[NINTH PRIZE]

Otago Witness, Issue 2332, 10 November 1898, Page 18

[NINTH PRIZE]

(Miss EVse Espinasw, Sydney.)

PROLOGUE,

It Avas Christmas Eve. A dark drizzly night in the city, a cold bleak night out on the lonely sea, a sobbing and Availing night on barren moors and amid the groaning trees. The Avind went whistling doAvn alleys and out to sea till it came to the gaunt lighthouse, looking out Avith a red eye over the waters, and shrieked. " A Merry Christmas," to the lonely watchers Avithin its Avails. The wharves were deserted, and great black masses of mighty ships, Avith only a light here and there at the mast head, swung with many a creak and groan against the pier heads. A figure in streaming oilskins strode down the wharf, the wet boards echoing to his heavy tread. As he approached one of the smaller craft, which strained at its sodden cables like a thing with a voice that complained, a second figure darted out from the shadoAV and confronted him. Man and woman, and the darkness around both. The woman threw back a rain-soaked shawl, and shoAved that she carried a baby in her arms.

"Who are you?" said the man, raising the lantern which he carried so that the light fell upon her face. " Your wife." The man snarled and made as if to pass her roughly. She caught him by the arm. " The child., John." The man tried to pull his arm away, but she folloAved him, clinging to him, and pleading with him. " You are no Avife of mine, and the child is no child of mine."

Still she clung to him, holding up the little fragile form in her arms, as a mute suppliant to plead for her. The man, with an oath, struck at her, and Avrenched himself free. At that moment the sound of the Christmas bells came faintly on the wind. The rain lulled, and the gale hushed itself to listen ; the woman spoke. " When you hear those bells again, John Brent, remember your dying Avife and your dead child. Wherever you are, on sea or land, in storm or fine, their voices Avill make themselves heard. Look to your next Christmas, John Brent ! "

The man tore himself away \vith a curse, and clambering upon the deck of the vessel near which they stood, disappeared doAvn the hatchway. The moon broke through the flying clouds, and its pale light fell upon the gaunt figure of the Avoman, Avhose long, dank hair clung matted and clammy about her pinched, despairing face. And in her arms lay the motionless body of that Avhich had scarce knoAvn the sorroAv of breathing, and had come to its rest ere it kneAv the agony of life.

And the Avind rose again and the rain swept from heaven, and droAvned the last despairing cry of the Avoman as the waters closed over her.

THE STORY. N the year 18 — in the last clays of November, The Jasper, ?■ merchant brig of about 300 tons burden, set sail from Port Phillip bound for Valparaiso. She was making the voyage in ballast, intending to take -i cargo at her destination. Her total complement comprised 13 persons ; and of the&e two were merely working their passages, meaning to leave the ship at Valparaiso. The Jasper was commanded by Captain John Brent, a hard, stern man, who spoke litth, and that little with the gruffness of taciturnity. But he was a good seaman, anJ he and his first mate, Jathom, possessed the entire confidence of the Victorian Company who had fitted out the Jasper upon this commercial speculation. It is important ,<> mention one member of the crew, the cook. He was a Creole, and his name was Volpin. He shipped at the last moment. The posi tion was rendered vacant at the eleventh hour by the arrest of the former occupier of the berth on the warrant of a detective who suddenly appeared on board, and captured

his man on the very verge of safety. Volpin had no credentials, and time did not permit of inquiries; he soon proved tluu he could cook, and he Avas engaged.

So thus manned and commanded, the Jasper clove the Avaters with her creAv, and breasted the sAvell of the ocean in the dusk of a November day.

In about latitude 33deg and longitude lOOdeg she Avas spoken by a Dutch barque, signals Avere exchanged, and the tAvo ships continued on their course. By nightfall the Jasper Avas hull down on the distant horizon, and the Dutchman Avent on

The Jasper i ever armed at Valparaiso, and her OAvners received notice that she Avas overdue five months. Strenuous efforts Avere made to pierce the mystery of her disappearance. Vessels crossing the Avatery path she had taken Avere furnished Avith her description, and a bright lookout Avus kept, but not so much as a spar ot the ill-fated brig Avas ever picked up. She luw. vanished as utterly as though the Avaters had closed over her for ever. Great commiseration Avas felt for the 13 persons Avho had sailed in her, and then, when that unlucky number began to be noticed and commented upon, her disappearance became no longer a matter of Avonder to the superstitious.

And this was the beginning, and the beginning of the end, of the voyage of the Jasper.

In the Aveed-groAvn grave of a pauper*' cemetery lay the Avife and child of Captain John Brent. It Avas scarcely a year sin-'e the Avater police had dragged in the body of a long, gaunt Avoman Avith a little baby clasped tightly to her shruken breasts.

