Tales of terror
It is the most interesting period of the twenty-four hours to
lands-people, because the captain and his officers having taken their
sights, as it is called, they proceed to work them out, in order to
discover the position of the ship; that is, her latitude and longitude,
and that being done, it is marked on the chart.
As I accompanied the skipper to the cuddy, I began to think that
perhaps after all I was doing him a wrong, and it would be unfair to
say anything to his owners until I had received stronger proof that my
suspicions were well founded. Certainly, as he sat at the table making
his calculations and working out the position, he not only seemed the
perfection of physical fitness, but fully endowed with keen and sound
intelligence. As I noted this I came to the conclusion that it was no
less my duty to suspend my judgment--than to watch closely and wait
patiently.
Should it come to pass that this paper is made public, I wish it to be
distinctly understood that at this period of the voyage I was halting
between two opinions. On the one hand, I considered Captain Tredegar
peculiar in many respects--a man of mystery, in short--and on the
other, I was painfully anxious not to do him an injustice. It will
also be noted that the conclusions arrived at by the Spanish lady, who
was an emotional and superstitious woman, were not in accordance with
my own. For according to her views, the captain’s strange behaviour
was the result of seeing visions; according to mine, he suffered
from intermittent mania, which was probably traceable to a too free
indulgence in rum or other potent liquors. Not that I had ever seen him
the worse for drink, but he took a good deal more than was good for
him, in my opinion, though it did not affect him as it would have done
others who were not so case-hardened.
For the next few days our progress was not very satisfactory, owing
to the light, variable winds. For a steamer it would have been almost
ideal weather, but dependent as we were on the winds entirely, it
was very tantalising. During this time the skipper continued in his
bright, cheery mood, and every evening at a fixed hour we sat down in
the cabin for a game of cribbage. I took to studying him very closely,
and from many little signs I saw I felt pretty certain that a great
deal of his light-hearted manner was assumed. Occasionally I noted a
strange wild look came into his eyes, and his cheeks paled as though
some deadly fear had seized upon him. A mere casual observer would have
failed to have seen these signs, but my perception had been quickened.
I was ever on the alert, on the watch, and there was not much that
escaped me.
A change came at last. One evening when I expected the skipper to take
part in the usual game at cribbage he brusquely and rudely refused, and
I saw the half-sullen, half-terrified expression in his face again. I
thought it very peculiar that his mood should synchronise with a change
in the weather. The barometer had been falling all day, and it was only
too evident that we were going to have a dirty night. As the sun got
low in the heavens, heavy banks of clouds came up, and the wind rapidly
strengthened, until we had to shorten sail to such an extent that very
little canvas remained set. The captain seemed extremely anxious. He
walked up and down the poop in a restless, nervous way. Occasionally
he stopped to gaze windward, and sometimes he muttered to himself. I
resolved at last to speak to him, anxious and preoccupied as he was. So
I went boldly up to him and said:
‘We are evidently in for a change, don’t you think so?’
He turned upon me with a dark, lowering face, his brow knit, and his
whole manner that of one straining under suppressed passion.
‘Yes, I do,’ he answered excitedly, ‘and be d----d to you. Anyway, I’m
a doomed man.’
He walked rapidly away without another word, and I stood for some
little time dumfounded. Anyone who could speak in such a manner was
surely mad, and I seriously considered it was my business to take
counsel with my fellow-passengers, if not with the officers of the
ship, for a mad captain ought to be relieved of his responsible duties
in the interest of every soul on board. But before I could stir away
the man himself came back to me, and said in a most pathetic and
appealing way that went to my heart:
‘Pray pardon my rudeness, Mr. Gibling. You don’t know how I’m troubled.
I am suffering dreadfully, and if you knew all you would pity rather
than blame me.’
‘Why not place me in possession of the information, then?’ I asked. He
put his hand to his eyes for a moment or two and shuddered.
‘It is so dreadful, so horrible,’ he muttered mysteriously, speaking
rather to himself than me.
‘All the more reason, then, why you should take me into your
confidence,’ I said.
‘Yes--perhaps you are right. I will, I will. Come to my cabin in half
an hour and I will tell you the awful story.’
Further conversation was interrupted by the bursting of a squall
accompanied by heavy rain, while a long swell that came up from the
S.W. was a sure precursor of the coming gales, of which the squalls
were only the heralds.
I at once descended to the cabin to get out of the rain, but quite
half an hour passed before the captain came down. He passed me without
speaking, but called the steward and ordered some tea to be taken to
his cabin. And when another half-hour had elapsed the steward brought
me a message to the effect that Captain Tredegar wished to see me
in his room. The weather had now become very bad and the ship was
labouring heavily. I found the captain seated at his table with a small
Bible open before him, but which he closed and tossed into his bunk as
I entered. He looked pale, ill, and careworn. He asked me to sit down,
and remarked:
‘You have shown much interest in me, sir, and instinctively I feel I
can place confidence in you. The time has now come for me to speak, or
be dumb for evermore. I am a doomed man. My fate is sealed, and it is
that fearful certainty that weighs upon me like a ton of lead.’
