Chapter 14: The Ghost Ships

At four o’clock, when again we went on deck, the Second Mate told me to go on with a paunch mat I was making; while Tammy, he sent to get out his sinnet. I had the mat slug on the fore side of the mainmast, between it and the after end of the house; and, in a few minutes, Tammy brought his sinnet and yarns to the mast, and made fast to one of the pins.

“What do you think it was, Jessop?” he asked, abruptly, after a short silence.

I looked at him.

“What do you think?” I replied.

“I don’t know what to think,” he said. “But I’ve a feeling that it’s something to do with all the rest,” and he indicated aloft, with his head.

“I’ve been thinking, too,” I remarked.

“That it is?” he inquired.

“Yes,” I answered, and told him how the idea had come to me at my dinner, that the strange men-shadows which came aboard, might come from that indistinct vessel we had seen down in the sea.

“Good Lord!” he exclaimed, as he got my meaning. And then for a little, he stood and thought.

“That’s where they live, you mean?” he said, at last, and paused again.

“Well,” I replied. “It can’t be the sort of existence we should call life.”

He nodded, doubtfully.

“No,” he said, and was silent again.

Presently, he put out an idea that had come to him.

“You think, then, that that--vessel has been with us for some time, if we’d only known?” he asked.

“All along,” I replied. “I mean ever since these things started.”

“Supposing there are others,” he said, suddenly.

I looked at him.

“If there are,” I said. “You can pray to God that they won’t stumble across us. It strikes me that whether they’re ghosts, or not ghosts, they’re blood-gutted pirates.

“It seems horrible,” he said solemnly, “to be talking seriously like this, about--you know, about such things.”

“I’ve tried to stop thinking that way,” I told him. “I’ve felt I should go cracked, if I didn’t. There’s damned queer things happen at sea, I know; but this isn’t one of them.”

“It seems so strange and unreal, one moment, doesn’t it?” he said. “And the next, you know it’s really true, and you can’t understand why you didn’t always know. And yet they’d never believe, if you told them ashore about it.”

“They’d believe, if they’d been in this packet in the middle watch this morning,” I said.

“Besides,” I went on. “They don’t understand. We didn’t ... I shall always feel different now, when I read that some packet hasn’t been heard of.”

Tammy stared at me.

“I’ve heard some of the old shellbacks talking about things,” he said. “But I never took them really seriously.”

“Well,” I said. “I guess we’ll have to take this seriously. I wish to God we were home!”

“My God! so do I,” he said.

For a good while after that, we both worked on in silence; but, presently, he went off on another tack.

“Do you think we’ll really shorten her down every night before it gets dark?” he asked.

“Certainly,” I replied. “They’ll never get the men to go aloft at night, after what’s happened.”

“But, but--supposing they ordered us aloft--” he began.

“Would you go?” I interrupted.

“No!” he said, emphatically. “I’d jolly well be put in irons first!”

“That settles it, then,” I replied. “You wouldn’t go, nor would any one else.”

At this moment the Second Mate came along.

“Shove that mat and that sinnet away, you two,” he said. “Then get your brooms and clear up.”

“i, i, Sir,” we said, and he went on forrard.

“Jump on the house, Tammy,” I said. “And let go the other end of this rope, will you?”

“Right” he said, and did as I had asked him. When he came back, I got him to give me a hand to roll up the mat, which was a very large one.

“I’ll finish stopping it,” I said. “You go and put your sinnet away.”

“Wait a minute,” he replied, and gathered up a double handful of shakins from the deck, under where I had been working. Then he ran to the side.

“Here!” I said. “Don’t go dumping those. They’ll only float, and the Second Mate or the Skipper will be sure to spot them.”

“Come here, Jessop!” he interrupted, in a low voice, and taking no notice of what I had been saying.

I got up off the hatch, where I was kneeling. He was staring over the side.

“What’s up?” I asked.

“For God’s sake, hurry!” he said, and I ran, and jumped on to the spar, alongside of him.

“Look!” he said, and pointed with a handful of shakins, right down, directly beneath us.

Some of the shakins dropped from his hand, and blurred the water, momentarily, so that I could not see. Then, as the ripples cleared away, I saw what he meant.

“Two of them!” he said, in a voice that was scarcely above a whisper. “And there’s another out there,” and he pointed again with the handful of shakins.

“There’s another a little further aft,” I muttered.

“Where?--where?” he asked.

“There,” I said, and pointed.

“That’s four,” he whispered. “Four of them!”

I said nothing; but continued to stare. They appeared to me to be a great way down in the sea, and quite motionless. Yet, though their outlines were somewhat blurred and indistinct, there was no mistaking that they were very like exact, though shadowy, representations of vessels. For some minutes we watched them, without speaking. At last Tammy spoke.

“They’re real, right enough,” he said, in a low voice.

“I don’t know,” I answered.

“I mean we weren’t mistaken this morning,” he said.

“No,” I replied. “I never thought we were.”

Away forrard, I heard the Second Mate, returning aft. He came nearer, and saw us.

