THE DEATH SHIP, A STRANGE STORY;

Otago Witness, Issue 1918, 24 August 1888, Page 29

THE DEATH SHIP, A STRANGE STORY;

An Account of a Cruise in the Flting Dutchman, collected from the papers of the late mr geoffrey Fenton, of Poplar, master mariner.

By W. CLARK RUSSELL, Author of " The Wreck of the Grosvenor," " The Golden Hope," &c, &0..

[ALL EIGHTS RESERVED.]

Chapter XXVI.

We Watch the Ship Approach Us. VIOGBNE and I stood in Bilence for some moments hand in hand ; then finding Van Vogelaar furtively watching us, I quitted her side ; at the same moment Vanderdecken came on deck. Leaning against the rail of the bulwarks as high as my shoulder blade, I quietly waited for what was ,to come, yet with a mind lively with curiosity and expectations. What would Vanderdecken do? What colours would the stranger show ? How would she behave ? What part might I have to take in whatever was to happen ? To be sure the stranger would not be up with us for some while yet, but since breakfast the breeze had slightly freshened, and by the rapid enlargement of those shining heights astern you knew that the wind had but to gather a little more weight to swiftly swirl yonder nimble craft up to within musket shot of this cumbrous, ancient fabric. I looked over the rail, watching the sickly coloured side slipping 'sluggishly through^ the liquid transparent blue, marbled some--times by veins and patches of foam, flung with a sullen indifference of energy from the hewing cut- water, on the top of which there

projected a great beak, where yet lingered the rerdains of a figurehead that I had some' time before made out to represent a Hercules, frowning down upon the sea with uplifted arms, as though in the act of smiting with a club. It was easy to guess that this ship had kept the seas for some months since careening, by observing the shell-fish bslow her water-line, and the strings of black and green weed she lifted with every roll. But, uncouth as was the fabric, gaunt as her aged furniture made her decks appear, inconvenient and ugly as was her rig, exhibiting a hundred signs of the primitiveness in naval construction of the age to which she belonged, yet, when I lifted my eyes from the water to survey her, 'twas not without a sentiment of veneration beyond the power of the horror the supernaturalism of her crew, raised in me to correct. For was it not by such ships as this that the great and opulent islands and continents of the world had been discovered and laid open as theatres for pro.sperity to act dazzling in ? Was it not with such ships as this that battles were fought, the courage,' audacity, skill, and fierce^determination exhibited which many latter conflicts may indeed parallel, but never in one single instance surpass ? Was it not by such ships as this that the great Protector raised the name of Britain to such a height as exceeds all we read of in the history of ancient or modern nations ? What braver admirals, more skilful soldiers, more valiant captains, stouter-hearted mariners, have flourished than those whose cannon flamed in thunder from the sides of such ships as this ? The time passed ; at the hour of 11 or thereabouts the hull of the ship astern was visible upon the water-line. The breeze had freshened, and the long heave of the swell' left by the gale was whipped into wrinkles, which sielted into a creamy sparkling as they ran. Under the sun, upon our starboard bow, the ocean was kindled into glory ; through the trembling splendour the blue of the sea surged up in fluctuating veins, and the conflict of the sapphire dye welling up into the liquid dazzle, where it showed an instant ere being overwhelmed by the blaze on the water, was a spectacle of beauty worthy of life-long remembrance. Elsewhere, the crisped plain of the ocean stretched darker then the heavens, under which were many clouds, moving with full, white bosoms like the sails of ships, carrying tinted shinings resembling wind-galls, or fragments of solar rainbows, upon their shoulders or skirts, as they happened to offer them to the sun.

By this time you felt the stirring of curiosity throughout the ship. Whatever jobs the crew had been put to they now neglected, that they might hang over the .sides or stand upon the rail to watch and study the ship astern of us. Many had an avidity in their stare that could not have been matched by the looks of famine-stricken creatures. Whether they were visited by some dim sense or perception of their frightful lot and yearned, out of .this weak emotion, for the ship in pursuit, albeit they might not have been able to make their wishes intelligible to their own understandings, God knoweth. 'Twas moving to see them ; one' with the sharp of his hand to his forehead, another fixedly gazing out of a tangle of grey hair, a third showing fat and ghastly to the sunlight, a fourth with black eyes charged with the slate-coloured patches of blindness, straining his imperfect gaze under a bald brow, corrugated into lines as hard as iron. Vanderdecken had left Imogene and stood on the weather quarter with the mate. The girl being alone, I walked aft to her and said in English, feigning to speak of the weather by looking aloft as I spoke, " I have held aloof long enough, I .think. He will not object if I join you now ? " "No — his head is full of that ship yonder," she replied. " For my part, lam as weary of sitting as you must be of standing. Let us walk a little. He has never objected to our conversing. Why should he do so now ? " So saying she rose. Her sheer weariness of being alone, or of talking to Vanderdecken, was too much for her policy of caution. We fell to quietly pacing the poop deck to lee 7 ward, and with a most keen and exquisite delight I could taste in her manner the gladness our being together filled her with, and foresee the spirit of defiance to danger and risks that would grow in her with the growth of our love.

No notice was taken of us. The eyes and thoughts of all were directed to the ship. From time to time Vanderdecken or Van Vogelaar would inspect her through the glass. Presently Antony Arents and Jaiis, the boatswain, joined them, and the four conversed as though the captain had called a council.

" She is picking us up very fast," said I to Imogene, whilst we stood awhile looking at the vessel. " I should not like to swear to her nationality ; but that she is an armed ship, whether French, or Dutch, or English, is as certain as that she has amazingly lively heels."

" How white her sails are, and how high they rise ! " exclaimed Imogene. " She leans more sharply than we." " Ay," said I, "she shows twice our number of cloths. Is it not astonishing," I continued, softening my voice, "that Vanderdecken, and his mates and men, should rot guess that there is something very wrong with them, from the mere contrast of such beautifully cut and towering canvas as that yonder with the scanty, storm-darkened rags of sails under which this groaning old hull is driven along ? " " Yes, at least to you and me, who have the faculty of appreciating contrasts. But think of them as deficient in all qualities but those which are necessary foi the execution of the sentence. Then their heedlessness is that of a blind man who remains insensible to the pointing of your finger to the object you speak to himabout."

" Would to God you and I were quit of it all," said I. "We must pray for help, and hope for it, too!" she answered, with a swift glance at me, that for a breathless moment carried Hie violet beauty and shining depths of her eyes fair to mine. An instant's meeting 1 of bur gaze only! Yet I could see her heart in that rapid, fearless, trustful look, as the depth of the heavens is revealed by a flash of 'summer lightning. Suddenly Vanderdecken gave orders for the ensign to be hoisted. The boatswain entered tbe little house, and returned with the flag, ■which he bent on to the halliards

rove at the mizen-topmast head. " Thecolours mounted slowly to his mechanical polling, and they were worthy indeed of the and-alive hand that hoisted them : being as ragged and attenuated with age as any banner hung high in the dusty gloom of a cathedral. But the flag was distinguishable as the Hollander's ensign, as you saw whenit crazily streamed out its fabric, that was so thin in places you thought you spied the sky through it. One should say it was "a flag seldom flown on board the Dutchman, to judge from the manner in which the crew cast their eyes up at it, never a orie of" them smiling, indeed, though here and there tinder the death-pallor there lay a sort of crumbling of the flesh, as of a grin. 'Twas a flag to drive thoughts of home deep into them, and now and again I would catch one muttering to another behind his hand; whilst the most of them continued to steadfastly regard the ensign for many minutes after Jans had mastheaded it, as though they "fancied home could not be far distant with that flag telling of it. " . , '