A HAIL IN THE NIGHT.
For several days nothing of importance happened. Then came a storm and
Clif was placed on the lookout.
“Sail O! Ship dead ahead! Look out, she’s----”
The startling cry, wafted aft from the forecastle by a sudden shifting
of the gale, came to an end just as the officer on watch awakened to
the fact that something was wrong.
Grasping his trumpet more firmly, he peered through the gloom
enshrouding the ship like a damp mist, and then bawled, lustily:
“Foc’s’le, ahoy! What have you sighted?”
There was a commotion about the wet, littered decks. Crew and cadets
slipped from their shelters and glanced anxiously out into the
storm-tossed waste of waters. The executive officer, who had just
retired, hastily reappeared, armed with his nightglass, and silently
took his station on the quarter-deck.
All waited breathlessly for the answer from forward. It was tardy in
coming, and the executive officer snapped out:
“Forward, there! Why don’t you answer?”
A tall, slim figure, swathed in oilskins, swayed up to the speaker from
beyond the foremast, and saluted as well as plunging deck would permit.
“I have investigated the matter, sir. The cry was given by a new fourth
class cadet, acting as lookout on the starboard cathead. He fancied he
saw a ship directly in front, and he gave the alarm.”
“What is his name?”
“Clifford Faraday, sir.”
“Humph! was he asleep?”
“I do not think so, sir.”
“He’s a bright lad, Mr. Watson,” interposed the officer of the watch.
“I stationed him up there for that reason. He’s not the one to sleep on
duty.”
“But he must have been dreaming to act in that manner,” impatiently
replied the executive officer. “What did the other lookouts----”
“Ship ahoy! She’s dead ahead! Watch----”
The cry rang out sharply above the roaring of the gale, and, as before,
it came to a sudden ending. There was a moment of silence, then the
cadet officer of the forecastle, who had just made a report, exclaimed
wonderingly:
“It’s Faraday again!”
Brandishing his telescope like a sword, the executive officer sprang
forward, followed by the other officers and a score of men and cadets.
On reaching the forecastle they found Clif leaning far out over the
rail, hanging with one hand from a stay.
He was peering eagerly through the gloom at a point just off the
starboard bow.
“What is the matter here?” harshly exclaimed Lieutenant Watson. “Who
gave that alarm?”
Clif turned and leaped lightly to the deck. One hand came up to the rim
of his cap in prompt salute, then he replied, in a clear, strong voice:
“I gave the alarm, sir.”
“What for?”
“Because I sighted a ship dead ahead, sir. We were almost on top of her
when she disappeared.”
The executive officer made a gesture of impatience.
“This is sheer nonsense, Mr. Faraday,” he exclaimed. “You have been
dreaming.”
“Dreaming, sir?”
Clif drew himself up. His face, seen in the light cast by a hand
lantern, reddened.
“Yes, dreaming. You have been asleep, sir,” insisted Lieutenant Watson,
whose temper was not the best. “It is a grave breach of discipline, and
I warn you to keep awake on watch in the future.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” replied Clif, respectfully, but with
firmness. “I must deny having been asleep. I have walked back and forth
across decks during the whole watch. I passed the call at each bell,
and I know I saw what I have claimed.”
“Where is it, then?”
Clif glanced out across the water, which foamed and leaped in giant
billows under the force of the gale. The air was filled with flying
spume, and rain beat downward with steady persistency. It was a wild
night.
The thick mist hemmed the ship in a black horizon, and naught was
visible to the curious eyes of the group on the forecastle. Several of
the cadets laughed, and one said in a tone plainly audible:
“He saw the _Flying Dutchman_, I guess.”
The words did not escape Clif, but he gave no sign of having heard
them other than one quick glance at the speaker.
“I do not know where the ship is now, sir,” he replied, steadily, to
the executive officer’s question, “but I am certain I saw one. It was
nothing but a hulk with two masts having curious round cages at the
top. There weren’t any yards or sails visible.”
“You are describing a lightship, Faraday,” said Lieutenant Watson,
smiling incredulously. “And there are none within fifty miles of us.
Take my advice and do not cultivate the habit of riding nightmares on
watch.”
With this last bit of sarcasm the officer walked aft and rejoined the
officer of the deck.
“It is hard to believe such a manly, clever cadet as Faraday would lie
deliberately to get out of a scrape,” he said, “but it certainly looks
as if he has been trying it. Fancy a lightship out here. Better take
him off watch, or he’ll be keeping us awake all night. When do you
change the course?”
“At eight bells, sir. It is almost that time now. Good-night, sir.”
“Rather good-morning. There would be a glimpse of dawn in the sky if it
wasn’t for this confounded gale.”
Lieutenant Watson crossed the slippery, tossing deck to the break of
the cabin, and glanced at the clock back of the wheel.
The hands indicated ten minutes of four.
With a sigh for the sleep he had lost, he went below to turn in. Five
minutes later he was buried in a slumber.
In the meantime Clif had been relieved from his post on the forecastle.
When the cadet officer in charge, a first classman, curtly bade him
give way to another plebe, he silently obeyed, but it was evident he
felt the disgrace keenly.
“Don’t you care, Clif,” spoke up Joy, who had formed one of the group.
“Such mistakes are common.”
“But it wasn’t a mistake, Joy,” replied Faraday, earnestly. “I am as
certain I saw that ship twice as I am that I stand here.”
“Did it look like a lightship?” queried a smaller lad.
“I guess so, Nanny. The first luff said I described one. Whew! it was a
peculiar experience. My flesh is creepy yet. I thought we would plump
into her for certain.”