His words and manner seemed to me unmistakably to indicate insanity,
and I could not repress a feeling of alarm. He must have guessed my
thoughts, for he said quickly:
‘Don’t alarm yourself, and bear with me patiently; my brain is
perfectly clear, and I know what I am doing, although a stranger might
be disposed to think I was labouring under a distempered imagination.
But it is not so. An awful fear takes possession of me and unmans
me. It paralyses my faculties and renders life a curse instead of a
blessing.’
‘A fear of what?’ I asked.
‘Of the dead,’ he answered solemnly.
I looked hard at him again. That surely was not the answer of a sane
man.
‘What nonsense,’ I said a little sharply. ‘What harm can the dead do
to the living? I gave you credit for being stronger minded than that.
It is clear to me now that you are allowing yourself to sink into a
morbid, nervous condition, that must end disastrously. Why on earth
should you embitter your existence by imaginary evils? Shake yourself
free of morbid, gloomy forebodings; be a man, and if you are a just one
you need fear nothing, not even the living, let alone the dead.’
He did not attempt to interrupt this little outburst on my part, which
perhaps was hardly justified. But I could not restrain myself. I was
compelled to give vent to my thoughts.
‘You mean well, Mr. Gibling,’ he remarked, with perfect self-possession,
when I had finished speaking, ‘and I understand your feelings; but
before condemning me, before allowing your wrath to run away with your
judgment, be patient, forbearing, and listen to me as you promised to
do. This may be the only opportunity that will ever occur for me to
tell you my story.’
‘Pray proceed,’ I remarked; ‘perhaps I have been somewhat hasty;
you will find, however, that I am a good listener, and under any
circumstances you may count on my sympathy.’
He remained silent for some minutes, his elbows on the table, his
hands clasping his face, his eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy. He
started and came to himself again.
‘Mr. Gibling,’ he began, ‘I have a very strange story to tell you if
you care to listen to it. Whatever your feelings are now, however
sceptical you may be, I fancy your views will undergo a change by the
time I have done. I repeat that I am a doomed man. My sands have nearly
run out, and I must say what I have to say now or never.’
‘Please go on,’ I said as he paused, evidently waiting for me to speak.
‘Very well,’ he continued, ‘I’ll begin at the beginning. As you know,
I am a Cornishman; I come from a race of seamen; the salt of the sea
flows in my veins. What education I received was got at a school in
Devonshire, where I passed nearly nine years of my life. At that school
I had a chum. We were inseparable. We were more like brothers. His
name was Peter Gibson. He was three or four years my senior, and was a
rough, wild, boorish sort of fellow; not good at picking up the routine
knowledge of a school training, but as sharp as a needle, with an
insatiable thirst for stories of fighting and adventure. In this line
he would read everything he got hold of, and one day he said to me:
“Jubal, I intend to go to sea, and I’m going to be a devil; will you
stick to me?” he asked.
‘“Yes,” I answered in a moment of boyish enthusiasm. He had great
influence over me. I looked up to him as my superior, and regarded him
as a leader.
‘“You swear it?” he demanded.
‘“Yes,” I said again.
‘Whereupon he made me go down on my knees, hold both my hands up to
heaven, and take a solemn oath that I would stick to him, go with him
wherever he went, and do whatever he did.
‘Now you must remember I was a youngster at this time, and what I did
was only what a boy might be expected to do. Gibson certainly had a
good deal of influence over me. He was a masterful sort of fellow, with
a great, bulky, powerful frame, while his pluck won my admiration. He
funked at nothing, and could lick every boy in the neighbourhood.
‘We left school about the same time, and though his father, who was
pretty well off, wanted to put him in business, Peter declared he would
go to sea. I had been intended for a seafaring life from my cradle. The
males of my family always went to sea. The result of his determination
was that he and I found ourselves fellow apprentices on board a
full-rigged vessel going out to the East Indies. She was a trader, and
during a voyage of nearly four years we visited a great many places
in the East; saw a great deal of the world, and experienced fair and
foul weather from the very best to the very worst. As might have been
expected, Peter picked up seamanship very rapidly, and became one of
the smartest sailors on board. My regard for him and his liking for me
had never altered, and when we returned to Liverpool, from whence we
had sailed, we were as much chums as ever.
‘We were only at home two months when we were transferred to another
ship belonging to the same owners, and rated as A.B.’s. This voyage
we sailed to Vancouver round the Horn, and from there we came down in
ballast to Monte Video, and loaded up with a general cargo for home.
At this time there was a civil war going on in the Argentine Republic,
and of course at Monte Video we heard a great deal of talk about it.
Gibson used to get very excited over the war news, and over and over
again he tried to persuade me to clear out from the ship and go with
him to do some fighting. He’d no sympathies with either one side or
the other, and I don’t think he even knew what the row was about, but
he wanted some fighting; fight was in his blood, and he was pining for
what he called fun. I preferred, however, to keep a straight course, as