The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (55 page)

“ ‘ ’Oo’s goin’ ter take ther wheels?’ I heard Plummer ask.

“ ‘I s’pose they’ll ’ave us take ’em as usual,’ replied one of the men. ‘One of ther officers is bound ter be on the poop, so we’ll ’ave company.’

“Apart from these remarks, there was a general opinion that—if it were true—it was a sensible act on the part of the Skipper. As one of the men said:

“ ‘It ain’t likely as there’ll be any of us missin’ in ther mornin’ if we stays in our bunks all ther blessed night.’

“And soon after this, eight bells went.

The Ghost Pirates

“At the moment when eight bells actually went I was in the fo’cas’le, talking to three or four of the other watch. Suddenly, away aft, I heard shouting, and then on the deck overhead came the loud thudding of someone pomping with a capstan-bar. Straightaway, I turned and made a run for the port doorway, along with the four other men. We rushed out through the doorway onto the deck. It was getting dusk, but that did not hide from me a terrible and extraordinary sight. All along the port rail there was a queer, undulating greyness, that moved downwards inboard, and spread over the decks. As I looked, I found that I saw more clearly, in a most extraordinary way. And, suddenly, all the moving greyness resolved into hundreds of strange men. In the half-light they looked unreal and impossible, as though there had come upon us the inhabitants of some fantastic dream-world. My God! I thought I was mad. They swarmed in upon us in a great wave of murderous, living shadows. From some of the men, who must have been going aft for roll-call, there rose in the evening air a loud, awful shouting.

“ ‘Aloft!’ yelled someone; but, as I looked aloft, I saw that the horrible things were swarming there in scores and scores.

“ ‘Jesus Christ!’ shrieked a man’s voice, cut short, and my glance dropped from aloft, to find two of the men who had come out from the fo’cas’le with me, rolling upon the deck. They were two indistinguishable masses that writhed here and there across the planks. The brutes fairly covered them. From them came muffled, little shrieks and gasps; and there I stood, and with me two other men. A man dashed past us into the fo’cas’le, with two grey men on his back, and I heard them kill him. The two men by me ran, suddenly, across the fore hatch, and up the starboard ladder onto the fo’cas’le head. Yet, almost in the same instant, I saw several of the grey men disappear up the other ladder. From the fo’cas’le head above, I heard the two men commence to shout, and this died away into a loud scuffling. At that I turned to see whether I could get away. I stared ’round hopelessly, and then, with two jumps, I was on the pigsty, and from there upon the top of the deckhouse. I threw myself flat, and waited, breathlessly.

“All at once, it seemed to me that it was darker than it had been the previous moment, and I raised my head very cautiously. Then I saw that the ship was enveloped in great billows of mist, and then, not six feet from me, I made out someone lying face downwards. It was Tammy. I felt safer, now that we were hidden by the mist, and I crawled to him. He gave a quick gasp of terror when I touched him; but when he saw who it was he started to sob, like a little child.

“ ‘Hush!’ I said. ‘For God’s sake, be quiet!’ But I need not have troubled, for the shrieks of the men being killed, down on the decks all around us, drowned every other sound.

“I knelt up and glanced round, and then aloft. Overhead I could make out dimly the spars and sails, and now, as I looked, I saw that the t’gallants and royals had been unloosed and were hanging in the buntlines. Almost in the same moment the terrible crying of the poor beggars about the decks ceased, and there succeeded an awful silence, in which I could distinctly hear Tammy sobbing. I reached out and shook him.

“ ‘Be quiet! Be quiet!’ I whispered, intensely. ‘They’ll hear us!’

“At my touch and whisper he struggled to become silent, and then, overhead, I saw the six yards being swiftly mast-headed. Scarcely were the sails set when I heard the swish and flick of gaskets being cast adrift on the lower yards, and realized that ghostly things were at work there.

“For a minute or so there was silence, and I made my way cautiously to the after end of the house, and peered over. Yet, because of the mist, I could see nothing. Then, abruptly, from behind me, came a single wail of sudden pain and terror from Tammy. It ended instantly in a sort of choke. I stood up in the mist and ran back to where I had left the kid; but he had gone. I stood dazed. I felt like shrieking out loud. Above me, I heard the flaps of the courses being tumbled off the yards. Down upon the decks there were the noises of a multitude working in a weird, inhuman silence. Then came the squeal and rattle of blocks and braces aloft. They were squaring the yards.