“What’s up now, you two?” he called, sharply. “This isn’t clearing up!”

I put out my hand to warn him not to shout, and draw the attention of the rest of the men.

He took several steps towards me.

“What is it? what is it?” he said, with a certain irritability; but in a lower voice.

“You’d better take a look over the side, Sir,” I replied.

My tone must have given him an inkling that we had discovered something fresh; for, at my words, he made one spring, and stood on the spar, alongside of me.

“Look, Sir,” said Tammy. “There’s four of them.”

The Second Mate glanced down, saw something and bent sharply forward.

“My God!” I heard him mutter, under his breath.

After that, for some half-minute, he stared, without a word.

“There are two more out there, Sir,” I told him, and indicated the place with my finger.

It was a little time before he managed to locate these and when he did, he gave them only a short glance. Then he got down off the spar, and spoke to us.

“Come down off there,” he said, quickly. “Get your brooms and clear up. Don’t say a word!--It may be nothing.”

He appeared to add that last bit, as an afterthought, and we both knew it meant nothing. Then he turned and went swiftly aft.

“I expect he’s gone to tell the Old Man,” Tammy remarked, as we went forrard, carrying the mat and his sinnet.

“H’m,” I said, scarcely noticing what he was saying; for I was full of the thought of those four shadowy craft, waiting quietly down there.

We got our brooms, and went aft. On the way, the Second Mate and the Skipper passed us. They went forrard too by the fore brace, and got up on the spar. I saw the Second point up at the brace and he appeared to be saying something about the gear. I guessed that this was done purposely, to act as a blind, should any of the other men be looking. Then the Old Man glanced down over the side, in a casual sort of manner; so did the Second Mate. A minute or two later, they came aft, and went back, up on to the poop. I caught a glimpse of the Skipper’s face as he passed me, on his return. He struck me as looking worried--bewildered, perhaps, would be a better word.

Both Tammy and I were tremendously keen to have another look; but when at last we got a chance, the sky reflected so much on the water, we could see nothing below.

We had just finished sweeping up when four bells went, and we cleared below for tea. Some of the men got chatting while they were grubbing.

“I ‘ave ‘eard,” remarked Quoin, “as we’re goin’ ter shorten ‘er down afore dark.”

“Eh?” said old Jaskett, over his pannikin of tea.

Quoin repeated his remark.

“‘oo says so?” inquired Plummer.

“I ‘eard it from ther Doc,” answered Quoin, “‘e got it from ther Stooard.”

“‘ow would ‘ee know?” asked Plummer.

“I dunno,” said Quoin. “I ‘spect ‘e’s ‘eard ‘em talkin’ ‘bout it arft.”

Plummer turned to me.

“‘ave you ‘eard anythin’, Jessop?” he inquired.

“What, about shortening down?” I replied.

“Yes,” he said. “Weren’t ther Old Man talkin’ ter yer, up on ther poop this mornin’?”

“Yes,” I answered. “He said something to the Second Mate about shortening down; but it wasn’t to me.”

“They are!” said Quoin, “‘aven’t I just said so?”

At that instant, one of the chaps in the other watch, poked his head in through the starboard doorway.

“All hands shorten sail!” he sung out; at the same moment the Mate’s whistle came sharp along the decks.

Plummer stood up, and reached for his cap.

“Well,” he said. “It’s evydent they ain’t goin’ ter lose no more of us!”

Then we went out on deck.

It was a dead calm; but all the same, we furled the three royals, and then the three t’gallants. After that, we hauled up the main and foresail, and stowed them. The crossjack, of course, had been furled some time, with the wind being plumb aft.

It was while we were up at the foresail, that the sun went over the edge of the horizon. We had finished stowing the sail, out upon the yard, and I was waiting for the others to clear in, and let me get off the foot-rope. Thus it happened that having nothing to do for nearly a minute, I stood watching the sun set, and so saw something that otherwise I should, most probably, have missed. The sun had dipped nearly half-way below the horizon, and was showing like a great, red dome of dull fire. Abruptly, far away on the starboard bow, a faint mist drove up out of the sea. It spread across the face of the sun, so that its light shone now as though it came through a dim haze of smoke. Quickly, this mist or haze grew thicker; but, at the same time, separating and taking strange shapes, so that the red of the sun struck through ruddily between them. Then, as I watched, the weird mistiness collected and shaped and rose into three towers. These became more definite, and there was something elongated beneath them. The shaping and forming continued, and almost suddenly I saw that the thing had taken on the shape of a great ship. Directly afterwards, I saw that it was moving. It had been broadside on to the sun. Now it was swinging. The bows came round with a stately movement, until the three masts bore in a line. It was heading directly towards us. It grew larger; but yet less distinct. Astern of it, I saw now that the sun had sunk to a mere line of light. Then, in the gathering dusk it seemed to me that the ship was sinking back into the ocean. The sun went beneath the sea, and the thing I had seen became merged, as it were, into the monotonous greyness of the coming night.