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

“Give way gently! And stand by to back-water, if I tell you…. Watch my hand, Mister,” he added to the Third Mate. “Steer as I tell you.”

We rowed a dozen slow strokes, and with every stroke, I took a look over my shoulder. The Captain was leaning forward under the big lamp, with the bull’s-eye in one hand and his revolver in the other. He kept flashing the beam of the lantern up into the night.

“Good Lord!” he said, suddenly. “Vast pulling.”

We stopped, and I slewed round on the thwart, and stared.

He was standing up under the glow of the anchor-light, and shining the bull’s-eye up at a great mass that loomed dully through the mist. As he flicked the light to and fro over the great bulk, I realized that the boat was within some three or four fathoms of the hull of a vessel.

“Pull another stroke,” the Skipper said, in a quiet voice, after a few minutes of silence. “Gently now! Gently! … Vast pulling!”

I slewed round again on my thwart and stared. I could see part of the thing quite distinctly now, and more of it, as I followed the beam of the Captain’s lantern. She was a vessel right enough; but such a vessel as I had never seen. She was extraordinarily high out of the water, and seemed very short, and rose up into a queer mass at one end. But what puzzled me more, I think, than anything else, was the queer look of her sides, down which water was streaming all the time.

“That explains the sound of the water running,” I thought to myself; “but what on earth is she built of?”

You will understand a little of my bewildered feelings, when I tell you that as the beam of the Captain’s lamp shone on the side of this queer vessel, it showed stone everywhere—as if she were built out of stone. I never felt so dumb-founded in my life.

“She’s stone, Cap’n” I said. “Look at her, Sir!”

I realised, as I spoke, a certain horribleness, of the unnatural…. A stone ship, floating out there in the night in the midst of the lonely Atlantic!

“She’s stone,” I said again, in that absurd way in which one reiterates, when one is bewildered.

“Look at the slime on her!” muttered the man next but one forrard of me. “She’s a proper Davy Jones ship. By gum! she stinks like a corpse!”

“Ship ahoy!” roared the Skipper, at the top of his voice. “Ship ahoy! Ship ahoy!”

His shout beat back at us, in a curious, dank, yet metallic, echo, something the way one’s voice sounds in an old disused quarry.

“There’s no one aboard there, Sir,” said the Third Mate. “Shall I put the boat alongside?”

“Yes, shove her up, Mister,” said the Old Man. “I’ll bottom this business. Pull a couple of strokes, aft there! In bow, and stand by to fend off.”

The Third Mate laid the boat alongside, and we unshipped our oars.

Then, I leant forward over the side of the boat, and pressed the flat of my hand upon the stark side of the ship. The water that ran down her side, sprayed out over my hand and wrist in a cataract; but I did not think about being wet, for my hand was pressed solid upon stone…. I pulled my hand back with a queer feeling.

“She’s stone, right enough, Sir,” I said to the Captain.

“We’ll soon see what she is,” he said. “Shove your oar up against her side, and shin up. We’ll pass the lamp up to you as soon as you’re aboard. Shove your axe in the back of your belt. I’ll cover you with my gun, till you’re aboard.”

“‘I, ‘i, Sir,” I said; though I felt a bit funny at the thought of having to be the first aboard that damn rummy craft.

I put my oar upright against her side, and took a spring up from the thwart, and in a moment I was grabbing over my head for her rail, with every rag of me soaked through with the water that was streaming down her, and spraying out over the oar and me.

I got a firm grip of the rail, and hoisted my head high enough to look over; but I could see nothing …. what with the darkness, and the water in my eyes.

I knew it was no time for going slow, if there were danger aboard; so I went in over that rail in one spring, my boots coming down with a horrible, ringing, hollow, stony sound on her decks. I whipped the water out of my eyes and the axe out of my belt, all in the same moment; then I took a good stare fore and aft; but it was too dark to see anything.

“Come along, Duprey!” shouted the Skipper. “Collar the lamp.”

I leant out sideways over the rail, and grabbed for the lamp with my left hand, keeping the axe ready in my right, and staring inboard; for I tell you, I was just mortally afraid in that moment of what might be aboard of her.

I felt the lamp-ring with my left hand, and gripped it. Then I switched it aboard, and turned fair and square to see where I’d gotten.

Now, you never saw such a packet as that, not in a hundred years, nor yet two hundred, I should think. She’d got a rum little maindeck, about forty feet long, and then came a step about two feet high, and another bit of a deck, with a little house on it.

That was the after end of her; and more I couldn’t see, because the light of my lamp went no farther, except to show me vaguely the big, cocked-up stern of her, going up into the darkness. I never saw a vessel made like her; not even in an old picture of old-time ships.

Forrard of me, was her mast—a big lump of a stick it was too, for her size. And here was another amazing thing, the mast of her looked just solid stone.

