Ghost Stories and Mysteries (28 page)

It was a tempestuous night, and a few passengers had retired early. In the dimly-lighted saloon the doctor groped his way through the bodies of the sleeping Chinese cabin-boys, and went on deck and ascended the bridge. The sea was high, and the wind seemed increasing. The captain was looking at the barometer in the chart-room.

“I’m afraid we’ll be caught, doctor,” he said, as the other entered.

“How’s that; barometer falling?”

“Falling! I should think so. Going to have a typhoon, I’m afraid.”

“She’s making heavy weather of it now.”

“Yes, and I don’t want to get into a big blow with her; she’s a bad sea boat.”

The two men remained silent, holding on during the big rolls the steamer was making. The doctor’s thoughts were busy with his schemes against his enemy, and the rhythmical noise of the engines seemed to ring in the chorus, “The time is near.” He had no set plan, but he was determined that he would not part with his man again, except on fresh terms.

The whole thing had been quite accidental; he wanted change, and had taken the opportunity offered by the ship’s doctor wishing to remain on shore to exchange for the trip. He was as much astonished to see Dunaston on board as Dunaston was to see him, but he was infinitely better pleased. Now seemed the very time to avenge the two murders. Dunaston just married to a beautiful young girl, to whom he appeared passionately attached. Surely the stars in their courses were fighting for him; the man was vulnerable now. Their interviews had been limited, Hunt avoiding the man as much as it was possible to do on board ship, and no one suspected that they had met before.

The captain’s foreboding was right. By morning a full-sized typhoon was howling and shrieking behind them, and the Emperor had to turn tail and run right before it. The storm had reached its height about noon, and the steamer was labouring heavily and shipping a good deal of water. Two or three seas had found their way into the saloon, and everything was drenched and miserable. Mrs. Dunaston kept her cabin with her husband.

The wind began to die down after noon, and one or two had struggled to the table, when a sudden jar and the cessation of the engines told of some catastrophe. Hunt climbed on deck, and looked around at the wild tumult of sea, in which the now helpless steamer was tossing and pitching—occasionally heeling far over when a greater wave than usual surged upon her. The worst had happened. The constant racing of the screw in the heavy sea had injured the shaft, and the Emperor had hopelessly broken down, and was at the mercy of the tremendous seas almost without steering way. A couple of staysails were all the sail that could be made on the apologies for masts, and the coloured crew managed at last to get them spread.

It was a dismal outlook; the rolling of the ship was so violent that even the most practised and active could not keep their feet. The night closed in black and gloomy, and the Emperor was dashed about and banged and lifted seemingly half-way up to the heavens. In the morning she had developed an alarming list, some of the cargo had shifted, and things looked black indeed, for she was now reported to be making water fast. They had been driven out of their course by the typhoon, and not a ship was in sight; but the sea was going down, none too soon. Two boats had been smashed: but the three that remained were large enough to carry all on board comfortably, and they were got out in readiness, for it was now obvious that the steamer would have to be abandoned.

The time had come, and Dunaston was in his cabin putting some matters of importance in his pockets, when the steamer gave a more than usually heavy lurch, throwing him against the bunk, and at the same time his cabin door was slammed and the key turned. He had been locked in to go down with the ship. The boats were on the other side, and in the creaking and groaning of timber that was going on, his cries and shouts were unheard. And if there occurred the least confusion he would not be missed. His wife and the other lady passenger were to go in the first boat in charge of the chief officer. They were in hopes of making Timor in three days. Hunt, of course, had locked him in, out of revenge, and would take care that he would not be missed. The portholes had been screwed tight during the typhoon, and he could not open one in his cabin. He was trapped to die a horrible slow death. If the vessel sank it would not be one quick rush and over; but it would creep in slowly, and he would be hours dying. He beat on the door, and called, and the only sound that answered him was the creaking of the straining timbers.

Hour after hour of agony followed, and then it began to grow dusk, and he felt himself doomed indeed—doomed to die in darkness and loneliness; and he recalled with horror the ghastly rumours that were once spread of men having accidentally been shut up in the water-tight compartments of H.M.S.
Victoria
, and going down with her to die a lingering death at the bottom of the Mediterranean. So passed the long night, in frantic desperation and sullen apathy; several times he thought of suicide, but he had no speedy weapon with which to do the deed. Still the steamer floated and the sea was fast going down, and a dawn he had never expected to see stole in at the port-holes at last.

Dunaston had been sitting on the edge of his bunk, when he started to his feet with a wild shout of hope. He had heard a footstep on the deck overhead. Somebody was on the ship beside himself, or one of the boats had come back, seeing the vessel still floated. No answer came to his hail, but he distinctly heard the footstep pass up and down. After about an hour someone came into the saloon. The motion of the ship was now only a long roll, but the list had become very perceptible. Whoever it was came straight to his cabin, unlocked the door and threw it open.

Hunt stood there, revolver in hand, and ordered him on deck. He was obliged to comply, for the look of the doctor’s eyes did not admit of any questioning. On deck he ordered him to sit down, and before he anticipated it, he was shackled to a ringbolt by his ankles. “Now,” said Dr. Hunt, “we can talk comfortably.” The sky was clear, every trace of the storm had vanished from above, and a fierce equatorial sun was beginning to make its presence felt.

“The steamer’s going to float, after all, and we shall have a pleasant little jaunt together. Pity those two fellows, dead in Western Australia, are not here; even old ‘Crookshanks’ would smile if he saw you.”

“I suppose you want money; your share of the reef, in fact. Well, you won’t get it,” and Dunaston tried to look defiant, but failed.