And scarcely a year since husband and wne had met for the last time in this Avorld on that deserted Avharf.

Had the last Christmas bells that Ave-e ever to sound for him rung their message of despair and warning in ihe callous ears of the captain of the Jasper?

A lapse of tAvo years had sufficed to obliterate from the mind of some, and io lender dim in the minds of others, the inexplicable mystery of the lost ship, Avhen the sequel Avas proA r ided in an altogether unexpected manner. An English A r essel, the Condor, encountering more than unusually rough Aveather off Cape Horn, had he' rudder injured, her after bulwarks carried aAvay, and lost tAvo of her sailors oA rerboard. In this condition she Avas driven rapidly toAvards the sou'-Avest. When the tempest abated, and she had reached the calmer Avaters of the South Pacific, the car penter reported 13 inches of Avater in the Avell. The ship Avas hove-to, and instant search made for the leak. It Avas soon found in the forefoot, and stopped without delay.

It Avas Christmas Eve, and a beautiful, calm night, the reaction of the stormy day had breathed Avith the spirit of exhaustion over the face of the deep. The full moon Avas in the heavens, and the sparkle of i*\s glorious light streaked Avith silver the crests of the subsiding Avaves. From horizon -o horizon the peace of angry strength died out, and invested the ocean Avith that aAvful majesty that it alone shares Avith night and desolation. The air was filled Avith those strange yearnings of the fetterless winds returning to their caves in infinity, with those soundless murmurings of the prisonless elements SAveeping back to the arsenal of heaven. Such a night as the mind might picture the sea giving up its dead, Avho, rising to the surface of the waters, would invade the stillness with the wails of the lost.

Here and there a gigantic albatross, the birds which sailors credit with possessing the souls of the drowned, wheeled a long, undulating flight, dipping to the waves,

and then rising to the clouds as if with a message in their beaks.

The Condor had been rolling easily in the swell for some hours ; the men, all aloft and about the decks hard at Avork repairing damages, had been too busy to notice anything outside of their own sphere of employment. Presently the bosuns Avhistle piped, " Spell 0 ! " the men Avent beloAV for their grog, and the deck Avas deserted. In honour ot the season and by reason of the hard Avork they had lately gone through, the alloAvance Avas doubled, and the -lilt of a capstan chanty floated over the quiet sea. It Avas interrupted by a shout from one of the officers Avho had mounted to the deck to assure himself that all Avas right. The men tumbled up and gathered in a group on the foc'sle to behold a strange sight. Scarcely 50 yards aA\ay on the .starboard quarter Avas a derelict vessel. Hei sides A^ere black and encrusted. All her top hamper Avas gone, and only the splintered stumps of her masts remained. Most, of her deck furniture seemed lo haA r e been SAvept away, possibly by seas breaking over her, and the caboose only Avas standing. There A\ere no boats hanging at the daA'its, and only one anchor was at the cachead. She Avas slowly drifting Avith r<n almost imperceptible movement, and no sound proceeded from her save the watri 1 idly lapping her sides. The bosun of the Condor hailed her in a stentorian A r oice, our no ansAvering shout replied, and there was no external sign that she Avas tenanted by human beings.

Partly in the interests of salvage, ami partly to assure himself that there was no unfortunate yet alive aboard the derelict, Captain Garrett ordered a boat to be lowered, and stepping into it with the doctor they were soon speedily roAved alongside of the strange brig. The boat's crew Aveat once round the ship before boarding her, and passing under the stern, saw Avritten there :

THE JASPER, MELBOURNE

" The lost ship ! " explained Captain Garrctt. It may have been the mystery idtaehing to this name, or some indefinable premonition of what they were to discover, but a pause of irresolution, that was almost awe, fell upon them and they rested upon treir oars reading in each other's eyes the foreboding that oppressed them all. Captain Garrett broke the spell by springing into the fore chains and so drawing himself up to the deck, where he was quickly followed by the doctor and two of the men. They noticed that the tarpaulins covei?d the skylights, and that the hatches were on. A very faint but wholly inexplicable aroma pervaded the ship. The four men looked at one another again with that seine of what was to come, formless as yet in their minds, and then with one and thf same impulse they looked across the water to where, from the deck of the gloomy and deserted brig upon which they stood, the Condor, the delicate tracery of her spars and rigging outlined in the moonlight, appeared like a phantom ship. Then Captam Garrett led the way to the companion, and they descended. A moment's hes'ta tion, a moment's doubt of what might lie beyond, and Avith a firm hand, he openpd the cabin door and entered. And than what what a sight met the eyes of thoie intruders there !

