whole manner that of one straining under suppressed passion.
‘Yes, I do,’ he answered excitedly, ‘and be d----d to you. Anyway, I’m
a doomed man.’
He walked rapidly away without another word, and I stood for some
little time dumfounded. Anyone who could speak in such a manner was
surely mad, and I seriously considered it was my business to take
counsel with my fellow-passengers, if not with the officers of the
ship, for a mad captain ought to be relieved of his responsible duties
in the interest of every soul on board. But before I could stir away
the man himself came back to me, and said in a most pathetic and
appealing way that went to my heart:
‘Pray pardon my rudeness, Mr. Gibling. You don’t know how I’m troubled.
I am suffering dreadfully, and if you knew all you would pity rather
than blame me.’
‘Why not place me in possession of the information, then?’ I asked. He
put his hand to his eyes for a moment or two and shuddered.
‘It is so dreadful, so horrible,’ he muttered mysteriously, speaking
rather to himself than me.
‘All the more reason, then, why you should take me into your
confidence,’ I said.
‘Yes--perhaps you are right. I will, I will. Come to my cabin in half
an hour and I will tell you the awful story.’
Further conversation was interrupted by the bursting of a squall
accompanied by heavy rain, while a long swell that came up from the
S.W. was a sure precursor of the coming gales, of which the squalls
were only the heralds.
I at once descended to the cabin to get out of the rain, but quite
half an hour passed before the captain came down. He passed me without
speaking, but called the steward and ordered some tea to be taken to
his cabin. And when another half-hour had elapsed the steward brought
me a message to the effect that Captain Tredegar wished to see me
in his room. The weather had now become very bad and the ship was
labouring heavily. I found the captain seated at his table with a small
Bible open before him, but which he closed and tossed into his bunk as
I entered. He looked pale, ill, and careworn. He asked me to sit down,
and remarked:
‘You have shown much interest in me, sir, and instinctively I feel I
can place confidence in you. The time has now come for me to speak, or
be dumb for evermore. I am a doomed man. My fate is sealed, and it is
that fearful certainty that weighs upon me like a ton of lead.’
His words and manner seemed to me unmistakably to indicate insanity,
and I could not repress a feeling of alarm. He must have guessed my
thoughts, for he said quickly:
‘Don’t alarm yourself, and bear with me patiently; my brain is
perfectly clear, and I know what I am doing, although a stranger might
be disposed to think I was labouring under a distempered imagination.
But it is not so. An awful fear takes possession of me and unmans
me. It paralyses my faculties and renders life a curse instead of a
blessing.’
‘A fear of what?’ I asked.
‘Of the dead,’ he answered solemnly.
I looked hard at him again. That surely was not the answer of a sane
man.
‘What nonsense,’ I said a little sharply. ‘What harm can the dead do
to the living? I gave you credit for being stronger minded than that.
It is clear to me now that you are allowing yourself to sink into a
morbid, nervous condition, that must end disastrously. Why on earth
should you embitter your existence by imaginary evils? Shake yourself
free of morbid, gloomy forebodings; be a man, and if you are a just one
you need fear nothing, not even the living, let alone the dead.’
He did not attempt to interrupt this little outburst on my part, which
perhaps was hardly justified. But I could not restrain myself. I was
compelled to give vent to my thoughts.
‘You mean well, Mr. Gibling,’ he remarked, with perfect self-possession,
when I had finished speaking, ‘and I understand your feelings; but
before condemning me, before allowing your wrath to run away with your
judgment, be patient, forbearing, and listen to me as you promised to
do. This may be the only opportunity that will ever occur for me to
tell you my story.’
‘Pray proceed,’ I remarked; ‘perhaps I have been somewhat hasty;
you will find, however, that I am a good listener, and under any
circumstances you may count on my sympathy.’
He remained silent for some minutes, his elbows on the table, his
hands clasping his face, his eyes seemingly fixed on vacancy. He
started and came to himself again.
‘Mr. Gibling,’ he began, ‘I have a very strange story to tell you if
you care to listen to it. Whatever your feelings are now, however
sceptical you may be, I fancy your views will undergo a change by the
time I have done. I repeat that I am a doomed man. My sands have nearly
run out, and I must say what I have to say now or never.’
‘Please go on,’ I said as he paused, evidently waiting for me to speak.
‘Very well,’ he continued, ‘I’ll begin at the beginning. As you know,
I am a Cornishman; I come from a race of seamen; the salt of the sea
flows in my veins. What education I received was got at a school in
Devonshire, where I passed nearly nine years of my life. At that school
I had a chum. We were inseparable. We were more like brothers. His
name was Peter Gibson. He was three or four years my senior, and was a
rough, wild, boorish sort of fellow; not good at picking up the routine
knowledge of a school training, but as sharp as a needle, with an
insatiable thirst for stories of fighting and adventure. In this line
he would read everything he got hold of, and one day he said to me:
“Jubal, I intend to go to sea, and I’m going to be a devil; will you
stick to me?” he asked.
