The Stone Ship - William Hope Hodgson (best non fiction books to read .TXT) 📗

that the Old Man had some good reason to get the boat away pretty quickly. He was right, too; though, whether it was guess-work, or some kind of instinct that made him shout out at that moment, I don’t know; only I am sure he could not have seen anything in that absolute darkness.

As I was saying, he was right in shouting to us to back; for we had not backed more than half a dozen fathoms, when there was a tremendous splash right ahead of us, as if a house had fallen into the sea; and a regular wave of sea-water came at us out of the darkness, throwing our bows up, and soaking us fore and aft.

“Good Lord!” I heard the Third Mate gasp out. “What the devil’s that?”

“Back all! Back! Back!” the Captain sung out again.

After some moments, he had the tiller put over, and told us to pull. We gave way with a will, as you may think, and in a few minutes were alongside our own ship again.

“Now then, men,” the Captain said, when we were safe aboard, “I’ll not order any of you to come; but after the steward’s served out a tot of grog each, those who are willing, can come with me, and we’ll have another go at finding out what devil’s work is going on over yonder.”

He turned to the Mate, who had been asking questions:—

“Say, Mister,” he said, “it’s no sort of thing to let the boat go without a lamp aboard. Send a couple of the lads into the lamp locker, and pass out a couple of the anchor-lights, and that deck bull’s-eye, you use at nights for clearing up the ropes.”

He whipped round on the Third:—“Tell the steward to buck up with that grog, Mr. Andrews,” he said, “and while you’re there, pass out the axes from the rack in my cabin.”

The grog came along a minute later; and then the Third Mate with three big axes from out the cabin rack.

“Now then, men,” said the Skipper, as we took our tots off, “those who are coming with me, had better take an axe each from the Third Mate. They’re mightly good weapons in any sort of trouble.”

We all stepped forward, and he burst out laughing, slapping his thigh.

“That’s the kind of thing I like!” he said. “Mr. Andrews, the axes won’t go round. Pass out that old cutlass from the steward’s pantry. It’s a pretty hefty piece of iron!”

The old cutlass was brought, and the man who was short of an axe, collared it. By this time, two of the ‘prentices had filled (at least we supposed they had filled them!) two of the ship’s anchor-lights; also they had brought out the bull’s-eye lamp we used when clearing up the ropes on a dark night. With the lights and the axes and the cutlass, we felt ready to face anything, and down we went again into the boat, with the Captain and the Third Mate after us.

“Lash one of the lamps to one of the boat-hooks, and rig it over the bows,” ordered the Captain.

This was done, and in this way the light lit up the water for a couple of fathoms ahead of the boat; and made us feel less that something could come at us without our knowing. Then the painter was cast off, and we gave way again toward the sound of the running water, out there in the darkness.

I remember now that it struck me that our vessel had drifted a bit; for the sounds seemed farther away. The second anchor-light had been put in the stern of the boat, and the Third Mate kept it between his feet, while he steered. The Captain had the bull’s-eye in his hand, and was pricking up the wick with his pocket-knife.

As we pulled, I took a glance or two over my shoulder; but could see nothing, except the lamp making a yellow halo in the mist round the boat’s bows, as we forged ahead. Astern of us, on our quarter, I could see the dull red glow of our vessel’s port light. That was all, and not a sound in all the sea, as you might say, except the roll of our oars in the rowlocks, and somewhere in the darkness ahead, that curious noise of water running steadily; now sounding, as I have said, fainter and seeming farther away.

“It’s got my oar again, Sir!” exclaimed the man at the bow oar, suddenly, and jumped to his feet. He hove his oar up with a great splashing of water, into the air, and immediately something whirled and beat about in the yellow halo of light over the bows of the boat. There was a crash of breaking wood, and the boat-hook was broken. The lamp soused down into the sea, and was lost. Then in the darkness, there was a heavy splash, and a shout from the bow-oar:—“It’s gone, Sir. It’s loosed off the oar!”

“Vast pulling, all!” sung out the Skipper. Not that the order was necessary; for not a man was pulling. He had jumped up, and whipped a big revolver out of his coat pocket.

He had this in his right hand, and the bull’s-eye in his left. He stepped forrard smartly over the oars from thwart to thwart, till he reached the bows, where he shone his light down into the water.

“My word!” he said. “Lord in Heaven! Saw anyone ever the like!”

And I doubt whether any man ever did see what we saw then; for the water was thick and living for yards round the boat with the hugest eels I ever saw before or after.

“Give way, Men,” said the Skipper, after a minute. “Yon’s no explanation of the almighty queer sounds out yonder we’re hearing this night. Give way, lads!”

He stood right up in the bows of the boat, shining his bulls’-eye from side to side, and flashing it down on the water.

“Give way, lads!” he said again. “They don’t like the light, that’ll keep them from the oars. Give way steady now. Mr. Andrews, keep her dead on for the noise out yonder.”

