CHAPTER XIII.THE GHOST.
Aboutfour o’clock after noon, the look-out man in our foreyard cried:
“Land a-weather bow.”
This put a strange spirit into the mariners, half eager, half fearful; as might be seen from their restless demeanour and furtive converse one with another. And, as it seemed to me, the very ship began to sail faster, straining and leaping, drenching her beakhead. Soon we began to have other warrants than the testimony of the look-out man that land was nigh, tokens in the air and sea: a gaudy landfowl came and perched on a yardarm; a piece of rockweed drove along by the ship’s side.
The sun sank; but the air was clear like crystal, and suddenly a mariner standing in the bows, sang out:
“There it be! There it be! I spies it.”
And immediately I descried the land, as a blue mist, as a cloud no bigger than a man’s hand, close aboard the horizon.
“Ay, there it be! there it be!” cried a score of voices. “There be the island!”
And my brother answered from the quarter-deck:
“Right, my lads! Yonder’s the island! There you’ll make all your fortunes, my jolly boys!”
They gave a great huzza on this; but, as it died away, one called to my brother, saying:
“Begging your pardon, Cap’n, but me and my shipmates be particular curious to know whether what that mad maroon told of had any truth in’t. I means, about there being a ghost on that island!”
But the Captain answered with a great scoff and bluster.
“A ghost on the island!” says he, “Ghost of my grandmother! They do say that there’s a man in the moon; but you can only see the face of him. Now, as touching this man in the moon, what I amparticular curiousto know, is: where hath he his body and his legs?”
This brought much laughter upon that seaman, and stopped his mouth. But Burke nipped my arm; and, when the merry din subsided, he blew it up again.
“Where be his body and his legs, Captain?” roared he. “Why, he hath lent ’em to the ghost on the island!”
Meanwhile the island enlarged itself in our view, and the colour of it changed to purple.
’Twas very long and high. It lay north and south.
Still we made in, and soon towering cliffs appeared, with jagged ridges of hills on the high land.
But now the light began to fade, so that theisland could no longer be seen. Darkness fell apace; and, as it did so, the wind sunk and died quite away. Hereupon, within two miles of the shore, we anchored the ship.
Now, at this time, and, indeed, from a good while previous, we heard from the land a booming sound, which at first we took to be nothing but the clamour of breakers; but Thalass told us it was the voice of a great waterfall from the lofty cliff.
I supped that night with my brother and with Surgeon Burke in the great cabin, and I expected the Captain would speak of his plans. But, on the contrary, he spoke scarce a word, seeming to brood in his mind. Only, having risen from his chair, he told us that he went to give orders for our ports to be opened and our guns run out, new-primed and double-shotted; for, that, though it was unlikely any menace or danger from the island would come up in the night, yet he thought it convenient to be prepared.
I thought my brother was become thinner of late; his face was pale, and had a drawn, grim look; and, though he was yet but young, methought he had gotten grey hairs.
After he had gone, Burke and I sat awhile over the board, talking of the mysterious chances of the morrow; I sayof the morrow, for neither did we anticipate anything to happen during the night.
At last we rose, and went on deck, towards the end of the first watch. There all handswere gathered. They stood most by the starboard bulwarks forward, and in the waist, gazing upon the island, which, the moon being risen, appeared like a shadow on the sea.
They were strangely silent. I became sensible of a tenseness amongst them. If any man spoke, ’twas in a whisper, or scarce more than a whisper; as if terror possessed their minds. And now, no doubt, they recalled, and believed implicitly, every word and dark terrible hint spoken of the Haunted Island by the mad maroon. To make a clean breast, I must confess, I began to be uneasy myself.
The wind was fallen to a flat calm, the sea moved with a sluggish, and yet fitful motion—as if it, too, were uneasy, and affrighted, and unable to sleep. The moon was at the full, yet having none of the extraordinary brightness common in these latitudes, and showing small and dull, as through a veil of crape. It shone upon the ship, and upon the stagnant sea, with a pale dank light, that had mystery in it, and waiting, and devilry.
Suddenly it began to grow darker. Darkness closed in on all sides around like a quivering black curtain. I looked up. As far as eye could see, a thickening layer of cloud closed slowly upon the moon.
The tension increased. All felt that something was about to happen. No man so much as whispered now, or stirred hand or foot; I could hear the beating of my heart. And while we thus stood, the apparition came.
“Hist! Hist! Merciful God!”
It was a shrouded human figure whose stature reached the clouds; and it arose and stood forth upon the shore of the island. The flowing garments of the figure were white like snow, and glistening.