“I want a full confession. The money can wait, and so can I.” Hunt lit a cigar and took a turn or two up and down the deck. The boat now only wallowed with a long sluggish roll; she was very deep, but seemed likely to keep afloat so long as the weather kept fine. Having finished his cigar, Hunt went into the saloon, and came out with some eatables and a bottle of claret, which he proceeded to discuss in sight of his prisoner. “You will be happy to hear that the boats got well away, and Mrs. Dunaston will soon be in safety in Timor. I managed it very neatly, so that we were not missed.”

“Are you going to starve me?”

“I’m not going to give you anything to eat or drink until you write down that confession.”

“The boats may come back.”

“I shinned up the mast this morning as high as I could, and they were not in sight. Besides, you’ll never go alive into one of them; I’ll take care of that.”

“What do you want me to confess?”

“The murders of Winkelson and Martow; then we’ll go into the money question.”

Dunaston was silent, and Hunt said nothing more. The sun mounted higher and higher; a dead calm reigned, and the blazing heat struck with fierce rays on the man fastened to the ringbolt. Still he held out, but in the afternoon was forced to beg for water. Hunt took no notice of the request. And darkness closed in, and throughout the long hours of the night the derelict was silent, save for a groan of helpless agony and despair wrung at intervals from the prisoner.

It was ten o’clock the next day before he gave in. Hunt brought out paper and pen and ink, then gave his prisoner a little wine and water and some food.

Dunaston wrote. In substance it amounted to what Hunt had guessed. Winkelson had been disposed of on the way down. Dunaston, pushing ahead, had found Martow alone, despatched him treacherously, put his body on the camel, and taking it some distance away, had built a huge fire over it,—the one Hunt had seen from the granite mound. He was going then to wait Hunt’s return, when the attack made on him by the camel frustrated his plans, and saved the doctor’s life.

This confession he wrote out and signed, and then Hunt fed him again, and the game commenced once more. This time the stake was high, but the cards were all in one hand, and Dunaston had to make a will, giving over a large amount of property, and sign a fat cheque, all in return for value received, the value being half a pint of tepid water, or perhaps a pint, and a little food.

“I shall repudiate all these documents,” he said, when the last was signed.

“I suppose you will if you get the chance. I anticipate being picked up soon, and I shall at once give you in charge for the confessed murder of your mate; now that you have given the clue, proofs will soon be forthcoming.”

“Don’t you intend to release me?”

“Certainly not. But I will keep you alive; we’re sure to be fallen across soon.”

Another day, and another day, and Dunaston began to feel the effects of the sun.

“I must let him out for a bit to-morrow,” thought Hunt, “or he’ll go cranky on my hands.”

It was another day of unruffled calm, and Hunt had been amusing himself, and maddening his prisoner by dilating on the future stretching before him, and comparing their respective lots when rescued.

“By the way, it will be a pity to separate the money. After you’re hanged, perhaps Mrs. Dunaston would not be inconsolable, and I always had a weakness for widows—young widows.”

Hunt was looking away at the horizon as he spoke, and did not notice the murderous hand steal up to an iron belaying-pin in the side. It was loose, and Dunaston had noiselessly taken it out, and the next minute launched it with unerring and mad strength at his enemy. Hunt got the blow on the temple, and fell dead on the deck. Dunaston slipped down against the bulwark, and began to laugh sillily and vacantly.

He suddenly realised what he had done, and lost his reason. Hunt had the key of the handcuffs in his pocket, and his body lay beyond reach. The blood from the wound began to trickle towards him along the sloping deck, and the madman greeted it with shouts of terror, and, anon, peals of maniac laughter.

When it reached him he dipped his fingers in it, and wrote meaningless gibberish on the deck.

A boat from a Dutch gunboat boarded the derelict and found the madman still alive, and babbling deliriously, talking to the dead man who lay just beyond his reach, with life and freedom in his pocket. He lingered but a few days.

ON THE ISLAND OF SHADOWS

(1900-01)

This is the story told by Eugene Tripot, convict from New Caledonia, of what happened to him during the boat voyage when he had succeeded in making his escape.

He died in the hospital at Hong-Kong, insane, having lost his reason through the suffering and privation he went through on that occasion.

He had lucid intervals, during which he repeatedly told this story, and insisted on its truth.

He was rescued from a sandy islet on the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef, off the coast of Northern Queensland, by a China steamer taking the outside passage. He had been cast away there for some weeks, living on trepang and shell-fish.

Nothing was seen to in any way bear out this story.

* * * * * * *

“Three of us alone between sea and sky—three men with a wolf inside each, wolves that looked at each other out of our eyes. Gronard crouched in the bottom of the boat, gnawing at a piece of wood; Pelrine sat at the stern, with his sheath-knife in his hand, digging savagely at the thwart; I was sitting in the bow.

“The sail flapped idly at every little swing and roll of the boat, just as it had flapped during the last fortnight, never once bellying out.

“Beside us three there was the sun—the sun that hated us so. Hot and eager it rose in the morning—hot and eager to drink our blood. With anger that we should be still alive, it set in the evening. Gronard cursed the sun, Pelrine cursed the sun, and I cursed the sun.

“That was all we did from morning to night. It was all we had to do. It is bad for men to sit silent all day, only speaking to curse the sun, for then the wolf rages and breaks out.

“It broke forth in Pelrine, sitting digging his knife in the thwart, and suddenly he sprang upon Gronard. He would have sprung upon me, just the same, if I had happened to be next to him, for it was the wolf that sprung, not Pelrine, for Pelrine was always a good-hearted man.

“Gronard was taken at a disadvantage, but he was the strongest of us three, and grappled with Pelrine, and in the struggle the boat lurched, and both fell over the side. I saw them go down, down, in the clear water, turning and twisting, and all I thought was, ‘They do not feel the sun down there.’

“They never rose, for I saw what looked like long flashes of white light dart at them, and I knew that the sharks that had kept us company so long had them for their sport at last.