THE DEATH SHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9097, 4 July 1888, Page 3

THE DEATH SHIP.

[NOW FIRST PUBLISHED.]

A STRANGE STORY.* AN ACCOUNT of a CRUISE in THE flying DUTCHMAN, COLLECTED FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MR. GEOFFREY FENTON, OF POPLAR, MASTER MARINER BY W. CLARKE RUSSELL,' Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor,, • " The Golden Hope," &c., &c., [All Rights Reserved.] SYNOPSIS OF PREVIOUS CHAPTERS' CHAPTER X. TO IV.The narrator of the story is Geoffry Fenton, from whose papers it is collectedHe tells how he sails as second mate in the Saracen, under Captain Skevington. They "speak" the "Lovely Nancy," near the Equator, and the captain, Samuel Bullock, of Rotherhithe, tells Captain Skevington of having seen the Phantom Ship, which seemed to be under the command of a tall man with a great beard, and with a face as of a man who had died and when dug up resumed his death-bed aspect. He warns him against the ship as a spectre to be shunned. Chapters V. to VII.— the Saracen approaches Table Bay, Captain Skevington speaks to teuton in a depressed, superstitious way of the Phantom Ship, and fears that they will meet her. After encountering some rough vreather, during which the carpenter bleaks his leg, Fenton has a conversation with him as to the phenomenon, and as to speaking with the Lovely Nancy which had seen the Flying Dutchman. The carpenter is greatly unnerved by the narration, and says, " I never yet knew or heard of a ship reporting to another of having met the Dutchman without the other meeting the Ghost too afore sho's ended her voyage." CHAPTER VIII. A TRAGICAL DEATH. For some time after I had relieved the deck, as it is termed, that is to say, after the mate had gone below and left me in charge, I had the company of the Captain, who' seemed restless and troubled, often quitting my side as we paced, to go to the rail and view the horizon with the air of a man perturbed by expectation. I need nob tell you that I did not breathe a word to him respecting my talk with the carpenter, not even to the extent of saying how fancies about the Dutchman were flying about among the crew, for this subject he wag in no state of mind to be brought into. The moon was rising a little before he joined me, and we stood in silence watching her. She jutted up a very sickly faint red, that brightened but a little after she lifted her lower limb clear of the horizon, and when we had the full of her plain we perceived her strangely distorted by the atmosphere the shape— shape it can be called—of a rotten orange that has been squeezed, or of a turtle's egg lightly pressed ; she was more like a blood-coloured jelly distilled by the sky, ugly and even affrighting, than the sweet ice-cold planet that empearl3 the world at night, and whose delicate silver the lover delights to behold in his sweetheart's eyes. But she grew more shapely as she soared, though holding a dusky blush for a much longer time than ever I had noticed in her when rising off the midAfrican main ; and her wake, broken by the small, black curl of the breeze, hung in broken indissoluble lumps of feverish light, like coagulated gore that had dropped from the wound she looked to be in the dark sky. There was a faintness in the heavens that closed out the sparkles of the farther stars, and but a few, and those only of the greatest magnitude, were visible, shining in several colours, such as dim pink and green and wan cystal; all of which, together with one or two of them above our mastheads, dimly glittering amidst feeble rings, made the whole appearance of the night amazing and even ghastly enough to excite a feeling of awe in the attention it compelled. The Captain spoke not a word whilst the moon slowly floated into the dusk ; and then, fetching a deep breath, he said : " Weil, thank God, if she don't grow round it's because of the shadow on her. Keep a bright look-out, Mr. Fenton, and hold the ship to her course. Should the wind fail, call me—and call me too if it should head us."

With which he walked quietly to- the hatch, stood there a moment or two with his hand upon it and his face looking up as though he studied the trim of the yards, and then disappeared. - - . As the night wore on the moon gathered her wonted hue and shape, though her refulfence was small, for the air thickened. Indeed, at half-past ten all the lights of Heaven, saving the moon, had been put out by a mist, the texture of which was ill us. trated by the only luminary the sky contained, around whose pale expiring disc there was now a great halo, with something of the character of a lunar rainbow in the very delicate, barely determinable tinctures, which made a sort of shadowy prism, of it, more like what one would dream of than see. The ocean lay very black, there was no power in the moon to cast a wake, the breathings of the wind rippled the water and caused a scintillation of the spangles of the phosphorous or sea-fire, the weight of the lower sails kept them hanging up and down, and whatmotion theshipnad wasfrom the swelling of the light canvas that-rose very pale and ghostly into the gloom. I had gone to the taffrail and was staring there away into the dark, whither our short wake streamed in a sort of smouldering cloudiness with particles ox fire in it, conceiving that the wind was failing, and waiting to make sure before reporting to the Captain, when I was startled by the report of a musket or some small arm that broke upon my ear with a muffled sound, so that whence it came I could not conceive. Yet for some minutes I felt so persuaded the noise had been seawards that, spite of there having been no flash, I stood peering hard into toe dark, first one side then the other, far as the sails would suffer me.