For a moment, it stood motionless; then, as it should seem, a covering fell from the head of it, revealing a visage that sometimes, even now, returns to me in sleep, and is a terror of the midnight, so that I start from that nightmare shaking and gasping, a scream upon my lips!
The eyes of the figure were fixed upon us. We stood like men turned to stone.
There was a little ship’s boy there, and his reason was not of strength to bear it; so that he gave a shriek at that prodigy, and went stark raving mad. And on that, my brother collected himself.
He looked upon the poor crazy lad, and then away again at the horrid thing to starboard; and he rapped out an oath that was one of the pleasantest sounds I ever heard. Then, swinging round upon the horror-struck mariners, “To quarters!” roared he. “To quarters, Wallis! Give it a broadside, the devil’s thing! Smite it in its devil’s face! Give it iron—iron, by thunder!”
And immediately, like men loosed from enchantment, they sprang to life. They stamped upon the deck; they shouted curses and defiance, shaking their clenched fists to the island and theapparition there; and, when the gunners went in a frenzy of haste to their stations, the rest followed them, helping and exhorting them in the work.
Soon all was in readiness, the gunners standing to their pieces, the muzzles of twenty cannon trained upon the Thing, which continued to stand motionless.
And now the command was given. The ship leaped and leaped again as the broadside blazed along, and volume upon volume of cannon-smoke hid all.
We strained our eyes.
Gradually the smoke lifted.The figure was standing as before!
And as that horrid countenance came forth again in view, fixedly looking on us, their terror returned upon the mariners, now come all up on deck again. Dazed with fear, they stood huddled together, every man clinging to his mate.
Suddenly the Captain cried:
“Make sail!” But his voice was shrill and small; and, glancing to starboard, he screamed:
“Haste! haste! Make sail! Cut the cable!”
Again the mariners did his bidding. Gibbering with affright, they swarmed aloft, crowding on sails; whilst one run and hacked through the cable with his hanger.
Suddenly the glimmering light cast by the phantom went out. The figure had disappeared. A cry arose, and the men on the yards and rigging ceased from their panic work.
But only for a moment; and soon every sail was set, and every stitch of canvas got on her that our yards would spread. But there was no wind—no, not so much as to lift an ensign!
But there was a current run very swift to the southward, in a line with the shore, and the ship drove into the path of it, and began to be borne along with it. It carried us about two miles, when it took a turn, swirling gradually round to the shore. Hereupon we let go our sheet-anchor (it was the bower-cable that had been cut); but the bottom would not hold.
Then began the mariners to cry out, saying it was the dreadful phantom did this, putting an influence on the sea; and they did murmur against the Captain, casting baleful glances at him, muttering and whispering one to another, because he had ensnared them and brought them to this place. But he regarded it not, standing motionless, with knit brows.
Suddenly a man, being perfectly beside himself with rage and terror, laid hold on a carpenter’s tool that had been left near him on the deck; and made directly towards the Captain, brandishing the weapon and charging like a maddened bull.
And then, beyond doubt, my brother had miserably perished; but Thalass chanced to be standing by, and, thrusting forth his foot as he passed, he effectually tripped up the infuriated man, so that he stumbled and pitched forward upon the deck. But—and here was a horridthing—the man’s weapon was jerked quite about in his fall, and he fell full upon the point of it, and was pierced through. Whereupon, being in an agony, and quite hopeless of recovery, the Captain shot him dead with his pistol.
Yet was the episode for good one way; for the dreadful sight of it did so control and deaden the hearts of the rest, that they were withheld from mutineering (as, beyond doubt, they had been about to have done), and from murdering the Captain.
The rage and disaffection of the mariners were abated—but not their terror! No whit less eager were they to be gone from this place, and to put many a sea-league betwixt them and the Haunted Island. And, as it came home to them, that, though the darkness concealed it, they drove on still nearer to the island, their panic returned upon them, and they made desperate endeavours to anchor the ship. At last it held—in but ten fathoms water!
Were we, then, gotten in so near to the shore, or was it shoal-water?
We could hear no sound of breakers; but the sea was flat calm, and the clamour of the waterfall still sounded, though less loud. We waited, huddled together like terrified children, peering into the thick darkness.
In that hour, my brother stepped to me, and took me apart beyond hearing of the rest; and, looking upon him, I saw with a pang how grey and old he was become.
He began to speak tense and low.
“Boy,” said he, “take my hand. So. Now say that you forgive me for all.”
But, as I put my hand in his and tried to speak, he looked upon me long and tenderly as he had never looked before, and I think he knew it was the farewell, and that he would not be alive when the night was passed.