Tales of terror
who is far away. It’s human. It shows a kindly heart, an impressionable
mind!’
He turned suddenly and, putting out his hand to me, said: ‘Thank
you, thank you, Mr. Gibling! You are a good sort. A little sympathy
sometimes is not a bad thing, and, hardened old shellback as I am, I
suppose I’ve got a soft spot somewhere. But, excuse me, I must go on
deck.’
I made known my errand, and having procured the box of cigars for me
from his locker, I carried them to my cabin, and he went on deck, and
when I had opened the box and taken two or three cigars out I followed
him. The night was very dark. Nearly all the sails were set. There was
an unpleasant, lumpy sea, and the wind was blowing in fitful gusts.
The captain ordered the watch to shorten sail, but before the order
was entirely carried out a squall struck us, and the vessel heeled
over tremendously and commenced to fly through the water, churning
the sea around her into white, flashing, phosphorescent froth. Anyone
who has ever made a voyage in a sailing ship knows the apparent, and
often real, confusion that ensues when a sudden squall strikes the
vessel. At such times the wind will frequently blow for a few minutes
with hurricane force, and it is no unusual thing for sails to be split
to ribbons--even for spars to be carried away. Given a dark night,
a heavy squall, a rough sea, rent sails, and the land lubber who is
unmoved must be made of very stern stuff. The rifle-like report and
cracking of the long shreds of the torn sail are alarming enough to
the inexperienced; but when you add to this the rattling of the ropes,
the banging of blocks, the groaning of the ship’s timbers, the harsh
creaking of the spars, the roar, swish and hiss of the waves, the
great masses of boiling white foam that spread around, and the hoarse
voices of men on deck to unseen men up above on the yard-arms in the
mysterious darkness, there is at once a scene which tests the nerves of
the landsman to a very considerable extent.
The squall that struck the _Pride of the Ocean_ was a very heavy one,
and the main-topsail went to ribbons. The skipper, who was a perfect
seaman, issued his orders rapidly, but with judgment and a display of
self-possession, while his officers ably seconded him. Three or four
times he came close to me as he shifted his position on the poop, the
better to make his voice heard above the howling of the wind, and the
noises incidental to the tossing ship. I did not attempt to address
him, knowing full well that at such a moment he required to concentrate
all his attention on his duties. Once, when he came near me, I heard
him mutter to my intense astonishment--‘My God, my God, have pity
on me!’ It may be imagined to what an extent I was affected by this
utterance. Had he said, ‘Have pity on us,’ I should at once have jumped
to the conclusion that we were all in danger, but the cry for pity was
for himself alone. It set me pondering, and connecting it with his
usual melancholy, and the sad and distressful expression of his face, I
was not only puzzled but anxious. A few minutes later, as the ship did
not pay off as rapidly as she should have done, Captain Tredegar ran
to the wheel to help the helmsman to jam the rudder harder over, and
as he glanced at the binnacle and his features were illumined by the
light from the lamp, I was perfectly startled by his ghastly pallor. To
such an extent was I moved that I rushed to him and asked in an excited
way if he was ill. With a powerful sweep of his right arm he moved
me from before him, and in tones of terror exclaimed--‘There it is
again! There, out there on the crest of that wave!’ I peered into the
darkness, but could see nothing save the phosphorescent gleam of the
tumbling sea.
By this time I was quite unnerved, for a dreadful thought took
possession of me. I thought that the skipper was suffering from
incipient madness.
In a few minutes, having got the wheel well over, he called one of the
watch aft to assist the steersman, and he himself went forward to the
break of the poop, and continued to give his orders. By this time the
men had got the flying ropes and flapping sails under control, and, the
dark scud in the heavens driving to leeward before the hurricane blast,
the moon peeped through the ragged film and threw a weird, ghostly
gleam of shimmering light over the swirling waters, while the track of
the squall could be followed as it drove down the heavens to strike
some other wanderer on the deep.
As is often the case, at the tail of the great blast was a deluge. It
was as if some huge door in the sky had been opened and the waters fell
out in a cataract. I hurried below, as I had no desire to be soaked
to the skin, and when I reached the cuddy I found the Spanish lady
passenger seated at the table, looking very scared and unhappy.
‘Oh, Mr. Gibling,’ she exclaimed, ‘is there any danger? What an awful
storm!’
I assured her that all was well, and that the rain would probably bring
a dead calm.
‘Did you see the captain?’ she asked, still displaying great agitation.
There was something in her manner and the tone of her voice that struck
me as peculiar, and I replied:
‘Yes. I saw him on deck.’
‘Ah, but I mean here. He has just come down and gone to his room. I
spoke to him, but he would not answer me. He looked awful. I am sure
there is something queer about him. His eyes seemed bulging from his
head, and if he had seen a ghost he couldn’t have been whiter. He is
either ill or going mad. Do go to him.’
The lady’s words did not tend to allay my own fears and suspicions,
but, anxious not to add to her alarm, I said with an air of assumed
indifference:
‘The fact is, I suppose, he is over-anxious. Not that there is anything
to fear, I am sure. We are in the squall zone, you know, but there is
every prospect of making a good passage. However, I will go and talk to
the captain.’
