The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (24 page)

He looked at me for a little; then, without a word, he turned and went back into his room. He came again in a moment, with a pair of fine silk drawers in his hand, the like of which I’d never seen.

“Put these on, boy,” he said, and tossed them over my shoulder.

But I feared to touch the things, they were so fine and wonderful.

“I daurna wear ’em, sir,” I told him. “They’m too fine.”

But he laughed quietly.

“You’ll have to turn the legs up,” he said, and went back into his room.

I saw then that he meant it, and I put the things on, never thinking for the moment of the captain and the mates, or whether they might be watching me through the dark skylight.

When I was into the drawers, I feared to get back into my rough blanket, lest I should dirty them; and it was while I stood there in the fine silk drawers, and looked at my old blanket, that I knew suddenly that danger was upon us, for I heard the ladder that led up to the after companion-way creak, like it always did when anyone put their weight on it. And this I heard, despite the constant creakings and groanings of the bulkheads as the ship rolled; for I knew that particular creak, having kept ears for it through many an hour at my work, to let it warn me whether any of my oaf masters were coming below. Yet whoever was on the ladder was creeping down surely in their bared feet, for there was never the sound of any clumsy boot to be heard.

I waited not a moment, but ran to the door of monsieur’s room, which he had hooked open to prevent it slamming to and fro with the heavy rolling. I could see his back. He had taken off the heavy peacoat, and was priming his pistols—four brace, all silver mounted.

“Monsieur!” I said—and, maybe, I looked a little white to think that murder was even then so near. “Monsieur, they’m comin’, sir! They’m comin’ down th’ ladder.”

“Under the table, boy, and into your blanket,” he said quietly, turning to the door.

“Aa’ll feight ’em along with ye,” I said, feeling suddenly that a man—that’s how I named myself!—could die only once. “They’ll get tha’ behind, through yon cuddy door through the fore-cabin. Gi’e me one o’ them pistols, sir. Quick, sir, I hear ’em!”

I was surprised to find myself speak so usual to monsieur. And then, to stop him thwarting me, because I feared they would stab him from behind if I did not guard the cuddy door, I stepped up close to him and said, very hasty and speaking scarce above a whisper:

“They seen me warnin’ ye, sir. It ain’t no use me hidin’. They’ll just cut my throat after they’m done murderin’ you. Quick, sir! They’re into th’ cabing now! Gi’e me one o’ the pistols!”

He said nothing, just pointed his thumb to where three of the pistols lay. He had the fourth in his right hand, and his sword out now in his left. He fought always with his sword in the left hand, as I knew, for I had seen him before at the taking of our prizes. I made no more ado, but took up a pistol in each hand, and as I did this monsieur stepped out of his room into the big cabin.

“Well, gentlemen,” I heard him say, “you see, I have done you the honour of staying out of my bunk to welcome you. Perhaps, Captain Drool, you would prefer that I take you first? Or—no, is it to be all together? Ah, Master Abbott!”

Before this I had run out into the big cabin. There had been a loud and violent thudding of bare feet as they rushed monsieur, and as I reached the doorway of his room, I had seen Captain Drool and the two mates running at him with their cutlasses out. I had seen Monsieur turn off a stab from Captain Drool with the barrel of his pistol, and then, with a wonderful quick movement of his wrist and forearm, he put his long sword right through Abbott’s chest. Monsieur was wonderful with the sword.

Now, I had thought well when I had planned to guard monsieur’s back; for at this moment the cuddy door, that led to the maindeck through the fore-cabin in the fore part of the poop, was hove open with a great crash, and the noise of the seas and the gale filled the cabin as the bo’sun and the chief carpenter Maull came tumbling in, each with a drawn cutlass in his hand.

There was a loud shouting from Captain Drool and the mate, and the bo’sun and Maull the carpenter answered it with other shouts as they ran aft round the big table to get at monsieur’s side and back.

I heard monsieur say, in a quiet voice:

“Guard my back, boy!”

