MR. HALL HARANGUES THE CREW.
The news had spread quickly; the watch below had roused out and most of
the men were on deck, and they moved about in groups striving to find
out all about the suicide. The death of a captain of a ship at sea is
sure always to fill the crew with uneasiness; a sense of uncertainty is
excited, and then again there is that darkening of the spirits which
the shadow of death particularly causes among a slender community who
have been for months associated as a family, and amid whom, every
man's face, speech, and manner are, maybe, more familiar than his own
brother's or father's.
Yet of all the souls on board I suspect I felt the captain's
self-murder most sorely, for owing to there being in my mind much more
that was akin to his own moods than he could find in Mr. Hall, we had
had many and long conversations together. Then there was the Death Ship
for me to recall, with his thoughts on it and his conviction that evil
was sure to follow his boarding the Plymouth snow. Moreover, I was the
last with whom he had exchanged words that night, and in his manner of
quitting me, after looking at the moon, there was positively nothing
that even my startled and imaginative mind could witness to indicate
the intention that had destroyed him.
Presently Mr. Hall arrived on deck fully dressed, and stepping over to
where I stood in deep thought, exclaimed, "Did you have a suspicion
that the captain designed this fearful act?"
"No, not a shadow of a suspicion," I answered.
"'Tis enough to make one believe he was not far out when he talked
of the ill-luck he expected from speaking a craft that had sighted
Vanderdecken," said he, very uneasily, which made me see how strong was
the blow his nerves had received; and running his eyes restlessly over
the water here and there, as I might tell by the dim sparkle the faint
moon-haze kindled in them. "Oh, but," he continued, as if dashing aside
his fancies, "the mere circumstance of his being so superstitious ought
to explain the act. I have often thought there was a vein of madness in
him."
"I never questioned that," I replied.
"'Tis an ugly-looking night," said he, with a little tremble running
through him, "there is some menace of foul weather. We shall lose this
faint air presently." He shivered again and said, "Such a sight as that
below is enough to make a Hell of a night of midsummer beauty! It is
the suddenness of it that seizes upon the imagination. Why, d'ye know,
Fenton, I'd give a handful of guineas, poor as I am, for a rousing
gale--anything to blow my mind to its bearings, for here's a sort of
business," looking aloft, "that's fit to suffocate the heart in your
breast."
Such words in so plain and literal a man made me perceive how violently
he had been wrenched. I begged his leave to go below and fetch him a
glass of liquor.
"No, no," said he, "not yet, anyhow. I must speak to those fellows
there."
Saying which he walked a little distance forward, calling for the
boatswain.
On that officer answering, he said, "Are all hands on deck?"
"I believe most of the crew are on deck, sir," replied the boatswain.
"Pipe all hands," said Mr. Hall.
The clear keen whistling rose shrill to the sails and made as blythe a
sound as could have been devised for the cheering of us up. The men
gathered quickly, some lanthorns were fetched, and in the light of
them stood the crew near to the round-house. A strange sight it was;
the shining went no higher than half-way up the mainsail that hung
steady with its own weight, and as much of it as was thus illuminated
showed like cloth of gold pale in the dusk; above was mere shadow,
the round-top like a drop of ink upon the face of the darkness, the
sails of so weak a hue they seemed as though in the act of dissolving
and vanishing away; the crowd of faces were all pale and their eyes
full of gleaming; the shadows crawled at our feet, and, with the total
concealment of the moon at this time, a deeper shade fell upon the sea
and our ship, and the delicate rippling of the water alongside seemed
to stir upon our ears in a tinkling as from out of the middle air.
Mr. Hall made a brief speech. He explained to the men how, on hearing
the report of a musket, he had sprung from his bed, and perceiving
powder-smoke leaking through the openings in the door of the captain's
cabin, through which some rays of light streamed, he entered, and
seeing the body of the captain, and the horrid condition of the head,
was filled with a panic and rushed on deck. That the master had shot
himself was certain, but there was no help for what had happened. The
command of the ship fell upon him; but it was for them to say whether
he should navigate the ship to her destination, or carry her back to
Table Bay, where a fresh commander could be obtained.