“I remained standing. I watched the yards squared, and then I saw the sails fill suddenly. An instant afterwards the deck of the house upon which I stood became slanted forrard. The slope increased, so that I could scarcely stand, and I grabbed at one of the wire-winches. I wondered what was happening. Almost directly afterwards, from the decks around, rose a loud, simultaneous, hoarse crying. This grew into an intense screaming that shook my heart up. Then a breath of cold wind seemed to play in the mist, and I could see down the slope of the deck. I looked below me, towards the bows. The jibboom was plunged right into the water, and as I stared the bows disappeared into the sea. The deck of the house became a wall to me, and I was swinging from the winch, which was now above my head. I watched the ocean lip over the edge of the fo’cas’le head, and rush down onto the main deck, roaring into the empty fo’cas’le. And still all around me came the crying of the lost sailormen. I heard something strike the corner of the house above me, with a dull thud, and then I saw Plummer plunge down into the flood beneath. I remembered that he had been at the wheel. The next instant the water had leapt to my feet; there came a drear chorus of bubbling screams, a roar of waters, and I was going swiftly down into the darkness. I let go of the winch and struck out madly, trying to hold my breath. There was a loud singing in my ears. It grew louder. I opened my mouth. I felt I was dying. And then, thank God!, I was at the surface, breathing. For a moment I was blinded with the water, and my agony of breathlessness. Then, growing easier, I brushed the water from my eyes, and so, not three hundred yards away, I made out a large ship, floating almost motionless. At first, I could scarcely believe I saw aright. Then, as I realized that indeed there was yet a chance of living, I started to swim towards you.

“You know the rest—”

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Carnacki, the Ghost Finder

N
ow,” said Carnacki reminiscently, “I’ll tell you some of my experiences. In that case of ‘The House Among the Laurels,’ which was supposed to be haunted, and had a ‘blood-drip’ that warned you, I spent a night there with some Irish constabulary. Wentworth, who owned the place, was with me, and I drew a pentacle round the lot of us in the big hall and put portions of bread and jars of water and candles round it. Then I fixed up the electric pentacle and put a tent over us, and we waited with our weapons. I had two dogs out in the hall with us, and I had sealed all the doors except the main entrance, which I had hooked open. Suddenly I saw the hook of the door slowly raised by some invisible thing, and I immediately took a flashlight photograph. Then the door was slowly closed. Perhaps an hour and a half of absolute silence passed, except when once in a while the dogs would whine distressfully. Then I saw that the candle before one of the sealed doors had been put out, and then, one after another, every candle in the great hall was extinguished, except those round the pentacle.

“Another hour passed, and in all that time no sound broke the stillness. I was conscious of a sense of awful strain and oppression, as though I were a little spirit in the company of some invisible brooding monster of the unseen world who, as yet, was scarcely conscious of us. I could not get rid of this sense of a presence, and I leaned across to Wentworth and asked him in a whisper whether he had a feeling as if something was in the room. He looked very pale and his eyes kept always on the move. He glanced just once at me and nodded, then stared away round the hall again. And, when I came to think, I was doing the same thing. Abruptly, as though a hundred unseen hands had snuffed them, every candle in the barrier went dead out, and we were left in a darkness that seemed, for a little, absolute, for the fire had sunk into a low, dull mound of red, and the light from the pentacle was too weak and pale to penetrate far across the great hall. I tell you, for a moment, I just sat there as though I had been frozen solid. I felt the ‘creep’ go all over me, and it seemed to stop in my brain. I felt all at once to be given a power of hearing that was far beyond the normal. I could hear my own heart thudding most extraordinarily loud. I began to feel better after a little, but I simply had not the pluck to move. Presently I began to get my courage back. I gripped at my camera and flashlight and waited. My hands were simply soaked with sweat. I glanced once at Wentworth. I could see him only dimly. His shoulders were hunched a little, his head forward, but, though it was motionless, I knew that his eyes were not. The other men were just as silent. And thus a while passed.