Round the cabin table of the Jasper sat i dinner party of six. But, oh ! what a, spectral company. The house of Diomed, buried two thousand years, presented f.o the first searchers no more ghastly sig it than this. Six men had sat dawn to that meal in life, and now only their grizzly skeletons sat, each in his chair, at their Banquo's feast ! Rigid and upright, with eyeless sockets and grinning jaws, those

gruesome six ! At the head of tlir table j sat doubtless Captain Brent, lecognisable ' only by the place Avhich his station entitled j him to assume. A skeleton host and his , skeleton guests !

It Avas a hideous mystery. The taint <'i , corruption and of the resolution of that Wii^u Aye are into that Avhich we must c lay heaAy on the air as though it had been ' a charnel house. The awful process of the grave had gone on day by day, and Aveek by A\eek Avithin the Avooden Avails of this cabin as a coffin. Why had these men lotted there as they sat, till the fles'i peeling from their bones and drying into dust, only the skeleton of Avhat had been a man bent his signtless gaze from " those holes Avhere eyes did once inhabit" upon the A'acancy of nothingness"' Asphyxia? No, for though the port holes Avere closod the bulkhead Avas a foot beloAV the dcclv. Starvation? No, for it could be seen that the table had once been loaded Avith A'ianJs of all kinds. Indeed from appearances the doctor opined that they had been of a richer kind than customary, indicating home meal — the last of Avhich they had evidently partaken — of a special character, such as a. i Christmas dinner, for instance.

Horror-stricken and Avith forebodings vi further evil, Captain Garrett and his companions hurried to the foc'sle, Avhere an exactly similar sight se.,t a shudder through their hearts. Six skeleton foims Avere sitting at meat.

Captain Garrett avus intimately acquainted with all the particulars surrounding the mysterious disappearance of he Jasper tAvo years before, and he noticed that of the 13 aylio had sailed in her only 12 could be accounted for in this ghast'y manner. The Jasper Avas searched by the aid of lanterns from stem to stern, but no trace of the thirteenth man came to lign - , nor could anything be discoA'ered to elucidate the mystery of the skeleton 12. A grizzly blight seemed to have fallen suddenly and Avitheringly on the Avhoie of that ill-omened ship's company, save one, and to have VH them unable to tell their tale, and yet telling dead men's tales that no human tongue could utter.

When Captain Garrett and his com panions returned to the Condor the tidings of their discoA'ery created so profound an impression upon Jack's superstitious mi .id that the majority of both Avatches remained on all night, leaning their arms on the bulAAarks and gazing at the baleful derelict a.< if they feared that the ghosts of her occupants might swoop upon them unaAvaroti. It had been decided that a.« soon as morn

ing afforded sufficient light efforts should he made to take the Jasper in tow, Avith a view to bringing her into port, and uncil then Captain Garrett contented himself with keeping as close to her as safety permitted.

At six bells a strange thing happenel. The sky had once more clouded over and the sea Avas rising. A young sailor, perched in the ratlines, Avas talking to <•* group of his shipmates, and Avaxing sentimental as Jack is more often Avont to do than is usually supposed, over honivj and its associations Avith the Christmas Day that Avas then near its daAvn. Suddenly he started in the shrouds, and putting his hand to his ear, cried out, "My G — d, mates, I can hear the bells aringing ! " The nerA'es of all on board Avere on a tension from the neAvs that had been circulating among them, and fit this every man became rigid and listened intently.

And over the water came the sound of r. bell tolling.

The ghostly hand of the ocean Avas rin^ ing a knell on board the Jasper!

The long swell of the sea had caused her to roll more than usual and the ship's bell, swinging free, rang as she heeled over.

Did John Brent hear that Christmas bell?

An hour later the storm burst with renewed fury, and all on board the Condor Avere too busily engaged making things snug to dAvell am- further on this incident.

When morning broke, grey and misty, the Jasper had once more disappeared. The eye in AramA r ain roved over a bare expanse of ocean ; no A T estige of the doomed ship Avas anywhere to be seen. Her second disapI pearance Avas her last. She and her skelei ton creAv had gone to the bottom of the sea | together. j The voyage of the Jasper Avas ended.

The mystery Avas never entirely cleared up. The neAvs of the strange discoA'ery made by the Condor reviA r ed the Avhoie story, and one peculiar fact came to light. Volpin, the cook, Avho had shipped on board the brig at the last moment Avas suspected to be identical Avith a homicilal lunatic Avho had escaped from an asylum tAvo days befoie the sailing of the Jasper. He had been confined some years before for attempting to poison a ship's company Avith arsenic concealed in the food Avhich he ha.l prepared.

Was this the explanation of the mystery, and Avas it thus the curse had fallen upon the captain of the Jasper?

BY " MARAROA,"

(Mi** Mar ij 11. Poynter, Pomahaka. )