The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (25 page)

And so they began to get their courage to attack monsieur by miscalling me that they had no fear of.

“Coom back inta th’ cappen’s cabing, monsieur!” I kept whispering, so that he might hear me yet the men hear nothing.

In the end he heard me, for I saw him shake his head as if he were bidding me be quiet. Then in a little he spoke to the men, choosing a moment when they were silent.

“For what reason have you come aft?” he said, speaking very ordinary.

“You’m murdered cappen—all vour of ’em!” shouted a man. “We’m coom, maybe, to zee if you’m likin’ to be murdered, same as poor cappen an’ dree oithers!”

“They’m geet na more’n they axed for!” I shouted out. “They tried to murder monsieur—”

“Quiet, boy!” said monsieur, without looking round.

“Yes, sir,” I answered him; and then, in that moment of time, I heard a sound on the companion-ladder, and I shouted out to monsieur:

“Thee’s sommat coomin’ down th’ ladder, monsieur!”

As I shouted this, there was a slithering noise and a dull thud, as if someone had fallen, and then a low groaning. I stared hard at the doorway that led to the companion-ladder, and everyone in the cabin stared the same, save monsieur, who watched the men.

“It’s the bo’sun!” shouted one of the men. “Howd’y, bo’sun!”

I saw the bo’sun’s great head and face come round the edge of the doorway, about two feet from the floor. It was plain to me that he was creeping on his hands and knees, because of the wound in his leg.

Then, in a moment, he had whipped his hand in round the door, and I saw that there was a ship’s pistol in his fist. He had fired before ever I could bring out a shout, and he hit monsieur somewhere, for I heard the horrid thud of the bullet, and I saw monsieur jerk his body as he was struck.

Then the bo’sun roared out in a great voice:

“On to him, lads. On to him. He’s done for!”

And, at the shout, the men broke forward upon monsieur in a crowd with their knives. Yet I was to see a wonderful thing, for monsieur stood firm and swaying to the roll of the ship, despite that he was hit, as I knew, and as the men rushed upon him his sword made a dozen quick flashes in the lamplight, so that it was like an uncertain glimmer among the men; and suddenly they gave back from him, and there were four of them went thudding to the floor and five more that were wounded.

Yet they had got at monsieur; for, as I ran forward to aid him with the blunderbuss, I saw that there were three knives in his breast, though he still kept upon his feet, with his great strength of body and his greater strength of mind, or will, which are both the same thing, as I do think.

“Monsieur!” I cried out, like a lad will call out when he sees his hero all destroyed. “Monsieur!” And he looked down at me and smiled a little, steadying himself with the point of his sword upon the deck of the cabin.

There was not another sound in the place, for they saw that he was done; but, indeed, I was not yet done.

“Great men ye are!” I called out. “Forty to one, ye swine, an’ him wounded dead, an’ ye fear him like death—”

I’d got no further, when one of them threw a knife at me, that cut me a bit in the arm; and on that I dropped upon my knee, and lunged forward the great blunderbuss.

They gave back from it, like they might from death, which it was. But one of them called out that it was not loaded, and they came forward in a great rush once more with their knives. But I pulled the trigger of the blunderbuss, and loosed into them near half a flask of good powder and maybe two pounds’ weight of pistol bullets.

The cabin was filled with the smoke of the great weapon, and out of the smoke there were dreadful screamings and the thuddings of feet; but for my part I lay flat upon my back, all shaken and dazed from the kick of the blunderbuss.

Then I rolled over and got upon my knees; and as I did so I saw that monsieur lay quiet beside me.

I dropped the blunderbuss, and caught monsieur quickly by the shoulders, and dragged him, upon his back, into the captain’s cabin. Then I shut the door very hasty, and slid the bolt, and afterwards I drew and pushed one of the captain’s sea-chests’ up against it.

When I had done this, I felt round for the box where Captain Drool had kept his flint and steel, for there was no light in the place, now that I had shut the door upon the lamp in the big cabin.

Presently, in no more than a minute, I had the captain’s lamp alight, which burned very bright with good whale oil; and I stooped then quickly to care for monsieur.