“Tell us all about it, old fellow,” chorused several plebes of the
watch.
“It bad here,” spoke up Trolley. “Me think we blow away pretty soon.
This one lulu of a gale. It peacherine.”
“Right you are, Trolley,” laughed Clif. “The strength of the wind is
only equaled by the force of your slang. We will take refuge in the lee
of the bulwarks down below.”
The rest scurried to the main deck, but he remained a moment clinging
to the railing, and searchingly swept the sea with his eyes.
“I can’t make it out to save me,” he murmured. “I was not asleep or
dreaming. I saw that vessel as sure as fate. But why didn’t the others
see it, too? Spendly was on watch on the other side of the deck. He----
Why, by Jove! probably he was asleep! It’s certainly mysterious.”
The old _Monongahela_ pitched and rolled heavily in the seas. The gale
shrieked unceasingly through the taut rigging. Monster waves, wind
blown and angry, leaped against the stout wooden hull as if eager to
drag it apart. Flying masses of vapor, dank and salty, scudded through
the air, and in the midst of it all the driving rain poured with a
sleet-like sharpness against the faces of the watch on deck.
Ten hours previous the practice ship passed the capes of the Chesapeake.
Moderately fair weather had suddenly given way to a sharp squall
shortly before dark, and this had changed by midnight to a gale which
promised to last until morning.
Clif, with several of his plebe friends, had gone on watch at four
bells--two o’clock--and it was while he was acting as lookout on the
starboard side of the forecastle that he insisted he had sighted a
vessel dead ahead.
He felt rather downcast when he finally left the forecastle and
rejoined his chums under the lee of the port bulwarks. Lieutenant
Watson’s sarcastic words hurt him. And especially so, as he considered
them entirely undeserved.
That he had really seen a vessel almost within a cable’s length of the
_Monongahela_ he was positive. But why had not others seen it? And why
did the ship disappear so mysteriously and suddenly?
Clif was not superstitious, nor did he place any faith in the tales of
the old sailors, but his flesh crept as he cast one last glance at the
raging seas, and he welcomed with gladness Nanny’s cheery voice.
“Hello, chum! See anything more of your _Dutchman_?” laughed the little
lad.
“That’s what Judson Greene called it,” said Joy, gloomily. “He’s always
trying to say mean things. Why can’t he be peaceful, and not always
attempt to stir up trouble? Why ain’t he like me? When I have it in for
a fellow, do I go around casting sneering remarks? No, indeedy! I act
like a peaceful man and a Christian. I simply swat him one with a club,
or beat the blooming head off him.”
“Hurray!” giggled the Japanese youth. “You bully boy after my own--my
own--what you call him?”
“Liver!” suggested a lad named Toggles, gravely.
“Perhaps he means after his own gizzard?” slyly observed Nanny.
There was a general laugh at Trolley’s expense, and he laughed the
loudest of all. Nothing could shake his good nature.
Clif stooped down and, leaning upon a broadside gun, glanced
thoughtfully through the crack of the port shutter.
“Still looking for your ship?” asked Toggles, sympathetically, at his
elbow.
“Yes. But, to tell the truth, I don’t know whether I care to see it
again or not,” was the grave reply.
“Why not, chum? It seems to me that if it was sighted again it would
clear you of any suspicion. What is your reason for not wanting to see
it?”
Clif did not reply at once. Resting against the polished breech of the
heavy gun, he continued to gaze into the dark wall of mist. Presently
he spoke, and his serious tone surprised his hearers.
“Chums,” he said, “do you know I believe there is some mystery
connected with that strange-looking ship?”
“A mystery?” echoed Nanny, wonderingly.
“Yes. I am positive I saw it just as I described it to Lieutenant
Watson. I was standing near the heel of the bowsprit looking ahead,
when, suddenly there came a flash of lightning, and before the glare
died away, I saw a peculiar-looking hull, battered and worn, with two
masts clear of yards and sails. At each top was a queer, round object
shaped like a barred cage. As far as I could see there was no one on
board, and the vessel seemed---- Heavens! what was that?”
Clif’s description ended in an exclamation of profound amazement.
There was good cause for it. Suddenly, and without warning, a horrible
scream, blood-curdling in its intensity, sounded through the length and
breadth of the practice ship.
It was not uttered by any on board, but seemed to come from off the
port beam. There was an instant of breathless silence, then, just as
the crew, aroused and horrified, rushed from below, a second terrible
cry arose above the whistling of the gale.
The men at the wheel were so startled that, stanch seamen though they
were, they involuntarily released the spokes. There was not much
canvas exposed to the wind, merely the topsails and storm staysails,
close-reefed, but there was enough spread to send the ship almost aback.
The captain, hurrying from his cabin, grasped the situation at once.
A sharp word of command brought the sailors to a sense of their duty,
and they hurled themselves upon the wheel just in time to keep the
_Monongahela_ from broaching to.
As she staggered around, trembling under the force of the gale, there
suddenly came a startling cry from amidships.
“Ship abeam! Look! She is almost on us!”
The voice was Clif’s, and the lad, dimly revealed in the faint light
of dawn, was standing upon the lower port main shrouds, pointing with
shaking hand to where, lurching wildly toward the practice ship, was
a grim, weather-beaten hull, with two bare masts, having cage-like
objects in the tops.
The next moment there was a terrific crash and grinding of timbers;
then, as the _Monongahela_ reeled with the shock, the strange ship
staggered away, that weird scream echoing from her deck.