final glimpse of the brig, a few hundred yards to leeward, (she had passed close under our stern) before her lofty stern rose out of the water, and, bows foremost, she plunged into the stilly depths and we saw her no more. There was no need for the skipper to tell us that she was the phantom ship, nor did she belie her sinister reputation, for within a week of seeing her, yellow fever broke out on board, and when we arrived at port, there were only three of us left.”
The Sargasso Sea
Of all the seas in the world, none bear a greater reputation for being haunted than the Sargasso. Within this impenetrable waste of rank, stinking seaweed, in places many feet deep, are collected wreckages of all ages and all climes, grim and permanent records of the world’s maritime history, unsinkable and undestroyable. It has ever been my ambition to explore the margins of this unsightly yet fascinating marine wilderness, but, so far, I have been unable to extend my peregrinations further south than the thirty-fifth degree of latitude.
Among the many stories I have heard in connection with this sea, the following will, I think, bear repeating:—
“A brig with twelve hands aboard, bound from Boston to the Cape Verde Islands, was caught in a storm, and, being blown out of her course, drifted on to the northern extremities of the Sargasso. The wind then sinking, and an absolute calm taking its place, there seemed every prospect that the brig would remain where it was for an indefinite period. A most horrible fate now stared the crew in the face, for although they had food enough to last them for many weeks, they only had a very limited supply of water, and the intense heat and terrific stench from the weeds made them abnormally thirsty.
“After a long and earnest consultation, in which the skipper acted as chairman, it was decided that on the consumption of the last drop of water they should all commit suicide, anything rather than to perish of thirst, and it would be far less harrowing to die in a body and face the awful possibilities of the next world in company than alone.
“As there was only one firearm on board, and the idea of throat-cutting was disapproved of by several of the more timid, rat poison, of which there was just enough to go all round, was chosen. Meanwhile, in consideration of the short time left to them on earth, the crew insisted that they should be allowed to enjoy themselves to the utmost. To this the captain, knowing only too well what that would mean, reluctantly gave his consent. A general pandemonium at once ensued, one of the men producing a mouth accordion and another a concertina, whilst the rest, selecting partners with much mock gallantry, danced to the air of a popular Vaudeville song till they could dance no longer.
“The next item on the programme was dinner. The best of everything on board was served up, and they all ate and drank till they could hold no more. They were then so sleepy that they tumbled off their seats, and, lying on the floor, soon snored like hogs. The cool of the evening restoring them, they played pitch and toss, and poker, till tea-time, and then fooled away the remainder of the evening in more cards and more drink. In this manner the best part of a week was beguiled. Then the skipper announced the fact that the last drop of liquor on board had gone, and that, according to the compact, the hour had arrived to commit suicide. Had a bombshell fallen in their midst, it could not have caused a greater consternation than this announcement. The men had, by this time, become so enamoured with their easy and irresponsible mode of living, that the idea of quitting it in so abrupt a manner was by no means to their liking, and they evinced their displeasure in the roughest and most forcible of language. ‘The skipper could d——d well put an end to himself if he had a mind to, but they would see themselves somewhere else before they did any such thing—it would be time enough to talk of dying when the victuals were all eaten up.’ Then they thoroughly overhauled the ship, and on discovering half a dozen bottles of rum and a small cask of water stowed away in the skipper’s cabin, they threw him overboard and pelted him with empty bottles till he sank; after which they cleared the deck and danced till sunset.
“Two nights later, when they were all lying on the deck near the companion way, licking their parched lips and commiserating with themselves on the prospect of their gradually approaching end—for they had abandoned all idea of the rat poison—they suddenly saw a hideous, seaweedy object rise up over the bulwarks on the leeward side of the ship. In breathless expectation they all sat up and watched. Inch by inch it rose, until they saw before them a tall form enveloped from head to foot in green slime, and horribly suggestive of the well-known figure of the murdered captain. Gliding noiselessly over the deck, it shook its hands menacingly at each of the sailors, until it came to the cabin-boy—the only one among them who had not participated in the skipper’s death—when it touched him gently on the forehead, and, stooping down, appeared to whisper something in his ears. It then recrossed the deck, and, mounting the bulwarks, leaped into the sea.
“For some seconds no one stirred; and then, as if under the influence of some hypnotic spell, one by one, each of the crew, with the exception of the cabin-boy, got up, and, marching in Indian file to the spot where the apparition had vanished, flung themselves overboard. The last of the procession had barely disappeared from view, when the cabin-boy, whose agony of mind during this infernal tragedy cannot be described, fell into a heavy stupor, from which he did not awake till morning. In the meanwhile the brig, owing to a stiff breeze that had arisen in the night, was freed from its environment, and was drifting away from the seaweed. It went on and on, day after day, and day after day, till it was eventually sighted by a steamer and taken in tow. The cabin-boy, by this time barely alive, was nursed with the tenderest care, and, owing to the assiduous attention bestowed on him, he completely recovered.”
I think this story, though naturally ridiculed and discredited by some, may be unreservedly accepted by those whose knowledge and experience of the occult warrant their belief in it.
Along the coast of Brittany are many haunted spots, none more so than the “Bay of the Departed,” where, in the dead of night, wails and cries, presumably uttered by the phantasms of drowned sailors, are distinctly heard by the terrified peasantry on shore. I can the more readily believe this, because I myself have heard similar sounds off the Irish, Scottish, and Cornish coasts, where shrieks, and wails, and groans as of the drowning have been borne to me from the inky blackness of the foaming and tossing sea. According to Mr Hunt in his Romances of the West o
f England, the sands of Porth Towan were haunted, a fisherman declaring that one night when he was walking on them alone, he suddenly heard a voice from the sea cry out, “The hour is come, but not the man.” This was repeated three times, when a black figure, like that of a man, appeared on the crest of an adjacent hill, and, dashing down the steep side, rushed over the sands and vanished in the waves.
In other parts of England, as well as in Brittany and Spain, a voice from the sea is always said to be heard prior to a storm and loss of life. In the Bermudas, I have heard that before a wreck a huge white fish is often seen; whilst in the Cape Verde Islands maritime disasters are similarly presaged by flocks of peculiarly marked gulls.
On no more reliable authority than hearsay evidence, I understand that off the coast of Finland a whirlpool suddenly appears close beside a vessel that is doomed to be wrecked, and that a like calamity is foretold off the coast of Peru by the phantasm of a sailor who, in eighteenth-century costume, swarms up the side of the doomed ship, enters the captain’s cabin, and, touching him on the shoulder, points solemnly at the porthole and vanishes.
The Elliott O’Donnell Supernatural Megapack Page 37