Then, but all very quickly, concluding that the explosion had happened aboard ana might betokeu mischief, I ran along the deck where, close against the wheel, I found a number of seamen talking hurriedly and in alarmed voices. I called out to know what the noise had been. None knew. One said it had come from the sea, another that there had been a small explosion in the hold, and a third was giving his opinion, when at that instant a figure darted out of the companion hatch, clothed in his shirt and drawers, and cried out : "Mr. Fenton! Mr. Fenton ! For God's sake, where are you 1" I recognised the voice of Mr. Hall, and bawled back, "Here, sir !" and ran to him. He grasped my arm. " The Captain has shot himself !" he exclaimed. " Where is he ?" said I.

"In his cabin," he answered. We rushed down together. The great cabin, where we messed, was in darkness, but a light shone in the captain's berth. The door was open, and gently swung with the motion of the ship. I pushed in, but instantly recoiled with horror, for, right athwart the deck, lay the body of Captain Skevington, but with the top of his head blown away. It needed but one glance to know that he had done this thing with his own hand. He had fired the piece with his foot by a string attached to the trigger, standing upward with his brow bent to the muzzle, for the bight of the string was round his shoe, and he had fallen sideways, grasping the barrel. The sight froze me to the marrow. Had I killed him by accident with my own hand I could not have trembled more. But this exquisite distress was short-lived. It was only needful to look at his head to discover how fruitless would be the task of examining him for any signs of life. Some of the seamen who heard Mr. Hall cry out to me about this thing had followed us below, forgetting their place in the consternation roused in them, and stood in the doorway faintly groaning and muttering exclamations of pity. Mr. Hall bid a couple of them raise the body and lay it in its bunk and cover it with a sheet, and others he sent for water and a swab wherewith to cleanse the place. "You had better go on deck again, Fenton," says he to me; "the ship must be watched. I'll join you presently." I was glad to withdraw ; for albeit there was a ghastliness in the look of the night, the sea being black as ebony, though touched here and there with little sheets of fire, and stretching like a pall to its horizon that was drawing narrower and murkier around us minute after minute, with the wing-like shadow of vapour that was yet too thin to deserve the name of fog ; though there was this ghastliness, I say, aided by the moon that was now little more than a dim, tarnished blotch of shapeless silver, wanly ringed with an ashen cincture, yet the taste of the faint breeze was as helpful to my spirits as a dram of generous cordial after the atmosphere of the cabin in which I had beheld the remains of Captflin Skevington.

* The Proprietors of the New Zealand Herald have purchased the sole right to iiubliilitliia story in the North Island of New Zealand.

CHAPTER IX. MR. HALL HARANGUES THE CREW. The news had spread quickly ; the watch below had roused out and most of the men were on deck, and they moved about in groups striving to find out all about the suicide. , . „ Presently Mr. Hall arrived on deck, fully dressed, and stepping over to where I stood in deep thought, exclaimed : " Did you nave a suspicion that the captain designed this fearful act ?" _ ; _ "No, not a shadow of suspicion, I answered. " 'Tis enough to make one believe he was not far out when he talked of the ill-luck he expected from speaking a craft that bad sighted Vanderdecken, said he, very uneasily, which made me see how strong was the blow his nerves had received ; and running his eyes restlessly over the water here and there, as I might tell by the dim sparkle the faint moon-haze kindled in them. " Oh, but," he continued, as if dashing aside his fancies, " the mere circumstance of his being so superstitious ought to explain the act. I have often thought there was a vein of madness in him." "I never questioned that," I replied. " 'Tis an ugly-looking night,' said he, with a little trembling running through him ; " there is some menace of foul weather. We shall lose this faint air presently." He shivered again and said, "Such a sight as that below is enough to make a Hell of a night of midsummer beauty! It is the suddenness of it that seizes upon the imagination ! Why, d'ye know, Fenton, I'd give a handful of guineas, poor as I am, for a rousing galeanything to blow my mind to its bearings, for here's a sort of business," looking aloft, " that's fit to suffocate the heart in your breast." Such words, in so plain and literal a man, made me perceive how violently he had been wrenched. I begged his leave to go below and fetch him a glass of liquor. " No, no*," said he, " not yet, anyhow. I must speak to those fellows there. Saying which he walked a little distance forward, calling for the boatswain. On that officer answering, he said, " Are all hands on deck ?"