So saying, I left her, and made my way to the skipper’s state-room.
I knocked as usual, but again there was no response; so I pushed the
door open, and found Captain Tredegar seated in his chair, half his
body bent over the table, and his face hidden by his arms. His cap had
fallen off his head and was lying on the table, and I noted that his
hands were opening and shutting in a spasmodic, nervous way. It was no
time for ceremony. I should have been dull indeed not to recognise that
the man was suffering. I therefore went to his side, and laying my hand
on his shoulder said sympathetically:
‘Excuse me, Captain Tredegar, but you are not well. Can I do anything
for you? Do make a confidant of me. Believe me I am not actuated by
mere vulgar curiosity. Pray command my services if I can be of any use.’
He lifted his head up. I had never seen before in any human face such
a pronounced look of nervous horror. His eyes wandered about the room;
the corners of his mouth twitched, and he sobbed like a child that had
cried itself into a state of physical exhaustion. I was positively
alarmed, and my first impulse was to run for assistance. As if divining
my thoughts he seized my wrist in his powerful hand, thereby detaining
me, and said in a broken voice:
‘Pardon me, sir, you are very good. I am suffering from an attack
to which I am at rare intervals subject; but I shall be all right
directly. Please don’t make a scene. There is some rum there in that
bottle, give me a little neat. It will set me up.’
Although I was doubtful whether neat rum was the proper remedy in such
a case, I could not resist his appealing manner, and taking the bottle
from the rack I poured into a glass about a table-spoonful.
‘Oh, more than that, more than that,’ he cried. ‘Fill the glass nearly.’
Perhaps at any other time I should have argued against his request,
but I let the rum run from the bottle until the tumbler was quite
half-full. He clutched it with trembling hand, and poured the contents
at one gulp down his throat.
‘Thanks, thanks,’ he said, as he recovered his breath and placed the
glass on the table. ‘That will put new life into me. I feel better
already.’
He rose, shook with a shudder as he did so, and taking his sou’-wester
and oilskin from a peg donned himself in them. He put a hand on each
of my shoulders, and looking me in the face, said with an impressive
earnestness:
‘Mr. Gibling, I am more than obliged to you. Add to my obligation, will
you, by promising not to mention to anyone that you have seen me in one
of my strange moods.’
‘Certainly I will,’ I replied with perfect frankness. ‘You may trust
me. And, as I have said, if I can be of service command me.’
‘Very well; some day I may put you to the test,’ he answered;
‘good-night, and God bless you.’
He left me, and I heard him clatter up the gangway in his great boots.
As I crossed towards my own cabin the Spanish lady was still sitting at
the cuddy table.
‘Have you been with the captain?’ she asked.
‘I have,’ I replied.
‘How is he?’
‘He is all right,’ I answered lightly.
She glanced about the cuddy as if to make sure no one was listening,
and then, bending towards me as if inviting confidence, she said in a
half whisper:
‘Do you know, Mr. Gibling, when the captain came down from the deck
a little while ago there was such a peculiar look in his face that I
could almost have fancied he----’
She stopped suddenly in her speech, visibly shuddered, and put her
pretty white fingers before her eyes. After an awkward pause I broke
the silence by saying:
‘Almost fancied he--what?’
‘He had seen some gruesome and unnatural sight.’
I laughed, though I had an inkling of her meaning, for strangely enough
a vague, phantom-like thought had been troubling me; but I could not
define it, could not give it shape; now at her words it was clear
enough, and an uncontrollable impulse impelled me to give it utterance:
‘Ghosts, you mean,’ and I laughed at my own words, for the idea
seemed to me--a prosy, staid, unromantic, London citizen--so utterly
ridiculous. But not so to the lady. Her face assumed a graver aspect,
and her eyes betrayed that whatever my views might be her mind was made
up.
‘What I mean is, he has seen a vision,’ she remarked, with awe in her
voice.
‘Oh, nonsense,’ I exclaimed. ‘Hobgoblins and bogeys belong to the
period of our childhood. When we come to years of discretion we should
cease to be childish.’
My remark annoyed her. She rose and curled her lip disdainfully. ‘I am
not childish and I don’t talk nonsense,’ she said, as she swept past me
without so much as giving me a chance to apologise. I felt annoyed with
myself for having been so tactless, but otherwise laughed mentally at
what I considered the absurdity of the position.
A few minutes later I went on deck to finish my final smoke before
turning in. The rain had ceased. The air was delightfully cool. The
wind had gone, but cats-paws came up every now and then, bellying the
sails out for a moment or two with a great jerk, but dropping suddenly
the canvas fell back against the masts with a bang and rattle of blocks
and creaking of sheaves. The sky was a mass of picturesque clouds
with fantastic outlines. Here and there groups of stars were visible,
and with chastened light, as if shining through gauze, the moon made
a silver pathway over the face of the deep until it blended with the
horizon in impenetrable blackness, which rounded off, so to speak, the
weird scene. The captain had discarded his oilskins, which were lying
on the top of a hencoop, and he himself was leaning on his elbows over
the taffrail, complacently smoking a cigar, and absorbed apparently
in the contemplation of the phosphoric display that flashed and
glistened under the ship’s counter as she fell and rose to the swell.