"RECOLLECT," SAYS THE FELLOW, "YOU HAVE THROWN OVERBOARD A BLACK TOM
CAT!"
In a quarter of an hour the pump sucked, and we all hastened down below
to our grog and the completion of our yarn. As soon as we were all
comfortably seated as before, Dick recommenced.
"Well, we were abreast of Malta, when the weather, which had hitherto on
the voyage been very fine, changed. The clouds hung down very heavy,
and there was every symptom of a fierce gale; and sure enough a worse
gale I never was in than came on that night--and such a sea!--the ship
rolled gunnel under, for the gale was fair, but the sea ran so high and
so fast that we expected to be pooped every minute. It was about
midnight when the rain came on in torrents, and the wind blew fiercer
than ever. I was on deck, and so was the first mate and another man at
the helm, for we were flying right before it, and she was hard to steer.
"`We shall have it worse yet,' said the captain.
"`_Miaw_!' was the reply, so clear, so loud, we could not tell where it
came from. I thought it came from the main-top.
"`Mercy on us! what was that?' said the first mate, the light from the
binnacle showing his face as pale as a sheet.
"`_Miaw_!' was the reply from somewhere.
"`The black cat, by all that's blue!' cried the captain.
"`The Lord have mercy upon us, we're all gone!' said the mate, clasping
his hands in terror. To clasp his hands, of course he let go the wheel;
and the other man, who was equally frightened, had not strength to hold
it. Away he went, right over the wheel, knocking down the mate on the
other side; and the ship taking a heavy lurch, they both went into the
scuppers together. The ship breached-to, and our mainmast and mizenmast
went over the side."
"Do top that glim, Bill," said one of the men, in a tremulous voice.
Dick paused while the snuff was taken off the candle; and the water went
tap, tap, tap against the bends, with a most melancholy sound. I really
did feel rather queer myself.
Dick continued. "Well, all hands were on deck immediately, and it was
good two hours before we could clear the wreck, for the men were
disheartened. They had heard the loud _miaw_ when in the fore-peak, and
declared that it was close to them; and the passenger and Jim came out,
frightened out of their wits. They had heard the _miaw_, and said that
it was from under the cabin table. At last we were clear of the wreck,
and the wind roared louder than ever.
"The captain was a stout-hearted fellow, and as the men were collected
together under the bulwark, he said, `Well, this breeze will shorten our
distance, at any rate, and if it holds we shall soon be at Smyrna.'
"`We shall never see Smyrna!' replied the second mate, his teeth
chattering.
"`No, never!' cried the seamen.
"The captain sent Jim down for his rum-bottle, and gave every man a
stiff glass of liquor, and that made them feel more comfortable for a
time; when there was a sort of lull, and again the loud _miaw_ was
repeated.
"`There it is!' cried the men; but they hardly had time to say so, when
the ship was pooped with a tremendous sea washing away the stern and
quarter boats, and sending all the men swimming forward. So loaded was
the ship with water that she stopped, and appeared as if she was
settling down. At last she rolled heavy to port and discharged it, and
away we went before the wind, faster than ever. Well, there was some
talk among the seamen of throwing poor Jim overboard to appease the
ghost of the cat, for it was he who had thrown the cat overboard. But
the captain heard what the men were saying, and he swore that he would
knock the brains out of the first man who laid hold of the boy; and he
sent Jim below out of harm's way. Poor Jim! how bitterly he cried, poor
boy, when he heard what was going on.
"Well, it's a long lane that has no turning, and no gale lasts for ever:
the next day it moderated, and the day after the weather was quite fine,
and the sea had gone down. We recovered our spirits, the more so as we
heard no more of the cat; and having jury-rigged her aft, we steered our
course with a light breeze. We were now but a short distance from
Smyrna, and hoped to be there by the next day; but the second mate shook
his head; he said, `The cat has not done with us, for it was a _black
tom_ cat.'
"The fourth day the captain came on deck, and said, `I heard a great
washing of water in the run last night, as I thought; have you sounded
the well lately?'
"`No,' replied the first mate, `I left that to the carpenter.'
"`Well, then, ask him.' Well, the carpenter had not sounded the well,
as it appeared; and so he sounded it immediately, and found that we had
_six feet water in the hold_.
"`I knowed we were doomed,' said the second mate; `we'll never get at
port:' and so thought the men; but the captain said:--
"`Why, the fact is, my lads, we must have sprung a leak in the gale, and
no wonder, beating against the wreck so as we did when the masts went
over the side. Come, rig the pumps, and we shall soon clear her. The
tom cat has nothing to do with this, at all events.'
