THE DEATH SHIP
NEW AND POPULAR NOVELS
AT ALL THE LIBRARIES
THE YOUNGEST MISS GREEN. By F. W. ROBINSON, author of
'Grandmother's Money,' &c. 3 vols.
A DAUGHTER OF DIVES. By LEITH DERWENT, author of 'Circe's Lovers,'
'King Lazarus,' &c. 3 vols.
THE DUCHESS. By the Author of 'Molly Bawn,' 'Phyllis,' 'Airy Fairy
Lilian,' &c. 1 vol.
A CREATURE OF CIRCUMSTANCES. By HARRY LANDER. 3 vols.
A MODERN DELILAH. By VERE CLAVERING. 3 vols.
HURST & BLACKETT, 13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET.
THE DEATH SHIP
A STRANGE STORY;
AN ACCOUNT OF A CRUISE IN "THE FLYING DUTCHMAN," COLLECTED
FROM THE PAPERS OF THE LATE MR. GEOFFREY FENTON, OF POPLAR,
MASTER MARINER.
BY
W. CLARK RUSSELL,
AUTHOR OF
"THE WRECK OF THE GROSVENOR," "THE GOLDEN HOPE," "A SEA QUEEN,"
ETC., ETC.
IN THREE VOLUMES
VOL. I
LONDON
HURST AND BLACKETT, LIMITED
13, GREAT MARLBOROUGH STREET
1888
_All Rights Reserved_
PRINTED BY
TILLOTSON AND SON, MAWDSLEY STREET
BOLTON
CONTENTS
OF
THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER PAGE
I.--I SAIL AS SECOND MATE IN THE SARACEN 1
II.--WE MEET AND SPEAK THE LOVELY NANCY, SNOW 7
III.--THE CAPTAIN AND I TALK OF THE DEATH SHIP 18
IV.--WE ARE CHASED AND NEARLY CAPTURED 33
V.--WE ARRIVE AT TABLE BAY AND PROCEED THENCE
ON OUR VOYAGE 50
VI.--THE CAPTAIN SPEAKS AGAIN OF THE DEATH SHIP 62
VII.--I CONVERSE WITH THE SHIP'S CARPENTER ABOUT
THE DEATH SHIP 75
VIII.--A TRAGICAL DEATH 88
IX.--MR. HALL HARANGUES THE CREW 98
X.--WE DRAW CLOSE TO A STRANGE AND LUMINOUS
SHIP 110
XI.--A CRUEL DISASTER BEFALLS ME 122
XII.--I AM RESCUED BY THE DEATH SHIP 136
XIII.--WY ZYN AL VERDOMD 147
XIV.--MY FIRST NIGHT IN THE DEATH SHIP 168
XV.--I INSPECT THE FLYING DUTCHMAN 177
XVI.--VANDERDECKEN SHOWS ME HIS PRESENT FOR
LITTLE MARGARETHA 194
XVII.--I TALK WITH MISS IMOGENE DUDLEY ABOUT THE
DEATH SHIP 211
XVIII.--THE DEATH SHIP MUST BE SLOW AT PLYING 245
XIX.--I WITNESS THE CAPTAIN'S ENTRANCEMENT 259
XX.--I HOLD A CONVERSATION WITH THE CREW 270
THE DEATH SHIP.
CHAPTER I.
I SAIL AS SECOND MATE IN THE SARACEN.
I will pass by all the explanations concerning the reasons of my going
to sea, as I do not desire to forfeit your kind patience by letting
this story stand. Enough if I say that after I had been fairly well
grounded in English, arithmetic and the like, which plain education I
have never wearied of improving by reading everything good that came in
my way, I was bound apprentice to a respectable man named Joshua Cox,
of Whitby, and served my time in his vessel, the Laughing Susan--a
brave, nimble brigantine.