" I believe most of the crew are on deck, sir," replied the boatswain. " Pipe all hands," said Mr. Hall. The clear keen whistling rose shrill to the sails and made as blythe a sound as could have been devised for the cheering of us up. The men gathered quickly, some lanthorns were fetched, and in the light of them stood the crew near to the round-house. Mr. Hall made a brief speech. He explained to the men how on hearing the report of a musket he had sprung from his bed, and perceiving powder-smoke leaking through the openings of the door of the captain's cabin, through which some rays of light streamed, he entered, and seeing the body of the captain, and the horrid condition of the head, was filled with a panic, and rushed on deck. That the master had shot himself was certain, but there was no help for what had happened. The command of the ship fell upon him ; but it was for them to say whether he should navigate the ship to her destination, or carry her back to Table Bay, where a fresh commander could be obtained.

He was very well liked on board, being an excellent seaman ; and the crew, on hearing this, immediately answered that they wanted no better master to sail under than he, and that, indeed, they would not consent to a change; but having said this with a heartiness that pleased me, for I liked Mr. Hall greatly myself, and was extremely glad to find the crew so well disposed, they fell into an awkward silence, broken after a little by some hoarse whisperings. " What now ?" says Mr. Hall. "Why, sir," answers the boatswain, respectfully, " it's this with the men : there's a notion among us that that there Plymouth snow has brought ill-luck to the ship, one bad specimen of which has just happened ; and the feeling is that we had better return to Table Bay, so as to get the influence worked out of the old barkey." " How is that to be done?", says Mr. Hall, coming easily into the matter, partly because of his shaken nerves, and partly because of the kindness he felt towards the hands for the way they had received his address to them.

Here there was another pause, and then the boatswain, speaking somewhat shyly, said :

" The carpenter, who's heard tell more about the Phantom Ship and the spell she lays on vessels than all hands of us put together, says that the oply way to work out of a ship's timbers the ill-luck that's been put into them by what's magical and hellish, is for a minister of religion to come aboard, call all hands to prayer, and ask of the Lord a blessing on the ship. He says there's no other way of purifying of her." " Can't we pray ourselves for a blessing 1" says Mr. Hall. The boatswain not quickly answering, a sailor says, "It needs a man who knows how to pray—who's acquainted with the right sort of words to use." "Aye," cried another, "and whose calling is religion." Mr.; Hall half-turned, as if he would address me, then checking himself, he said, "Well, my lads, there's no wind now, and Small promise of any. Suppose we let this matter ■ rest till to-morrow morning ; Mr. Fenton and I will talk it over, and you forward can turn it about in your minds. I believe we shall be easier when the Captain's buried and the sun's up, and then we might agree it would be a pity to put back after the tough job we've had to get where we are. But lest you should still be all of one mind on this matter in the morning, we'll keep the ship, should wind come, under small sail, so as to make no headway worth speaking of during the night. Is that to your fancy men?" They all said it was, and thereupon went forward, but I noticed that those who were off duty did not offer to go below ; they joined the watch on the forecastle, and I could hear them in earnest talk, their voices trembling through the stillness like the humming of a congregation in church following the parson's reading. Mr. Hall came to my side and wo walked the deck.

" I am sorry the men have gob that notion of this ship being under a spell," said he. "This is no sweet time of the year in these seas ; to put back will, I daresay, be only to anger the weather that's now quiet enough, and there's always the risk of falling into Dutch hands." I told him of my talk with the carpenter, and said that I could not be surprised the crew were alarmed, for the old fellow had the devil's own knack of putting his fancies in an alarming way.

" I laughed at some of his fancies," said I, " but I don't mind owning that I quitted his cabin so dulled in my spirits by his talk that I might have come from a deathbed for all the heart there v/as in me."

" Well, things must take their chance," said Mr. Hall. " I'll speak to the carpenter myself in the morning, and afterwards to the men ; and if they are still wishful that the ship should return to Table Bay, we'll sail her there. 'Tis all one to mo. I'd liefer have a new captain over me than be one."

We continued until five bells to walk to and fro the deck, talking about the Captain's suicide, the strangeness of it as following his belief that ill-luck had come to the ship from the Plymouth vessel,, with other such matters as would be suggested by our situation and the tragedy in the cabin ; and Mr. Hall then said he would go below for a glass of ruin ; but he refused to lie down, though I offered to stand an hour of his watcli—that is, from midnight till one o'clockfor he said he should not be able to sleep.