"Now, you see, our bottom cargo consisted of two or three tier of crates
of crockery, which would not spoil by being wet; but the upper part of
the cargo was bales of dry goods and linen; so the captain was very
anxious that they should work the pumps before the water got higher: the
weather was very fine, the sea smooth, and the wind, although fair, was
light. Well, the seamen were terrified, and thought they were lost;
they asked for liquor, and refused to work at the pumps; they said it
was no use, the ship was doomed. Well, the captain he got very angry;
he went down into the cabin, loaded his double-barrelled gun, and swore
that he would shoot the first man through the head who refused to work
at the pumps. The men knew that he was in earnest, for he was a violent
sort of fellow, and so they set to. We didn't gain much upon her; I
thought we did a little, but the men said no. The captain declared that
we did gain considerably, but it was supposed that he only said so to
encourage the people. Well, the captain ordered the mate to take up the
hatches, that they might see the state of the cargo. This was done; the
dry goods, as far as we could make out, were not injured, and the men
pumped spell and spell until the evening, when the captain gave them a
good allowance of grog, and an hour to rest themselves. It was a
beautiful moonlight night: the sails were just asleep and no more; but
the vessel was heavy, from the water in her, and we dragged slowly
along. The captain, who had gone down below with the first mate, came
up from the cabin, and said to the men, `Now, my lads, we'll set to
again;' when suddenly there was a loud, melancholy _miaw_! which
terrified us all. We looked from whence the sound appeared to come, and
there, on the launch turned over amidship, we beheld the ghost of the
black tom cat, so large, so black, with the broad moonlight shining on
it; and so thin, it was the skeleton of the cat, only it looked as black
as ever; its back was humped up and its tail curved; and, as it stood
out in the broad moonlight, it did look twice as big as the original
cat, which was the biggest I ever saw. Well, the men actually screamed;
they ran aft, upsetting the captain and mate, and rolling over them and
hiding their faces, with `Lord have mercy on us!' and `God forgive our
sins!' and `Oh! we're lost, we're lost!' and every sort of crying and
groaning that could be thought of. At last the captain gets up from
under them in a great rage and looks forward to see what was the matter,
and there he sees the ghost of the tom cat standing just in the same
place; and it gave another miserable _miaw_! `Why,' cried the captain
(who had his grog on board, and was as brave as brass), `it is the
cussed cat himself. Stop a moment.' Down he goes to the cabin, reels
up the hatchway again with his double-barrelled gun, and lets fly at
it"--(here Dick lowered his voice to almost a whisper)--"the cat gave a
shriek--and then--"
Here, during the pause, Bill put out his finger and thumb to snuff the
candle, but his hand shook--he snuffed it out, and we were all left in
darkness. I can hardly describe the feeling which appeared to pervade
the whole of our party. Every one was shuffling and crowding with their
shoulders, but still no one moved from his place.
"Well," said Dick, the narrator, in a quiet subdued voice, "why don't
one of you go and fetch a light? Come, jump up, Bill, you topped it
out."
"Ay, ay," replied Bill, evidently shaking; "where's the candle?"
"Here," said one of the boys, handing it to him.
"Well, then, jump up yourself you young whelp, you're younger than me."
"I didn't put it out," replied the boy, whining.
"Up immediately, or I'll break every rib in your body," replied Bill.
The boy, who was terribly frightened, got up at this threat, and began
to ascend the ladder; he was about three steps up, when we heard from
the deck a horrible _miaw_! The boy gave a scream of terror, and fell
down on his back among us all, smashing the glass and flattening the tin
cans against the men's legs, who halloed with pain. At last there was a
dead silence again, and I could plainly hear the loud throbbing of more
than one heart.
"Come," said Dick again, "what was the fool frightened about? Look for
the candle, some of you."
At last Bill found it in his breast, broke in two and half melted away,
and was proceeding for a light when the carpenter stepped to the hatch
with his lantern, and said, "Why, you're all in the dark there,
shipmates! Here, take my lantern."
I may as well here observe that the carpenter had been listening to the
story as he sat by the hatchway on deck, and it was he who had favoured
us with the _miaw_ which had so frightened the boy. As soon as the
lantern had been received and the candle relighted, Dick re-commenced.
"Well, my lads, I said that the captain went down below, brought up his
gun, and let fly at the cat, and then--well, and then--the cat gave
aloud shriek, and falls down upon the deck. The captain walks forward
to it, takes it up by the tail, brings it aft, and shies it among the
men.
"`There, you fools,' said he, `it is the cat himself; will you believe
your own eyes?'
"And sure enough, so it was; for, you see, when Jim tumbled overboard,
it being then dark, and we so busy with Jim, we did not look after the
cat, and so it must have crawled up the cable and run down into the hold
while the hatches were off; and all that noise heard aft must have been
the brute chasing the rats, I suppose.--Jim may have heard, but he could
not have seen, the cat; that was all fancy and fright. You know how
long a cat will live without much food, and so the animal was' pretty
quiet after it had killed all the rats. Then when the gale came on, and
the upper part of the cargo fetched way a little, for it was loosely
stowed, we suppose that it got jammed now and then with the rolling, and
that made it miaw; and then, when we took off the hatches to look at the
cargo, after we had sprung the leak, the cat, o' course, came out, and a
pretty skeleton it was, as you may suppose. Now do you understand the
whole of it?"
"Yes, that's all clear," replied Bill; "and it was no ghost, after all?
But still the cat did do mischief, for if the mate had not been
frightened by it, he wouldn't have let go the wheel, and the masts would
not have gone by the lee."
"That's true enough, and he might have done more mischief still if the
captain had not shot him, for the men would never have gone to the pumps
again; but when they found out that it was nothing but the cat himself,
then they set to, and before the next evening the vessel was clear, and
only required pumping out every two hours, for the leak wasn't great,
after all. So there's a ghost story for you, and I believe that all
others will be found, like mine, to end in moonshine. Now, suppose we
turn in, for we shall weigh at three o'clock in the morning."
We all tumbled into the standing berths in the fore-peak; I dreamt of
black tom cats all night. The next morning we weighed with a fair wind;
as before, I stood beside Bramble, who pointed out to me everything
worth notice or memory as we passed, but at last the motion affected me
so much that I could pay little attention, and I remained by his side as
pale as a sheet. We rounded the North Foreland, and long before dark
anchored in the Downs. Bramble went no farther with the vessel, the
captain himself being a good pilot for the Channel. A Deal boat came
alongside, we got into it, they landed us on the shingle beach, and I
followed Bramble up to his abode.