“Funny, isn’t she, Duprey?” said the Skipper’s voice at my back, and I came round on him with a jump.

“Yes,” I said. “I’m puzzled. Aren’t you, Sir?”

“Well,” he said, “I am. If we were like the shellbacks they talk of in books, we’d be crossing ourselves. But, personally, give me a good heavy Colt, or the hefty chunk of steel you’re cuddling.”

He turned from me, and put his head over the rail.

“Pass up the painter, Jales,” he said, to the bow-oar. Then to the Third Mate:—

“Bring ‘em all up, Mister. If there’s going to be anything rummy, we may as well make a picnic party of the lot…. Hitch that painter round the cleet yonder, Duprey,” he added to me. “It looks good solid stone! … That’s right. Come along.”

He swung the thin beam of his lantern fore and aft, and then forrard again.

“Lord!” he said. “Look at that mast. It’s stone. Give it a whack with the back of your axe, man; only remember she’s apparently a bit of an old-timer! So go gently.”

I took my axe short, and tapped the mast, and it rang dull, and solid, like a stone pillar, I struck it again, harder, and a sharp flake of stone flew past my cheek. The Skipper thrust his lantern close up to where I’d struck the mast.

“By George,” he said, “she’s absolute a stone ship—solid stone, afloat here out of Eternity, in the middle of the wide Atlantic…. Why! She must weigh a thousand tons more than she’s buoyancy to carry. It’s just impossible…. It’s—”

He turned his head quickly, at a sound in the darkness along the decks. He flashed his light that way, across the after decks; but we could see nothing

“Get a move on you in the boat!” he said sharply, stepping to the rail and looking down. “For once I’d really prefer a little more of your company….” He came round like a flash. “Duprey, what was that?” he asked in a low voice.

“I certainly heard something, Sir,” I said. “I wish the others would hurry. By Jove! Look! What’s that—”

“Where?” he said, and sent the beam of his lamp to where I pointed with my axe.

“There’s nothing,” he said, after circling the light all over the deck. “Don’t go imagining things. There’s enough solid unnatural fact here, without trying to add to it.”

There came the splash and thud of feet behind, as the first of the men came up over the side, and jumped clumsily into the lee scuppers, which had water in them. You see she had a cant to that side, and I supposed the water had collected there.

The rest of the men followed, and then the Third Mate. That made six men of us, all well armed; and I felt a bit more comfortable, as you can think.

“Hold up that lamp of yours, Duprey, and lead the way,” said the Skipper. “You’re getting the post of honour this trip!”

“‘I, ‘i, Sir,” I said, and stepped forward, holding up the lamp in my left hand, and carrying my axe half way down the haft, in my right.

“We’ll try aft, first,” said the Captain, and led the way himself, flashing the bull’s-eye to and fro. At the raised portion of the deck, he stopped.

“Now,” he said, in his queer way, “let’s have a look at this…. Tap it with your axe, Duprey…. Ah!” he added, as I hit it with the back of my axe. “That’s what we call stone at home, right enough. She’s just as rum as anything I’ve seen while I’ve been fishing. We’ll go on aft and have a peep into the deck-house. Keep your axes handy, men.”

We walked slowly up to the curious little house, the deck rising to it with quite a slope. At the foreside of the little deck-house, the Captain pulled up, and shone his bull’s-eye down at the deck. I saw that he was looking at what was plainly the stump of the after mast. He stepped closer to it, and kicked it with his foot; and it gave out the same dull, solid note that the foremast had done. It was obviously a chunk of stone.

I held up my lamp so that I could see the upper part of the house more clearly. The fore-part had two square window-spaces in it; but there was no glass in either of them; and the blank darkness within the queer little place, just seemed to stare out at us.

And then I saw something suddenly … a great shaggy head of red hair was rising slowly into sight, through the port window, the one nearest to us.

“My God! What’s that, Cap’n?” I called out. But it was gone, even as I spoke.

“What?” he asked, jumping at the way I had sung out.

“At the port window, Sir,” I said. “A great red-haired head. It came right up to the window-place; and then it went in a moment.

The Skipper stepped right up to the little dark window, and pushed his lantern through into the blackness. He flashed a light round; then withdrew the lantern.

“Bosh, man!” he said. “That’s twice you’ve got fancying things. Ease up your nerves a bit!”

“I did see it!” I said, almost angrily. “It was like a great red-haired head….”

“Stow it, Duprey!” he said, though not sneeringly. “The house is absolutely empty. Come round to the door, if the Infernal Masons that built her, went in for doors! Then you’ll see for yourself. All the same, keep your axes ready, lads. I’ve a notion there’s something pretty queer aboard here.”

We went up round the after-end of the