Stubbins was speaking again. He was arguing the matter with one of the
other men.
"You see, with there bein' no wind, scarcely, ther thing's himpossible,
an' yet--"
The other man interrupted with some remark I did not catch.
"No," I heard Stubbins say. "I'm hout of my reckonin'. I don't savvy it
one bit. It's too much like a damned fairy tale."
"Look at his wrist!" I said.
Tom held out his right hand and arm for inspection. It was considerably
swollen where the rope had been round it.
"Yes," admitted Stubbins. "That's right enough; but it don't tell you
nothin'."
I made no reply. As Stubbins said, it told you "nothin'." And there I
let it drop. Yet, I have told you this, as showing how the matter was
regarded in the fo'cas'le. Still, it did not occupy our minds very long;
for, as I have said, there were further developments.
The three following nights passed quietly; and then, on the fourth, all
those curious signs and hints culminated suddenly in something
extraordinarily grim. Yet, everything had been so subtle and intangible,
and, indeed, so was the affair itself, that only those who had actually
come in touch with the invading fear, seemed really capable of
comprehending the terror of the thing. The men, for the most part, began
to say the ship was unlucky, and, of course, as usual! there was some
talk of there being a Jonah in the ship. Still, I cannot say that none
of the men realised there was anything horrible and frightening in it
all; for I am sure that some did, a little; and I think Stubbins was
certainly one of them; though I feel certain that he did not, at that
time, you know, grasp a quarter of the real significance that underlay
the several queer matters that had disturbed our nights. He seemed to
fail, somehow, to grasp the element of personal danger that, to me, was
already plain. He lacked sufficient imagination, I suppose, to piece the
things together--to trace the natural sequence of the events, and their
development. Yet I must not forget, of course, that he had no knowledge
of those two first incidents. If he had, perhaps he might have stood
where I did. As it was, he had not seemed to reach out at all, you know,
not even in the matter of Tom and the fore royal. Now, however, after
the thing I am about to tell you, he seemed to see a little way into the
darkness, and realise possibilities.
I remember the fourth night, well. It was a clear, star-lit, moonless
sort of night: at least, I think there was no moon; or, at any rate, the
moon could have been little more than a thin crescent, for it was near
the dark time.
The wind had breezed up a bit; but still remained steady. We were
slipping along at about six or seven knots an hour. It was our middle
watch on deck, and the ship was full of the blow and hum of the wind
aloft. Williams and I were the only ones about the maindeck. He was
leaning over the weather pin-rail, smoking; while I was pacing up and
down, between him and the fore hatch. Stubbins was on the look-out.
Two bells had gone some minutes, and I was wishing to goodness that it
was eight, and time to turn-in. Suddenly, overhead, there sounded a
sharp crack, like the report of a rifle shot. It was followed instantly
by the rattle and crash of sailcloth thrashing in the wind.
Williams jumped away from the rail, and ran aft a few steps. I followed
him, and, together, we stared upwards to see what had gone.
Indistinctly, I made out that the weather sheet of the fore t'gallant
had carried away, and the clew of the sail was whirling and banging
about in the air, and, every few moments, hitting the steel yard a blow,
like the thump of a great sledge hammer.
"It's the shackle, or one of the links that's gone, I think," I shouted
to Williams, above the noise of the sail. "That's the spectacle that's
hitting the yard."
"Yus!" he shouted back, and went to get hold of the clewline. I ran to
give him a hand. At the same moment, I caught the Second Mate's voice
away aft, shouting. Then came the noise of running feet, and the rest of
the watch, and the Second Mate, were with us almost at the same moment.
In a few minutes we had the yard lowered and the sail clewed up. Then
Williams and I went aloft to see where the sheet had gone. It was much
as I had supposed; the spectacle was all right, but the pin had gone out
of the shackle, and the shackle itself was jammed into the sheavehole in
the yard arm.
Williams sent me down for another pin, while he unbent the clewline, and
overhauled it down to the sheet. When I returned with the fresh pin, I
screwed it into the shackle, clipped on the clewline, and sung out to
the men to take a pull on the rope. This they did, and at the second
heave the shackle came away. When it was high enough, I went up on to
the t'gallant yard, and held the chain, while Williams shackled it into
the spectacle. Then he bent on the clewline afresh, and sung out to the
Second Mate that we were ready to hoist away.
"Yer'd better go down an' give 'em a 'aul," he said. "I'll sty an' light
up ther syle."
"Right ho, Williams," I said, getting into the rigging. "Don't let the
ship's bogy run away with you."
This remark I made in a moment of light-heartedness, such as will come
to anyone aloft, at times. I was exhilarated for the time being, and
quite free from the sense of fear that had been with me so much of late.
I suppose this was due to the freshness of the wind.
"There's more'n one!" he said, in that curiously short way of his.
"What?" I asked.
He repeated his remark.
I was suddenly serious. The _reality_ of all the impossible details of
the past weeks came back to me, vivid, and beastly.
"What do you mean, Williams?" I asked him.
But he had shut up, and would say nothing.
"What do you know--how much do you know?" I went on, quickly. "Why did
you never tell me that you--"
The Second Mate's voice interrupted me, abruptly:
"Now then, up there! Are you going to keep us waiting all night? One of
you come down and give us a pull with the ha'lyards. The other stay up
and light up the gear."
"i, i, Sir," I shouted back.
Then I turned to Williams, hurriedly.
"Look here, Williams," I said. "If you think there is _really_ a danger
in your being alone up here--" I hesitated for words to express what I
meant. Then I went on. "Well, I'll jolly well stay up with you."
The Second Mate's voice came again.
"Come on now, one of you! Make a move! What the hell are you doing?"
"Coming, Sir!" I sung out.
"Shall I stay?" I asked definitely.
"Garn!" he said. "Don't yer fret yerself. I'll tike er bloomin' piy-diy
out of 'er. Blarst 'em. I ain't funky of 'em."