The Stone Ship by William Hope Hodgson (best classic literature .txt) 📕

The Stone Ship

William Hope Hodgson

Rum things!—Of course there are rum things happen at sea—As rum as ever there were. I remember when I was in the Alfred Jessop, a small barque, whose owner was her skipper, we came across a most extraordinary thing.

We were twenty days out from London, and well down into the tropics. It was before I took my ticket, and I was in the fo’cas’le. The day had passed without a breath of wind, and the night found us with all the lower sails up in the buntlines.

Now, I want you to take good note of what I am going to say:—

When it was dark in the second dog watch, there was not a sail in sight; not even the far off smoke of a steamer, and no land nearer than Africa, about a thousand miles to the eastward of us.

It was our watch on deck from eight to twelve, midnight, and my look-out from eight to ten. For the first hour, I walked to and fro across the break of the fo’cas’le head, smoking my pipe and just listening to the quiet…. Ever hear the kind of silence you can get away out at sea? You need to be in one of the old-time windjammers, with all the lights dowsed, and the sea as calm and quiet as some queer plain of death. And then you want a pipe and the lonesomeness of the fo’cas’le head, with the caps’n to lean against while you listen and think. And all about you, stretching out into the miles, only and always the enormous silence of the sea, spreading out a thousand miles every way into the everlasting, brooding night. And not a light anywhere, out on all the waste of waters; nor ever a sound, as I have told, except the faint moaning of the masts and gear, as they chafe and whine a little to the occasional invisible roll of the ship.

And suddenly, across all this silence, I heard Jensen’s voice from the head of the starboard steps, say:—

“Did you hear that, Duprey?”

“What?” I asked, cocking my head up. But as I questioned, I heard what he heard—the constant sound of running water, for all the world like the noise of a brook running down a hill-side. And the queer sound was surely not a hundred fathoms off our port bow!

“By gum!” said Jensen’s voice, out of the darkness. “That’s damned sort of funny!”

“Shut up!” I whispered, and went across, in my bare feet, to the port rail, where I leaned out into the darkness, and stared towards the curious sound.

The noise of a brook running down a hill-side continued, where there was no brook for a thousand sea-miles in any direction.

“What is it?” said Jensen’s voice again, scarcely above a whisper now. From below him on the maindeck, there came several voices questioning:—“Hark!” “Stow the talk!” “… there!” “Listen!” “Lord love us, what is it?” … And then Jensen muttering to them to be quiet.

There followed a full minute, during which we all heard the brook, where no brook could ever run; and then, out of the night there came a sudden hoarse incredible sound:—oooaze, oooaze, arrrr, arrrr, oooaze—a stupendous sort of croak, deep and somehow abominable, out of the blackness. In the same instant, I found myself sniffing the air. There was a queer rank smell, stealing through the night.

“Forrard there on the look-out!” I heard the mate singing out, away aft. “Forrard there! What the blazes are you doing!”

I heard him come clattering down the port ladder from the poop, and then the sound of his feet at a run along the maindeck. Simultaneously, there was a thudding of bare feet, as the watch below came racing out of the fo’cas’le beneath me.

“Now then! Now then! Now then!” shouted the Mate, as he charged up on to the fo’cas’le head.

“What’s up?”

“It’s something off the port bow, Sir,” I said. “Running water! And then that sort of howl…. Your night-glasses,” I suggested.

“Can’t see a thing,” he growled, as he stared away through the dark. “There’s a sort of mist. Phoo! what a devil of a stink!”

“Look!” said someone down on the maindeck. “What’s that?”

I saw it in the same instant, and caught the Mate’s elbow.

“Look, Sir,” I said. “There’s a light there, about three points off the bow. It’s moving.”

The Mate was staring through his night-glasses, and suddenly he thrust them into my hands:—

“See if you can make it out,” he said, and forthwith put his hands round his mouth, and bellowed into the night:—“Ahoy there! Ahoy there! Ahoy there!” his voice going out lost into the silence and darkness all around. But there came never a comprehensible answer, only all the time the infernal noise of a brook running out there on the sea, a thousand miles from any brook of earth; and away on the port bow, a vague shapeless shining.

I put the glasses to my eyes, and stared. The light was bigger and brighter, seen through the binoculars; but I could make nothing of it, only a dull, elongated shining, that moved vaguely in the darkness, apparently a hundred fathoms or so, away on the sea.

“Ahoy there! Ahoy there!” sung out the Mate again. Then, to the men below:—“Quiet there on the maindeck!”

There followed about a minute of intense stillness, during which we all listened; but there was no sound, except the constant noise of water running steadily.

I was watching the curious shining, and I saw it flick out suddenly at the Mate’s shout. Then in a moment I saw three dull lights, one under the other, that flicked in and out intermittently.