‘“Yes,” I answered in a moment of boyish enthusiasm. He had great
influence over me. I looked up to him as my superior, and regarded him
as a leader.
‘“You swear it?” he demanded.
‘“Yes,” I said again.
‘Whereupon he made me go down on my knees, hold both my hands up to
heaven, and take a solemn oath that I would stick to him, go with him
wherever he went, and do whatever he did.
‘Now you must remember I was a youngster at this time, and what I did
was only what a boy might be expected to do. Gibson certainly had a
good deal of influence over me. He was a masterful sort of fellow, with
a great, bulky, powerful frame, while his pluck won my admiration. He
funked at nothing, and could lick every boy in the neighbourhood.
‘We left school about the same time, and though his father, who was
pretty well off, wanted to put him in business, Peter declared he would
go to sea. I had been intended for a seafaring life from my cradle. The
males of my family always went to sea. The result of his determination
was that he and I found ourselves fellow apprentices on board a
full-rigged vessel going out to the East Indies. She was a trader, and
during a voyage of nearly four years we visited a great many places
in the East; saw a great deal of the world, and experienced fair and
foul weather from the very best to the very worst. As might have been
expected, Peter picked up seamanship very rapidly, and became one of
the smartest sailors on board. My regard for him and his liking for me
had never altered, and when we returned to Liverpool, from whence we
had sailed, we were as much chums as ever.
‘We were only at home two months when we were transferred to another
ship belonging to the same owners, and rated as A.B.’s. This voyage
we sailed to Vancouver round the Horn, and from there we came down in
ballast to Monte Video, and loaded up with a general cargo for home.
At this time there was a civil war going on in the Argentine Republic,
and of course at Monte Video we heard a great deal of talk about it.
Gibson used to get very excited over the war news, and over and over
again he tried to persuade me to clear out from the ship and go with
him to do some fighting. He’d no sympathies with either one side or
the other, and I don’t think he even knew what the row was about, but
he wanted some fighting; fight was in his blood, and he was pining for
what he called fun. I preferred, however, to keep a straight course, as
my people before me had done. I wanted to gradually mount the ladder
until I reached the top, and I knew that the quixotic expedition he
proposed would have defeated my object. I therefore declined to fall in
with his views. It riled him for a time, but at last he admitted that
he had no right to try and persuade me against my will; but as far as
he was concerned he was going. And go he did, much to my regret, I must
confess. Although it went somewhat against my grain, I helped him to
secretly get his duds on shore, and some money that I had I handed over
to him.
‘We spent our last night together at a _café_ in the town of Monte
Video; and when the time came for us to part he wrung my hand, and I
was cut up in a way I had never been before. After that I saw no more
of him, nor did I hear anything of him for ten years, when we met again
under very extraordinary circumstances.
‘I was then mate of a splendid barque called the _Curlew_, hailing from
Bristol. We had taken out a cargo of iron to Bilbao, there the ship was
chartered by the Spanish Government to convey five hundred soldiers
and a quantity of specie to Havana. The _Curlew_ was an exceptionally
fine vessel, with unusually good ’tween deck space, and therefore very
suitable as a transport. We made a good passage to Havana, landed the
troops, but were told we should have to retain the specie for a few
days until some grandee or other came to receive it. He happened then
to be up the country, but was expected back in the course of a week. As
we had made a quicker passage than was expected, it had thrown him out
in his calculations. Well, of course, it didn’t matter to us much, as
our charter provided for our return to Bilbao; and, equally of course,
so long as we were employed by the Spanish authorities we sailed under
the Spanish flag.
‘The second night after our arrival I went on shore, and in strolling
through the town my attention was arrested by a sign over the door of a
drinking-place. It read, “Old England, kept by Will Bradshaw.” This and
the sound of English voices induced me to enter, and I found the place
pretty well crowded with sailor men and Spanish women of a disreputable
class. I saw at once the sort of house it was, and as I did not not
consider it advisable for me as chief mate of a Government vessel to
be seen there, I was for clearing out again when I noticed a big,
brawny, powerfully-built fellow mixing drinks behind the bar. He was
unmistakably an Englishman. His face was burnt brown. He had a dark,
bushy beard, and looked like a man who had a large spice of the devil
in him. Despite the beard the face seemed familiar to me, and when I
heard him call out an order to one of his waiters, the voice left me no
longer in doubt. It was the voice of Peter Gibson. So I pushed my way
through the crowd to the counter, for it was not likely I could leave
without renewing acquaintance with my old chum, and I asked, “Isn’t
your name Peter Gibson?”