I found him lying silent where I had drawn him; but his eyes were open, and, when I knelt by him, he looked at me, quiet and natural, yet with a little slowness in the way that he moved his eyes.

“Monsieur!” I said, near sobbing because he was so near gone. “Monsieur!”

There was a minute of silence between us, and I heard the uproar ease outside the main cabin; but the door was thick and heavy for a ship’s door, and deadened the sounds maybe more than I knew.

Abruptly, there came almost a stillness out in the big cabin; and then, sudden, a great blow struck upon the door, that set all the bulkheads jarring and the telescopes in the beckets leaping.

But I had them upon the hip, for I shouted out in my lad’s voice, very hoarse and desperate:

“If ye break the door, I’ll blow the ship to hell. Aa’ve geet the powder-trap oppen, an’ Aa’ve me pistols. Sitha! If ye break in the door, Aa’ll loose off me pistol into the powder!”

Just that I sung out to them; and never another blow was struck upon the door, for the powder was stored under the deck of Captain Drool’s cabin, as all the ship knew, and I better than any, being the lad that had cleaned his cabin many a score of times. And this is the reason that I chose to retreat there from the men.

“Boy,” I heard monsieur saying from the floor, “is the hatch open!”

“No, monsieur,” I said, grinning a little at the easy way I had driven the men off.

“Open it, boy,” he said gravely. “Nor tell ever a lie with a light tongue. And when you have to deal a man the bitterness of death, be not over eager to consign him to hell, but rather to God, Who understandeth all and forgiveth all.”

“Yes, sir,” I said; and opened the powder-hatch, with a great fear at my heart that I was truly come to the end of life.

“Am I to shoot into the powder, sir?” I asked him, all strung-up and ready to shut my eyes and fire at his bidding.

But he waved his fingers a little for me to come to him; and when I was come to him, he lay a moment and looked up at me, seeming to smile a little in spite of his pain.

“You are a strange boy,” he said at last in a weak voice. “Fetch me a sheet of paper from the captain’s desk—nay, fetch me the log-book and a quill and the ink.”

When I had fetched these, he bid me put them upon the deck, to the left of him, and to open the log-book at the last entry, also to wet the quill ready.

“Now, boy,” he whispered, “make good haste and gentle, and help me over a little upon my left side. Quick now, before I am gone, or it will be too late to do God’s own justice.”

His voice was very weak, and whistled thin and strange as he spoke; and when I had helped him with all my power of gentleness on to his side, I saw how he had been lying there in his blood.

“Steady me so, boy,” he whispered; and I steadied him while he wrote.

And as he wrote, labouring to hold in his groans and to contain all his senses to his purpose, I could see the handles of the knives in his breast. And so he writ, and made no ado of the agony it cost him; but truly a greater victory over mortal pain I could think a man never won.

“Now, this is the letter, which I have by me to this day, though I was too ignorant at that time to know what it was that he wrote:

“To Master Alfred Sylles,

“The Corner House,

“Portsmouth Town.

“Dear Master Sylles,—I write this near death, and with no power to write much. See that justice be done me in this fashion, to wit, that the boy who bears this, John Merlyn, shall be mine heir. See that he go to a good school, well equipt. I will tell him the names of my dead lady, so that you shall know that he is indeed the youth of this my will and last testament, though none here can witness, for I am alone save for this boy, who hath fought by and for me as I could have wished mine own son to fight.

“From him will you have all the story.

“Farewell, dear Master Sylles.

“ARTOIS JEYNOIS.”

When this was writ, he laid the quill down between the pages, so that the rolling of the ship should not squander it. But when I would have helped steady him again on to his back, he bid me wait and listen, for that he would certainly die with his words unsaid when he moved to lie down again.

“Remember these three names, my boy,” he said; “nor tell them to any on earth save Master Sylles of the Corner House of Portsmouth Town, whom you know by repute, and to whom I have writ this letter. The names are Mercelle Avonynne Elaise. Now repeat them till you can never let them slip.”

He waited while I said them over a dozen times, maybe, then he caught his breath a little, and seemed as if he were gone; but presently he breathed again, but with a louder noise and bleeding very sadly.