We traded to Riga, Stockholm, and Baltic ports, and often to Rotterdam,
where, having a quick ear, which has sometimes served me for playing
upon the fiddle for my mates to dance or sing to, I picked up enough of
Dutch to enable me to hold my own in conversing with a Hollander, or
Hans Butterbox, as those people used to be called; that is to say, I
had sufficient words at command to qualify me to follow what was said
and to answer so as to be intelligible; the easier, since, uncouth as
that language is, there is so much of it resembling ours in sound that
many words in it might easily pass for portions of our tongue grossly
and ludicrously articulated. Why I mention this will hereafter appear.
When my apprenticeship term had expired, I made two voyages as second
mate, and then obtained an appointment to that post in a ship named
the Saracen, for a voyage to the East Indies. This was _anno_ 1796. I
was then two-and-twenty years of age, a tall, well-built young fellow,
with tawny hair, of the mariner's complexion from the high suns I had
sailed under and the hardening gales I had stared into, with dark blue
eyes filled with the light of an easy and naturally merry heart, white
teeth, very regular, and a glad expression as though, forsooth, I
found something gay and to like in all that I looked at. Indeed it was
a saying with my mother that "Geff,"--meaning Geoffrey--that "Geff's
appearance was as though a very little joke would set the full measure
of his spirits overflowing." But now, it is as an old poet finely wrote:
My golden locks time hath to silver turn'd,
(O time, too swift, and swiftness never ceasing!)
My youth, 'gainst age, and age at youth have spurn'd,
But spurn'd in vain!
And here it is but right to myself that I should say, though as a
sailor I am but an obscure person, yet as a man I may claim some pride
and lustre of descent, an ancestor being no less a worthy than one of
the boldest of Queen Elizabeth's sea-captains and generals--Edward
Fenton, I mean, who was himself of a sound and ancient Nottingham
stock; illustrious for his behaviour against the Spaniards in 1588, and
for his explorations of the hidden passage of the North Sea, mentioned
with other notable matters in the Latin inscription upon his monument
by Richard, Earl of Cork, who married his niece.
But enough of such parish talk.
The master of the Saracen was one Jacob Skevington, and the mate's name
Christopher Hall. We sailed from Gravesend--for with Whitby I was now
done--in the month of April, 1796. We were told to look to ourselves
when we should arrive in the neighbourhood of the Cape of Good Hope,
for it was rumoured that the Dutch, with the help of the French, were
likely to send a squadron to recover Cape Town, that had fallen into
the hands of the British in the previous September. However, at the
time of our lifting our anchor off Gravesend, the Cape Settlement lay
on the other side of the globe; whatever danger there might be there,
was too remote to cast the least faint shadow upon us; besides, the
sailor was so used to the perils of the enemy and the chase, that
nothing could put an element of uneasiness into his plain, shipboard
life, short of the assurance of his own or his captain's eyes that the
sail that had hauled his wind and was fast growing upon the sea-line,
was undeniably an enemy's ship, heavily armed, and big enough to
cannonade him into staves.
So with resolved spirits, which many of us had cheered and heartened by
a few farewell drams--for of all parts of the seafaring life the saying
good-bye to those we love, and whom the God of Heaven alone knows
whether we shall ever clasp to our breasts again, is the hardest--we
plied the capstan with a will, raising the anchor to a chorus that
fetched an echo from the river's banks up and down the Reach; and then
sheeting home our topsails, dragging upon the halliards with piercing,
far-sounding songs, we gathered the weight of the pleasant sunny wind
into those spacious hollows, and in a few minutes had started upon our
long journey.
Yet, though my parting with my friends had not been of a nature to
affect my spirits, and though I was accounted to be, and indeed was, a
merry, careless fellow, I was sensible of an unaccountable depression
as, amidst the duties which occupied me, I would cast glances at the
houses of Gravesend and the shore sliding by, and hear, in momentary
hushes, tremulous tinkling sounds raised by the water wrinkling,
current-like under our round and pushing bows.