“A sudden sound broke across the silence. From three sides of the room there came faint noises. I recognized them at once—the breaking of sealing wax. The sealed doors were opening. I raised the camera and flashlight, and it was a peculiar mixture of fear and courage that helped me to press the button. As the great flare of light lit up the hall, I felt the men all about me jump. It was thoughtless of me perhaps to have fired it without warning them, but there was no time even if I had remembered. The darkness fell again, but seemingly tenfold. Yet, in the moment of brightness, I had seen that all the sealed doors were wide open.

“Suddenly, upon the top of the tent, there sounded a drip, drip, drip, falling on the canvas. I thrilled with a queer, realizing emotion and a sense of very real and present danger—imminent. The ‘blood-drip’ had commenced. And the grave question was, would the pentacles and the circles save us?

“Through some awful minutes the ‘blood-drip’ continued to fall in an ever-increasing rain. Beyond this noise there was no other sound. And then, abruptly, from the boarhound farthest from the entrance there came a terrible yelling howl of agony followed, instantly, by a sickening, snicking, breaking noise and an abrupt silence. If you have ever, when out shooting, broken a rabbit’s neck, you’ll know the sound—in miniature. Like lightning the thought sprang into my brain: it has crossed the pentacle. For, you will remember that I had made one about each of the dogs. I thought instantly, with sickening apprehension, of our own barrier. There was something in the hall with us that had passed the barrier of the pentacle about one of the dogs. In the awful succeeding silence, I positively quivered. And suddenly one of the men behind me gave out a scream, like any woman, and bolted for the door. He fumbled and had it open in a moment. I yelled to the others not to move, but they followed like sheep. I heard them kick the water jars in their panic, and one of them stepped on the electric pentacle and smashed it. In a moment I realized that I was defenceless against the powers of the unknown world, and with one leap I followed, and we raced down the drive like frightened boys.

“Well, we cooled down in a bit, and I went to the inn where I was staying and developed my photos. Then, in one of them, I saw that a wire was juggling with the hook of the entrance door, so I went back to the house and got in quietly through a back window and found a whole lot of chaps who had just come out of a secret doorway. They proved to be members of a secret society. They all escaped, but I guess I laid the ghost. You see, they were trying to keep the house empty for their own uses.

“Then in that business of ‘The Gateway of the Monster’ I spent a night in the haunted bedroom alone in the electric pentacle, and very nearly got snuffed out, as you’ll see. I had a cat die in the room. This is what happened: I had been in the pentacle some time, just like in the last business, only quite alone, when, suddenly, I was aware of a cold wind sweeping over me. It seemed to come from the corner of the room to the left of the bed—the place where both times I had found the bedclothes tossed in a heap. Yet I could see nothing unusual—no opening—nothing. And then, abruptly, I was aware that the candles were all aflicker in the unnatural wind. I believe I just squatted there and stared in a sort of horribly frightened, wooden way for some minutes. And then flick! flick! flick! all the candles round the outer barrier went out, and there I was locked and sealed in that room, and with no light beyond the queer weakish blue glare of the electric pentacle. Still that wind blew upon me, and then, suddenly, I knew that something stirred in the corner next to the bed. I was made conscious of it rather by some inward, unused sense than by the sight or sound, for the pale, short-radius glare of the pentacle gave but a very poor light to see by. Yet I stared and stared, and abruptly it began to grow upon my sight— a moving something, a little darker than the surrounding shadows. I lost the vague sight I had of it, and for a moment or two I glanced swiftly from side to side with a fresh new sense of impending danger. Then my attention was directed to the bed. All the coverings were being drawn steadily off with a hateful, stealthy sort of motion. I heard the slow, dragging slither of the clothes, but I could see nothing of the thing that pulled.

“The faint noises from the bed ceased once, and there was a most intense silence. The slurring sound of the bedclothes being dragged off recommenced. And then, you know, all in a moment, the whole of the bed coverings were torn off with extraordinary violence, and I heard the flump they made as they were hurled into the corner.