“To Master Sylles tell all that you know,” he said; “and because you have been a brave and a faithful lad, I bequeath to you my sword, to use only with honour.”

He caught his breath again, and I trembled with a strange lad’s ague of pity to know how to ease him; but after a little while he began again, but whispering:

“How you shall escape, lad, I know not; but hold this cabin, for here they are in fear of you, because of the powder. Presently, when the ship is into the Channel, you may have chance to swim ashore. But wrap the letter up safe first in an oilskin. Tell Master Sylles all. Now, may God be with you, boy. Lay me down.”

He sank his great shoulder against me as he spoke, and slid round on to his back with a strange, deep groan, and in that moment the light went clean out of his eyes, and I saw that he was truly dead.

And I knelt there beside him, and cried as only a lad can cry over his dead hero.

***

Of the manner of my escape, I need to tell but little here, for that night the men, being in fear of the law, ran the brig ashore below the Lizards, thinking to drown the ship and me, and so hide their foul work upon the stark rocks.

But they made a bad business of their landing, and many were drowned because of the heavy seas; but I, who stayed in the ship, was safe, for she held together until the morning, when the weather was grown fine; and I swam ashore, with monsieur’s sword made fast to my back.

Yet it was a matter of twelve weary days after this before I came safe into Portsmouth Town, where I learnt from good Master Sylles that I was the heir of monsieur. And how good Master Sylles did weep—for he had loved him—when I told him all concerning the vile murdering of monsieur.

But he stayed not at weeping, being a practical man as well as a warm friend, for when the bo’sun returned to Portsmouth Town a while after, supposing me to be drowned in the brig, Master Sylles had the watch upon him within the hour, and hailed him to high justice, so that a week later the bo’sun was hanged in chains at the corner of the four roads outside Portsmouth Town, to be for a warning to shipmen and landsmen that the trade of murder shall bring eternal sorrow.

And at last I am come to an end of my telling of that dear friend of my youth, who is with me in my memory all the long years of my life. And even in that early day did his goodness and charity affect me; so that, as well I do mind me, once when I passed the dried body of the bo’sun, I must stop and loose off my cap, and set up a prayer to God for him, for I knew that Monsieur Jeynois would so have wished it.

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The Inn of the Black Crow

An Extract from the Travelling Notebook

of John Dory, Secret Exciseman.

J
une 27th.—I cannot say that I care for the look of mine host. If he tippled more and talked more I should like him better; but he drinks not, neither does he speak sufficiently for ordinary civility.

I could think that he has no wish for my custom. Yet, if so, how does he expect to make a living, for I am paying two honest guineas a week for board and bed no better than the Yellow Swan at Dunnage does me for a guinea and a half. Yet that he knows me or suspects me of being more than I appear I cannot think, seeing that I have never been within a hundred miles of this desolated village of Erskine, where there is not even the sweet breath of the sea to blow the silence away, but everywhere the grey moors, slit by the lonesome mud-beset creeks, that I have few doubts see some strange doings at nights, and could, maybe, explain the strange crushed body of poor James Naynes, the exciseman, who had been found dead upon the moors six weeks gone; and concerning which I am here to discover secretly whether it was foul murder or not.

June 30th.—That I was right in my belief that Jalbrok, the landlord, is a rascal, I have now very good proof, and would shift my quarters, were it not that there is no other hostel this side of Bethansop, and that is fifteen weary miles by the road.

I cannot take a room in any of the hovels round here; for there could be no privacy for me, and I should not have the freedom of unquestioned movement that one pays for at all inns, along with one’s bed and board. And here, having given out on arriving that I am from London town for my health, having a shortness of breath, and that I fish with a rod, like my old friend Walton—of whom no man hereabouts has ever heard—I have been let go my way as I pleased, with never a one of these grim Cornishman to give me so much as a passing nod of the head; for to them I am a “foreigner,” deserving, because of this stigma, a rock on my head, rather than a friendly word on my heart. However, in the little Dowe-Fleet river there are trout to make a man forget lonesomeness.