Most of the crew continued to hang about the forecastle, which rescued the deck from the extreme loneliness I had found in it ere the report of the fatal musket startled all hands into wakefulness and movement. The lanthorns had been carried away and the ship was plunged in darkness. There still blew a very light air, so gentle that you needed to wet your finger and hold it up to feel it. From the darkness aloft fell the delicate sounds of the higher canvas softly drumming the masts to the very slight rolling of the ship. I went to the binnacle and found that the vessel was heading her course, and then stepped to the rail, upon which I sob my elbows, leaning my chin in my hands, and in that posture fell athinking. CHAPTER X. WE DRAW CLOSE TO A STUANGE AND LUMINOUS SHIP. Now, I might have stood thus for ten minutes, when I was awakened from my dream by an eager, feverish muttering of 1 voices forward, and on a sudden the harsh

notes of a seaman belonging to my watch cried out, "D'ye see that sail, right broad abeam, sir?" , I sprang from my leaning posture, and peered, but my eyes were heavy ; the night was dark, and whilst I stared several of the sailors came hurriedly aft to where I stood, and said, all speaking together : " There —see her, sir? Look yonder, Mr. Fenton !" and their arms, to a man, shot out to point, as if everyone levelled a pistol. Though I could not immediately make out the object, I was not surprised by the consternation the sailors were in ; for such was the mood and temper of the whole company that not the most familiar and Erosaic "craft that floats on the ocean could ave broken through the obscurity of the night upon their gaze without tickling their superstitious instincts till the very hair of their heads crawled to the inward motions. In a few moments, sure enough, I made out the loom of what looked a large ship, out on tbe starboard beam. As well as I could distinguish she was close hauled, and so standing as to pass under our stern. She made a sort of faintness upon the sea and sky where she was; nothing more. And even to be sure of her, it was necessary to look a little on one side or the other of her; for if you gazed full she went out, as a dim distant light at sea does, thuf viewed. "She may be an enemy!" I cried, "There should be no lack of Dutch, or even French, hereabouts. Quick, lads, to stations. Send the boatswain here."

I ran to the companion hatch and called loudly to Mr. HalL Ho had fallen asleep on a locker, and came running in a blind sort of a way to the foot of the ladder, shouting out: '' \\ hat is it ? What is it?"

I answered that there was a large ship heading directly for us, whereupon he was instantly wide awake, and sprang up the ladder crying : " Where away ? Where away ?" If there was any wind I could feel none. Yet some kind of draught there must have been, for the ship out in the darkness held a brave luff, which proved her under command. We, on the other hand, rested upon the liquid ebony of the ocean with square yards, the mizzen furled, the starboard clew of the mainsail hoisted, and the greater number of our staysails down. Whilst Mr. Hall stared in the direction of the ship the boatswain arrived for orders. The mate turned smartly to me and said : "We must make ready and take our chance. Bos'n, pipe to quarters; and, Mr. Fenton, see all clear." For the second time in my watch the boatswain's pipe shrilled clear to the canvas, from whose stretched, still folds the sounds broke away in ghostly echoes. We were not a man-of-war, had not drums, and to martial duties we could but address ourselves clumsily. But all felt that there might be a great danger in the pale shadow yonder that seemed to ooze out upon our eyes from the darkness as strangely as a cloud shapes itself upon a mountain-top. So we tumbled about quickly and wildly enough % got our little batteries clear, put on the hatch-gratings and tarpaulins, opened the magazine, lighted the matches, provided the guns with spare breeches and tackles, and stood ready for whatever was to come. All this we contrived with the aid of one or two lan thorns, very secretly moved about, as Mr. Hall did not wish us to be seen making ready ; but the want of light delayed us, and by the time we were fully prepared, the strange ship had insensibly floated down to about three-quarters of a mile on our starboard quarter. At that distance it was too black to enable us to make anything of her, but we comforted ourselves by observing that she did not offer to alter her course, whence we might reasonably hope that she was a peaceful trader like ourselves. She showed no lights—her sails were all that was visible of her, owing to the hue they put into the darkness over her hull. It was a time of heavy trial to our patience. Our ship had come to a dead stand, as it was easy to discover by looking over the side, where the small, pale puffs of phosphoric radiance that flashed under water at tne depth of a man's hand from our vessel's strakes whenever she rolled, no matter how daintily, to the swell, hung glimmering for a space in the selfsame spot where they were discharged. Nor was there the least sound of water in motion under the counter, unless it were the gurgling, drowning sobbing you hear there on a still night, when the stern stoops to the drop of the fold, and raises that strange, hollow noise of washing all about the rudder.