He was very well liked on board, being an excellent seaman; and the
crew on hearing this, immediately answered that they wanted no better
master to sail under than he, and that, indeed, they would not consent
to a change; but having said this with a heartiness that pleased me,
for I liked Mr. Hall greatly myself, and was extremely glad to find
the crew so well disposed, they fell into an awkward silence, broken
after a little by some hoarse whisperings.
"What now?" says Mr. Hall.
"Why, sir," answers the boatswain, respectfully, "it's this with the
men: there's a notion among us that that there Plymouth snow has
brought ill-luck to the ship, one bad specimen of which has just
happened; and the feeling is that we had better return to Table Bay, so
as to get the influence worked out of the old barkey."
"How is that to be done?" says Mr. Hall, coming easily into the matter,
partly because of his shaken nerves, and partly because of the kindness
he felt towards the hands for the way they had received his address to
them.
Here there was another pause, and then the boatswain, speaking somewhat
shyly, said, "The carpenter, who's heard tell more about the Phantom
Ship and the spell she lays on vessels than all hands of us put
together, says that the only way to work out of a ship's timbers the
ill-luck that's been put into them by what's magical and hellish, is
for a minister of religion to come aboard, call all hands to prayer,
and ask of the Lord a blessing on the ship. He says there's no other
way of purifying of her."
"Can't we pray ourselves for a blessing?" says Mr. Hall.
The boatswain not quickly answering, a sailor says, "It needs a man who
knows how to pray--who's acquainted with the right sort of words to
use."
"Aye," cried another, "and whose calling is religion."
Mr. Hall half-turned, as if he would address me, then checking himself,
he said, "Well, my lads, there's no wind now, and small promise of any.
Suppose we let this matter rest till to-morrow morning; Mr. Fenton and
I will talk it over, and you forward can turn it about in your minds. I
believe we shall be easier when the captain's buried and the sun's up,
and then we might agree it would be a pity to put back after the tough
job we've had to get where we are. But lest you should still be all of
one mind on this matter in the morning, we'll keep the ship, should
wind come, under small sail, so as to make no headway worth speaking of
during the night. Is that to your fancy, men?"
They all said it was, and thereupon went forward, but I noticed
that those who were off duty did not offer to go below; they joined
the watch on the forecastle, and I could hear them in earnest talk,
their voices trembling through the stillness like the humming of a
congregation in church following the parson's reading.
Mr. Hall came to my side and we walked the deck.
"I am sorry the men have got that notion of this ship being under a
spell," said he. "This is no sweet time of the year in these seas; to
put back will, I daresay, be only to anger the weather that's now quiet
enough, and there's always the risk of falling into Dutch hands."
I told him of my talk with the carpenter, and said that I could not be
surprised the crew were alarmed, for the old fellow had the Devil's own
knack of putting his fancies in an alarming way.
"I laughed at some of his fancies," said I, "but I don't mind owning
that I quitted his cabin so dulled in my spirits by his talk, that I
might have come from a death-bed for all the heart there was in me."
"Well, things must take their chance," said Mr. Hall. "I'll speak to
the carpenter myself in the morning, and afterwards to the men; and if
they are still wishful that the ship should return to Table Bay we'll
sail her there. 'Tis all one to me. I'd liefer have a new captain over
me than be one."
We continued until five bells to walk to and fro the deck, talking
about the captain's suicide, the strangeness of it as following his
belief that ill-luck had come to the ship from the Plymouth vessel,
with other such matters as would be suggested by our situation and the
tragedy in the cabin; and Mr. Hall then said he would go below for a
glass of rum; but he refused to lie down--though I offered to stand an
hour of his watch, that is from midnight till one o'clock--for he said
he should not be able to sleep.
Most of the crew continued to hang about the forecastle, which rescued
the deck from the extreme loneliness I had found in it ere the report
of the fatal musket startled all hands into wakefulness and movement.
The lanthorns had been carried away and the ship was plunged in
darkness. There still blew a very light air, so gentle that you needed
to wet your finger and hold it up to feel it. From the darkness aloft
fell the delicate sounds of the higher canvas softly drumming the masts
to the very slight rolling of the ship. I went to the binnacle and
found that the vessel was heading her course, and then stepped to the
rail, upon which I set my elbows, leaning my chin in my hands, and in
that posture fell a-thinking.