‘“No, it isn’t,” he yelled. “I’m Will Bradshaw, the boss of this
place.” I was taken aback for a minute, for I was sure I couldn’t be
mistaken. Then it flashed on me that Peter had a reason for being known
as Will Bradshaw; so I pulled out a pocket-book, wrote my name on a
leaf, tore it out, and handed it to him. I saw a look of surprise come
into his eyes and his face change colour. Then he grasped my hand and
wrung it, told an assistant to look after the place, and asking me to
follow him, he led the way by a side entrance to a large garden at the
back of the house, where seats were placed under the palm trees, and a
few coloured lamps were hung up. Nearly every seat was occupied by men
and women, and negro waiters were attending to their wants.
‘Peter took me to a remote corner of the garden, where there was a sort
of summer-house on a knoll.
‘“We can have a quiet yarn here,” he said. Then he called one of the
negroes and told him to bring a bottle of wine, and that done, he began
in his old masterful way to ask me questions about my career during
the past ten years. I told him straight; but when I questioned him he
shirked my questions, simply saying, “Well, I’ve had a lot of roughing,
old chap, and have been in some queer corners. I drifted down here
about two years since, just as the former proprietor of this shanty
went off the hooks with Yellow Jack. I made a bid for the place and got
it, but had to give bills for the greater part of the purchase money,
and I’ve still got a lot of millstones round my neck. I’m rather sick,
and think of chucking it and going on the rampage again.”
‘We yarned away for two hours, when I had to go, and naturally I asked
him to come and see me on board the vessel. He turned up the next
day, and the day after that; and I told him as an item of news that
my skipper was going into the country on the morrow for a few days to
shoot with a party of friends, and that I should be in charge; and I
invited him to come on board and have dinner with me in the evening, an
invitation he readily accepted.
‘When he turned up he had a friend with him, a Spaniard who spoke
good English, and whom he introduced to me as Alonzo Gomez. He said
he wanted me to know this man, as he was a good sort, and might be of
use to me. He was described as a planter, but I couldn’t help thinking
there was a good deal more of the loafer than the planter about him.
However, he was very polite, as most Spaniards are, and as he seemed to
be rather an amusing cuss, I thought I had judged him too harshly. Of
course, I gave my guests a good feed, and made the steward open some
champagne. During the dinner Peter asked me a lot of questions about
the ship, and how much Spanish money we had on board, and where it was
kept. If it had been anyone else, and at any other time, I should have
resented these questions, but I felt there was no harm in answering my
old schoolfellow and shipmate.
‘When the dinner was over Peter said that for old acquaintance sake
we must have a jorum of rum punch, and that he would make it. So I
told the steward to get the necessary ingredients, and Peter set to
work to concoct the liquor. I don’t remember much more after that. I
didn’t come to my senses until the next morning. I found on turning
out that the steward was ill, and on my going to him he told me that
my friends had given him some of the punch. It had made him sick at
first, and afterwards he fell into a heavy sleep from which he had
not long awakened, and that he was then suffering from a frightful
headache and a heavy, drowsy feeling. That was precisely my condition;
but I attributed it to not having drunk wisely, but too well. The
second mate, who had been on shore the previous night, undertook to
do certain work I had to attend to; and having given the steward some
medicine from the medicine chest, I went and turned in once more, and
slept pretty well the whole day. Anyway, I did not turn to again until
the following morning.
‘In the course of that day, the high official who was to receive the
specie came on board with an escort, and commanded the strong room in
the afterpart of the cabin to be opened, and the specie brought out. I
at once procured the keys from a safe in the captain’s cabin, and on
going to the strong room, I was surprised and alarmed to find that the
various seals put upon the door at Bilbao were broken, and they had
been broken quite recently, as two or three days before I had examined
them and found them all right. My alarm and confusion increased when,
having got the door open, we discovered that two of the boxes, one
containing Bank of Spain notes and the other gold dollars, had been
burst open, and partly rifled of their contents. Altogether a sum in
notes and gold equivalent to twenty thousand pounds had been stolen.
‘The big-wig was in a great state, and at once sent on shore for a
magistrate and a lot of military officers, and began an inquiry there
and then; and I, having been in charge of the ship for some days, was
practically put on trial.
‘Perhaps I needn’t tell you that I felt I could at once name the thief.
His name was Peter Gibson, alias Will Bradshaw. He and his Spanish chum
had drugged me and the steward; of that I had no doubt then, and as
all the crew had gone on shore except the boatswain and the cook, and
two of the hands who were on duty at the gangway, it was easy for the
rascals to carry out their nefarious scheme of getting at the specie.