" I would to mercy a breeze would come, if only to resolve her?" said Mr. Hall to me in a low voice. " There's but little fun to be got out of this sort of waiting. At this rate we must keep the men at their stations till daylight to find out what she is. Pleasant if she should prove some lump of a Dutch man-of-war ! She shows uncommonly large, don't you think, Fenton ?" "So do we to her, I dare say, in this obscurity," I replied. " But I doubt that she's a man-of-war. I have been watching her closely and have never once caught sight of the least gleam of a light aboard her."

" Maybe the officer of the watch and the look-out are sound asleep," said he, with a slight and not very merry laugh ; " and if she's steered on her quarter-deck she'll be too deep-waisted perhaps for the helmsman to see us." I heard him say this without closely heeding it, for my attention at that moment was attracted by what was unquestionably the enlargement of her pallid shadow 5 sure proof that she had shifted her helm, and was slowly coming round so as to head for us. Mr. Hall noticed thjs as well as I.

"Ha !" he cried, "they mean to find out what we are, hey ? They've observed us at last. Does she bring an air with her that she's under control, or is it that she's lighter and tailor than wo ?" It was beyond question because she was lighter and taller, and having been closehauled to the faint draught, had made more of it than we who carried it aft. Besides, we were loaded down to our chain-plate bolts with cargo, and the water and other stores we had shipped at the Cape. Yet her approach was so sluggish as to be imperceptible, and I would not like to say that our gradual drawing together was not as much due to the current which, off this coast, runs strong to the westward, setting us, who were doep, faster 'towards her than it set her from us, as it was also owing to the strange attraction which brings becalmed vessels near to each other— indeed, to their having to be towed clear by their boats. Meanwhile, the utter silence on board the stranger, the blackness in which her hull lay hidden, the strangeness of her bracingin her yards to head up for us without any signal being shown that she designed to fight us, wrought such a fit of impatience in Mr. Hall that he swung his body from the backstay he clutched in movements positively convulsive. "Are they all dead aboard? On such a night as this one should be able to hear the least sound—the hauling taught of a tackle —the rasping of the wheel-rope !" "She surely doesn't hope to catch us napping ?" said I. "God knows!" cried the mate. "What would I give now for a bit of moon !" "If it's to be a fight it'll have to be a shooting match for a spell, or wind must come quickly," said I. " But if she meant mischief, wouldn't she head to pass under our stern, where she could rake us, rather than steer to come broadside on ?"

Instead of responding, the mate sprang on to the bulwark rail, and in tones such as only the practiced and powerful lungs of a seaman can fling, roared out: " Ho, the ship, ahoy !" We listened with so fierce a strain of attention that the very beating of our hearts rung in our ears ; but not a sound came across the water. Twice yet did Mr. Hall hail that pallid fabric, shapeless as yet in the dark air, but to no purpose. On this there was much whispering among the men clustered about the guns. Their voices came along in a low, grumbling sound, like the growling of dogs, dulled by threats. " Silence, fore and aft! cried the mate. " Wo don't know what she is—but we know what wo are ! and, as Englishmen, we surely have spirit enough for whatever may come."

There was silence for some minutes after these few words ; then the muttering broke out afresh, but scattered, a group talking to larboard, another on the forecastle, and so forth.

Meanwhile the vessels, all insensibly, had continued to draw closer and closer to each other. A small clarification of the atmosphere happening past the stranger, suffered a dim disclosure of her canvas, whence I perceived that she had nothing son above her topgallant sails, though it was impossible to see whether she carried royal masts,

or indeed whether the yards belonging to those masts were crossed on them. Her hull had now also stolen out into a pitch-black shadow, and after gazing at it with painful intentness for some moments, I was extravagantly astonished to observe a kind of crawling and flickering of light, resembling that which burnt in the sea, stirring like glow-worms along the vessel's side. I was about to direct Mr. Hall's attention to this thing, when he said in a subdued voice, " Fenton, d'ye notice the faint shining about her hull ? What in God's name can it be !"

Scarcely had he uttered these words when a sailor on the starboard side of our ship, whom I recognised by the voice as one Ephraim Jacobs, an elderly, sober, pious minded seaman, cried out with a sorb of scream in his notes :

"As I hope to be forgiven my sins for Jesus' sake, yon's the ship that was curst last century !" [To be continued.]