Just those words he said, and never looked round, but fenced off the mate’s cutlass with the long barrel of his loaded pistol, and kept Captain Drool in play with his sword, all as easy and calm as if he were playing some game of skill for a wager rather than for his own life.

And you shall see me in that moment as proud as a young turkeycock with the trust he put in me; and full of good courage, both because of his calmness, that infected me the same way, and because of the fine pistols of two barrels each that I held ready in my hands.

“Mestur Johns and Mestur Maull,” I shouted, “bide where ye are, or I shoot ye dead this moment!”

But, maybe, they thought of me as no more than a boy, and of no account, for they came with a great chare and shouting round the end of the table, to get behind monsieur. And Maull, who was first, made a great stroke at monsieur with his cutlass, but the beams of the deck above his head were a better guard than me. For I had been too late with my pistols to save monsieur, if one of the great deck beams had not caught the top of the carpenter’s cutlass and stopped the blow midway.

Yet monsieur was more watchful than I knew; for he spared one brief moment of his sword-fence with Captain Drool, and cut sideway with his left hand, so that his sword shone a moment like a flame in the lamplight.

And immediately Maul loosed his cutlass, that was notched hard into the oaken beam, and clapped his hand to his neck, and went backwards into the bo’sun, singing out in a dreadful voice that he was dead. And dead he was in less than a minute after.

But before this I had loosed off twice into the bo’sun, and shot him in the arm and again in the thigh. And he also dropped his cutlass—or cutlash, as we called them—and made to reach the cuddy door, which he did in the end by creeping upon his knees and hands.

I have thought that monsieur had some notion to spare the lives of Captain Drool and the mate, for he had the loaded pistol in his right hand, and might have shot the mate at any moment; and equally he had the captain’s life upon his sword point all the time, as it might be said.

But sudden the mate jumped back out of the fight, and whipped a pistol very smart out of the skirt of his blue coat that was a fancy of his from the body of a man he killed in the taking of our first prize.

Then monsieur used his own pistol in a wonderful quick way, and still fencing off Captain Drool’s cutlash. As he loosed off, he called out in a low, quick voice:

“I commend you to the mercy of God, John Abbott.”

And with these words he had fired, before the mate had his aim taken. I have thought often upon those words.

At this moment, and as the mate fell upon the deck of the cabin and died, there was a great shouting out upon the main deck of the brig. I caught the meaning of certain of the shoutings:

“Monsieur’s killing the cap’n! Monsieur’s killing the cap’n!” I heard someone sing out twice, and maybe three times. Then the bo’sun’s voice: “Smart, lads! He’ve cut Chip’s throat, an’ I be all shot through an’ through!”

You must bear in mind that noises came oddly to me by reason of the great excitement of the moment, and the constant skythe, skythe of Captain Drool’s cutlass along the blade of monsieur’s lean sword, and the stamping of the captain’s bare feet. There was also the noise of the gale and the sea-thunder that beat in through the open cuddy doorway out of the black night, and all the time the creaking and the groaning of the bulkheads, and the bashing and clattering of the cuddy door as it swung and thudded to and fro with the brig’s rolling.

Then, immediately, I heard the shouts rise clear and strong through the gale, and coming nearer until, in a moment, I heard the thudding of scores of feet racing aft along the decks.

And suddenly Captain Drool leaped back from his vain attacking of monsieur, and turned and ran for the cuddy door, shouting to the men to save him, though monsieur made never a step to follow.

Yet Captain Drool showed his deathly hatred of me in that moment, for he hove the cutlass out of his hand across the table in my face as he passed me.

But I stooped very quick, and the heavy blade struck the bulkhead over me. Then, stooped as I was, I shot Captain Drool in the head over the edge of the table, with no pity in me, for he had made so wantonly to kill me; also, I had been beat and kicked too oft by the brute. Moreover, while he lived to urge the men on, neither monsieur nor I might hope ever to come alive through the night.