“Here, give me the glasses!” said the Mate, and grabbed them from me.

He stared intensely for a moment; then swore, and turned to me:—

“What do you make of them?” he asked, abruptly.

“I don’t know, Sir,” I said. “I’m just puzzled. Perhaps it’s electricity, or something of that sort.”

“Oh hell!” he replied, and leant far out over the rail, staring, “Lord!” he said, for the second time, “what a stink!”

As he spoke, there came a most extraordinary thing; for there sounded a series of heavy reports out of the darkness, seeming in the silence, almost as loud as the sound of small cannon.

“They’re shooting!” shouted a man on the maindeck, suddenly.

The Mate said nothing; only he sniffed violently at the night air. “By Gum!” he muttered, “what is it?”

I put my hand over my nose; for there was a terrible, charnel-like stench filling all the night about us.

“Take my glasses, Duprey,” said the Mate, after a few minutes further watching. “Keep an eye over yonder. I’m going to call the Captain.”

He pushed his way down the ladder, and hurried aft. About five minutes later, he returned forrard with the Captain and the Second and Third Mates, all in their shirts and trousers.

“Anything fresh, Duprey?” asked the Mate.

“No, Sir,” I said, and handed him back his glasses. “The lights have gone again, and I think the mist is thicker. There’s still the sound of running water out there.”

The Captain and the three Mates stood some time along the port rail of the fo’cas’le head, watching through their night-glasses, and listening. Twice the Mate hailed; but there came no reply.

There was some talk, among the officers; and I gathered that the Captain was thinking of investigating.

“Clear one of the life-boats, Mr. Gelt,” he said, at last. “The glass is steady; there’ll be no wind for hours yet. Pick out a half a dozen men. Take ‘em out of either watch, if they want to come. I’ll be back when I’ve got my coat.”

“Away aft with you, Duprey, and some of you others,” said the Mate. “Get the cover off the port life-boat, and bail her out.”

“‘I, ‘i, Sir,” I answered, and went away aft with the others.

We had the boat into the water within twenty minutes, which is good time for a windjammer, where boats are generally used as storage receptacles for odd gear.

I was one of the men told off to the boat, with two others from our watch, and one from the starboard.

The Captain came down the end of the main tops’l halyards into the boat, and the Third after him. The Third took the tiller, and gave orders to cast off.

We pulled out clear of our vessel, and the Skipper told us to lie on our oars for a moment while he took his bearings. He leant forward to listen, and we all did the same. The sound of the running water was quite distinct across the quietness; but it struck me as seeming not so loud as earlier.

I remember now, that I noticed how plain the mist had become—a sort of warm, wet mist; not a bit thick; but just enough to make the night very dark, and to be visible, eddying slowly in a thin vapour round the port side-light, looking like a red cloudiness swirling lazily through the red glow of the big lamp.

There was no other sound at this time, beyond the sound of the running water; and the Captain, after handing something to the Third Mate, gave the order to give-way.

I was rowing stroke, and close to the officers, and so was able to see dimly that the Captain had passed a heavy revolver over to the Third Mate.

“Ho!” I thought to myself, “so the Old Man’s a notion there’s really something dangerous over there.”

I slipped a hand quickly behind me, and felt that my sheath knife was clear.

We pulled easily for about three or four minutes, with the sound of the water growing plainer somewhere ahead in the darkness; and astern of us, a vague red glowing through the night and vapour, showed where our vessel was lying.

We were rowing easily, when suddenly the bow-oar muttered “G’lord!” Immediately afterwards, there was a loud splashing in the water on his side of the boat.

“What’s wrong in the bows, there?” asked the Skipper, sharply.

“There’s somethin’ in the water, Sir, messing round my oar,” said the man.

I stopped rowing, and looked round. All the men did the same. There was a further sound of splashing, and the water was driven right over the boat in showers. Then the bow-oar called out:—“There’s somethin’ got a holt of my oar, Sir!”

I could tell the man was frightened; and I knew suddenly that a curious nervousness had come to me—a vague, uncomfortable dread, such as the memory of an ugly tale will bring, in a lonesome place. I believe every man in the boat had a similar feeling. It seemed to me in that moment, that a definite, muggy sort of silence was all round us, and this in spite of the sound of the splashing, and the strange noise of the running water somewhere ahead of us on the dark sea.

“It’s let go the oar, Sir!” said the man.

Abruptly, as he spoke, there came the Captain’s voice in a roar:—“Back water all!” he shouted. “Put some beef into it now! Back all! Back all!… Why the devil was no lantern put in the boat! Back now! Back! Back!”

We backed fiercely, with a will; for it was plain