We pulled for some minutes, during which I felt my oar plucked at twice; but a flash of the Captain’s lamp seemed sufficient to make the brutes loose hold.

The noise of the water running, appeared now quite near sounding. About this time, I had a sense again of an added sort of silence to all the natural quietness of the sea. And I had a return of the curious nervousness that had touched me before. I kept listening intensely, as if I expected to hear some other sound than the noise of the water. It came to me suddenly that I had the kind of feeling one has in the aisle of a large cathedral. There was a sort of echo in the night—an incredibly faint reduplicating of the noise of our oars.

“Hark!” I said, audibly; not realizing at first that I was speaking aloud. “There’s an echo—”

“That’s it!” the Captain cut in, sharply. “I thought I heard something rummy!”

… “I thought I heard something rummy,” said a thin ghostly echo, out of the night… “thought I heard something rummy” … “heard something rummy.” The words went muttering and whispering to and fro in the night about us, in a rather a horrible fashion.

“Good Lord!” said the Old Man, in a whisper.

We had all stopped rowing, and were staring about us into the thin mist that filled the night. The Skipper was standing with the bull’s-eye lamp held over his head, circling the beam of light round from port to starboard, and back again.

Abruptly, as he did so, it came to me that the mist was thinner. The sound of the running water was very near; but it gave back no echo.

“The water doesn’t echo, Sir,” I said. “That’s damn funny!”

“That’s damn funny,” came back at me, from the darkness to port and starboard, in a multitudinous muttering….“Damn funny!….funny… eey!”

“Give way!” said the Old Man, loudly. “I’ll bottom this!”

“I’ll bottom this…Bottom this…this!” The echo came back in a veritable rolling of unexpected sound. And then we had dipped our oars again, and the night was full of the reiterated rolling echoes of our rowlocks.

Suddenly the echoes ceased, and there was, strangely, the sense of a great space about us, and in the same moment the sound of the water running appeared to be directly before us, but somehow up in the air.

“Vast rowing!” said the Captain, and we lay on our oars, staring round into the darkness ahead. The Old Man swung the beam of his lamp upwards, making circles with it in the night, and abruptly I saw something looming vaguely through the thinner-seeming mist.

“Look, Sir,” I called to the Captain. “Quick, Sir, your light right above you! There’s something up there!”

The Old Man flashed his lamp upwards, and found the thing I had seen. But it was too indistinct to make anything of, and even as he saw it, the darkness and mist seemed to wrap it about.

“Pull a couple of strokes, all!” said the Captain. “Stow your talk, there in the boat! … Again! … That’ll do! Vast pulling!”

He was sending the beam of his lamp constantly across that part of the night where we had seen the thing, and suddenly I saw it again.

“There, Sir!” I said. “A little starboard with the light.”

He flicked the light swiftly to the right, and immediately we all saw the thing plainly—a strangely-made mast, standing up there out of the mist, and looking like no spar I had ever seen.

It seemed now that the mist must lie pretty low on the sea in places; for the mast stood up out of it plainly for several fathoms; but, lower, it was hidden in the mist, which, I thought, seemed heavier now all round us; but thinner, as I have said, above.

“Ship ahoy!” sung out the Skipper, suddenly. “Ship ahoy, there!” But for some moments there came never a sound back to us except the constant noise of the water running, not a score yards away; and then, it seemed to me that a vague echo beat back at us out of the mist, oddly:—“Ahoy! Ahoy! Ahoy!”

“There’s something hailing us, Sir,” said the Third Mate.

Now, that “something” was significant. It showed the sort of feeling that was on us all.

“That’s na ship’s mast as ever I’ve seen!” I heard the man next to me mutter. “It’s got a unnatcheral look.”

“Ahoy there!” shouted the Skipper again, at the top of his voice. “Ahoy there!”

With the suddenness of a clap of thunder there burst out at us a vast, grunting:—oooaze; arrrr; arrrr; oooaze—a volume of sound so great that it seemed to make the loom of the oar in my hand vibrate.

“Good Lord!” said the Captain, and levelled his revolver into the mist; but he did not fire.

I had loosed one hand from my oar, and gripped my axe. I remember thinking that the Skipper’s pistol wouldn’t be much use against whatever thing made a noise like that.

“It wasn’t ahead, Sir,” said the Third Mate, abruptly, from where he sat and steered. “I think it came from somewhere over to starboard.”

“Damn this mist!” said the Skipper. “Damn it! What a devil of a stink! Pass that other anchor-light forrard.”

I reached for the lamp, and handed it to the next man, who passed it on.

“The other boat-hook,” said the Skipper; and when he’d got it, he lashed the lamp to the hook end, and then lashed the whole arrangement upright in the bows, so that the lamp was well above his head.

“Now,” he said.