Suddenly, he shouted out:
"There he is!--Stubbins! Stubbins!"
"Where, Sir?" asked the Second, eagerly. "I can't see him!"
"There! there!" replied the Skipper, pointing.
I leant out from the rigging, and looked up along his back, in the
direction his finger indicated. At first, I could see nothing; then,
slowly, you know, there grew upon my sight a dim figure crouching upon
the bunt of the royal, and partly hidden by the mast. I stared, and
gradually it came to me that there was a couple of them, and further out
upon the yard, a hump that might have been anything, and was only
visible indistinctly amid the flutter of the canvas.
"Stubbins!" the Skipper sung out. "Stubbins, come down out of that! Do
you hear me?"
But no one came, and there was no answer.
"There's two--" I began; but he was shouting again:
"Come down out of that! Do you damned well hear me?"
Still there was no reply.
"I'm hanged if I can see him at all, Sir!" the Second Mate called out
from his side of the mast.
"Can't see him!" said the Old Man, now thoroughly angry. "I'll soon let
you see him!"
He bent down to me with the lantern.
"Catch hold, Jessop," he said, which I did.
Then he pulled the blue light from his pocket, and as he was doing so, I
saw the Second peek round the back side of the mast at him. Evidently,
in the uncertain light, he must have mistaken the Skipper's action; for,
all at once, he shouted out in a frightened voice:
"Don't shoot, Sir! For God's sake, don't shoot!"
"Shoot be damned!" exclaimed the Old Man. "Watch!"
He pulled off the cap of the light.
"There's two of them, Sir," I called again to him.
"What!" he said in a loud voice, and at the same instant he rubbed the
end of the light across the cap, and it burst into fire.
He held it up so that it lit the royal yard like day, and straightway, a
couple of shapes dropped silently from the royal on to the t'gallant
yard. At the same moment, the humped Something, midway out upon the
yard, rose up. It ran in to the mast, and I lost sight of it.
"God!" I heard the Skipper gasp, and he fumbled in his side pocket.
I saw the two figures which had dropped on to the t'gallant, run swiftly
along the yard--one to the starboard and the other to the port
yard-arms.
On the other side of the mast, the Second Mate's pistol cracked out
twice, sharply. Then, from over my head the Skipper fired twice, and
then again; but with what effect, I could not tell. Abruptly, as he
fired his last shot, I was aware of an indistinct Something, gliding
down the starboard royal backstay. It was descending full upon Plummer,
who, all unconscious of the thing, was staring towards the t'gallant
yard.
"Look out above you, Plummer!" I almost shrieked.
"What? where?" he called, and grabbed at the stay, and waved his flare,
excitedly.
Down on the upper topsail yard, Quoin's and Jaskett's voices rose
simultaneously, and in the identical instant, their flares went out.
Then Plummer shouted, and his light went utterly. There were left only
the two lanterns, and the blue-light held by the Skipper, and that, a
few seconds afterwards, finished and died out.
The Skipper and the Second Mate were shouting to the men upon the yard,
and I heard them answer, in shaky voices. Out on the crosstrees, I could
see, by the light from my lantern, that Plummer was holding in a dazed
fashion to the backstay.
"Are you all right, Plummer?" I called.
"Yes," he said, after a little pause; and then he swore.
"Come in off that yard, you men!" the Skipper was singing out. "Come in!
come in!"
Down on deck, I heard someone calling; but could not distinguish the
words. Above me, pistol in hand, the Skipper was glancing about,
uneasily.
"Hold up that light, Jessop," he said. "I can't see!"
Below us, the men got off the yard, into the rigging.
"Down on deck with you!" ordered the Old Man.
"As smartly as you can!"
"Come in off there, Plummer!" sung out the Second Mate. "Get down with
the others!"
"Down with you, Jessop!" said the Skipper, speaking rapidly. "Down with
you!"
I got over the crosstrees, and he followed. On the other side, the
Second Mate was level with us. He had passed his lantern to Plummer, and
I caught the glint of his revolver in his right hand. In this fashion,
we reached the top. The man who had been stationed there with the
blue-lights, had gone. Afterwards, I found that he went down on deck as
soon as they were finished. There was no sign of the man with the flare
on the starboard craneline. He also, I learnt later, had slid down one
of the backstays on to the deck, only a very short while before we
reached the top. He swore that a great black shadow of a man had come
suddenly upon him from aloft. When I heard that, I remembered the thing
I had seen descending upon Plummer. Yet the man who had gone out upon
the port craneline--the one who had bungled with the lighting of his
flare--was still where we had left him; though his light was burning now
but dimly.
"Come in out of that, _you!_" the Old Man sung out "Smartly now, and get
down on deck!"
"i, i, Sir," the man replied, and started to make his way in.
The Skipper waited until he had got into the main rigging, and then he
told me to get down out of the top. He was in the act of following,
when, all at once, there rose a loud outcry on deck, and then came the
sound of a man screaming.
"Get out of my way, Jessop!" the Skipper roared, and swung himself down
alongside of me.
I heard the Second Mate shout something from the starboard rigging. Then
we were all racing down as hard as we could go. I had caught a momentary
glimpse of a man running from the doorway on the port side of the
fo'cas'le. In less than half a minute we were upon the deck, and among a
crowd of the men who were grouped round something. Yet, strangely
enough, they were not looking at the thing among them; but away aft at
something in the darkness.
"It's on the rail!" cried several voices.
"Overboard!" called somebody, in an excited voice. "It's jumped over the
side!"
"Ther' wer'n't nothin'!" said a man in the crowd.
"Silence!" shouted the Old Man. "Where's the Mate? What's happened?"
"Here, Sir," called the First Mate, shakily, from near the centre of the
group. "It's Jacobs, Sir. He--he--"
"What!" said the Skipper. "What!"
"He--he's--he's--dead I think!" said the First Mate, in jerks.
"Let me see," said the Old Man, in a quieter tone.
The men had stood to one side to give him room, and he knelt beside the
man upon the deck.
"Pass the lantern here, Jessop," he said.
I stood by him, and held the light. The man was lying face downwards on
the deck. Under the light from the lantern, the Skipper turned him over
and looked at him.
"Yes," he said, after a short examination. "He's dead."
He stood up and regarded the body a moment, in silence. Then he turned
to the Second Mate, who had been standing by, during the last couple of
minutes.
"Three!" he said, in a grim undertone.
The Second Mate nodded, and cleared his voice.
He seemed on the point of saying something; then he turned and looked at
Jacobs, and said nothing.
"Three," repeated the Old Man. "Since eight bells!"
He stooped and looked again at Jacobs.
"Poor devil! poor devil!" he muttered.
The Second Mate grunted some of the huskiness out of his throat, and
spoke.
"Where must we take him?" he asked, quietly. "The two bunks are full."
"You'll have to put him down on the deck by the lower bunk," replied the
Skipper.
As they carried him away, I heard the Old Man make a sound that was
almost a groan. The rest of the men had gone forrard, and I do not think
he realised that I was standing by him
"My God! O, my God!" he muttered, and began to walk slowly aft.
He had cause enough for groaning. There were three dead, and Stubbins
had gone utterly and completely. We never saw him again.