Thus died Captain Drool, after monsieur had spared him a hundred times.

Now, in the instant after I shot the captain, I had jumped very speedy into monsieur’s cabin, where I caught up his powder-flask and his bag of pistol bullets. Then I was into the big cabin again in a moment.

“Monsieur!” I called out, very breathless. “The cap’n’s cabing, sir—the cap’n’s cabing!”

And I ran past him into the captain’s cabin, which had the door open, and was behind him as he stood there with his sword, staring very earnest and ready towards the cuddy doorway.

“Coom in, sir!” I began to call to him. “Coom in, sir!”

And then, before I could say another word, the big cabin seemed to be full of shouting men all in one moment, for they came leaping over the washboard of the cuddy alleyway, all helter-skelter, through the cuddy doorway, which was in the forepart of the cabin, as you know by this.

There were maybe twenty and maybe thirty of them; but I never had time to think how many there were, but only that they filled all the for’ard part of the big cabin.

Those that were into the cabin stopped their shouting, and seemed to hang backward when they saw monsieur standing there with his sword in his hand. But there were more in the cuddy alleyway and out on the main deck that pushed and shouted to get in, so that the men in the cabin were all a-sway, they pushing backward and the men in the alleyway and upon the main deck pushing for’ard to come into the cabin.

I saw Jenkson, Allen, Turpen, and three or four others among the men that had broke into the cabin, and all of them were of the poorer sort, being no more than the rough scum of Portsmouth Town that had come to sea along with better men to make easy money; though, truly, there was not much easy money that ever I found this way!

Now, I knew these men were among the worst in the ship, and they had never a good word for monsieur behind his back, though quiet enough to his face, but had often called him a frog-eater, and a French spy, and many another oafish name that had no base in fact; though, I doubt not, they near believed the ugly things they gave breath to.

And so you must see that last great scene, with monsieur standing there, and me behind him in the open doorway of the captain’s cabin, and loading the fired-off barrels of the two fine pistols, the while that I stared at the men and monsieur. And I put a double charge of powder into each of the barrels, and upon each charge I dropped three bullets, for I saw that I should have less need of a nicety of shooting than of power to kill oft and plenty with the greatest speed.

As I have said, you must see that last great scene—how the men, though so plentiful, hung off from him, with their knives bare in their hands, ready for brutal slaughter, yet fearing him, while he stood quietly, and had no single thought to fear them, not if they had been a hundred strong. And every few moments there would fight through into the cabin another of the men, and would fall silent with the rest, staring like dumb brutes from monsieur to the dead and back again to monsieur. And all that brief while I loaded the pistols, with my hands trembling a little, though not so much with fear as might be supposed.

Now, there was hung on the bulkhead of the captain’s cabin, close to my elbow, a great brass-mouthed blunderbuss, and, having a sudden thought from Providence, I stepped back, into the captain’s room, and reached this down very quick. I had pushed the two pistols into the front band of my new silk drawers, and now I took monsieur’s powder-flask, and near emptied it down into the blunderbuss.

There was a pair of woollen hose that belonged to Captain Drool hanging over a wood peg, and I snatched one, and pushed it down with my hand into the great barrel of the blunderbuss that was so wide I could reach my arm down it. And after that I took the bag of pistol bullets, and emptied them, every one, down into the barrel upon the powder and the woollen hose; and afterwards I thrust down the other hose upon the bullets to hold them steady in the barrel. Then, very hasty yet with a proper care, I primed the great weapon. Afterwards I cast the powder-flask on to the deck, and ran very quick with the blunderbuss to the door of the cabin.

There was scarce any shouting now, for as this man and that crowded himself into the cabin, and saw monsieur standing there with his sword and the pistol, and the dead men lying about the deck of the big cabin, they grew silent.

But suddenly some of those that were at the back began to sing out odd questions and abuse concerning me.

“What’s the cub doin’ wi’ the blunderbuss?” shouted one.

“It aren’t never loaded!” sang out another of them.