‘Now, I’m not talking mere words to you when I tell you that it went
against my grain to denounce my old schoolfellow and shipmate, and
at first I resolved that I wouldn’t. But, after all, a chap’s own
interests have to be counted first, and as Gibson had been mean hound
enough to drug me and carry off money under my care, I didn’t see why
I should screen him. So I denounced him, and in a very short time he
was under arrest. But even then he might have escaped conviction had it
not been for his stupidity in keeping the bank-notes. His friend, who
was also arrested, turned out to be a notorious character with a most
evil reputation, and was looked upon as an expert in picking locks. The
task they had set themselves of stealing the money was comparatively
easy, as all the conditions were in their favour, and I fell a too easy
victim to their cunning.
‘Well, of course, I had to attend the trial and give evidence. The
crime was considered very serious indeed, as Government property had
been stolen and Government seals unlawfully broken. The offence was
called a first-class one, and the penalty was death. No such sensation
had been provided for Havana for many a long day. It was considered
better than a bull-fight.
‘To make a long story short, the result of it all was that the two
rascals were convicted and sentenced to be shot. The verdict cut me
to the heart, and as only a short shrift was allowed the culprits, as
the sentence was to be carried out in twenty-four hours, I obtained
permission to visit Gibson. I found him in rather a dejected state,
seated in a courtyard of the gaol which was guarded by soldiers. As
soon as he saw me he seemed to go mad, reviled me in language that was
of a pretty fiery character, then cursed me and swore that he would
haunt me and drive me to madness by appearing to me on dark nights at
sea.
“You are a doomed man,” he said, “and will come to a sudden and
terrible end. I leave my curse to you.”
‘I tried to reason with him, but I might as well have tried to reason
with an enraged wild cat in the jungle. He did nothing but utter curses
on me, and recognising how hopeless it was to try and appease him, I
withdrew, and the next morning he and his pal were shot at daybreak.
‘Although I was much cut up by the way he had treated me, I did not
attach any importance to either his curses or his threats. I wasn’t
altogether free from superstition, what sailor is? but I quite believed
that when a person was dead he was done with. I soon began to find
out, however, that I was wrong, for some weeks later, when we were on
our passage back to Bilbao, I had the middle watch one night, just as
we got into the Bay of Biscay. It was a wild night, and we were close
hauled under double reefed topsails. Suddenly out of the waves came a
glowing figure. It was Gibson’s spectre. He shrieked at me, and I heard
his curses again, and again he told me I was doomed.
‘Since then I’ve seen him often. He has kept his word. He has haunted
me, and is driving me mad and hounding me to death. Yes, I am doomed. I
feel it and know it. Nothing can avert the doom.
‘You know my story now. Don’t ridicule it; don’t laugh at me; for to me
it’s a terribly serious business, and I feel that I shall never see the
dear woman I love again.’
* * * * *
He ceased speaking, and I noticed the wild, scared look in his eyes
which I had seen before. The perspiration was streaming down his face,
he appeared to be suffering great mental agony. I tried to soothe him,
but it was no use, and he kept on repeating that he was doomed.
Now let me say here at once that I did not believe the captain had
seen any real supernatural appearance. I regarded him as a highly
imaginative and sensitive man. On such a man Gibson’s curses and
threats would be sure to make a very deep impression. It could
hardly be otherwise, seeing that the two men had practically grown
up together. They had been schoolmates and shipmates, and Gibson’s
violent end must have affected his once friend in no ordinary degree.
Long dwelling upon the dramatic scene in the prison at Havana, the
day previous to the execution, had taken such a hold on the skipper’s
imagination that he had worried himself into a belief in a mere chimera
of the brain. To him, no doubt, the visions were real enough, although
they were nothing more than disturbed brain fancies.
Such was the theory I consoled myself with, and I determined there
and then to use every possible endeavour to get the captain out of his
morbid condition, and prove to him by gentle reasoning that he was
simply a victim to his own gloomy fears. I was so far successful at
that moment that I induced him to turn in, having first of all called
the mate down and given him certain instructions; then I compounded him
a simple soothing draught from ingredients in the medicine chest, and
at his own request I sat by him and read certain passages in the Bible,
until he fell into a sound sleep.
I was considerably exercised in my own mind as to the proper course I
ought to adopt, and I was tempted at first to take the Spanish lady
into my confidence, and discuss the matter with her. But this idea was
put out of my head at once, for she was sitting in the cuddy, as she
usually did in the evening, where she passed her time either reading or
in doing needlework. She saw that I came from the captain’s cabin, and
tackled me.
‘How is the skipper?’ she asked.
‘He is a little indisposed to-night, but will be all right to-morrow,
no doubt,’ I answered.
‘Not he,’ she exclaimed. ‘I tell you that man’s a haunted man, and will
either go mad or commit suicide.’
Remembering how dogmatically she had expressed herself on a previous
occasion on the subject of supernatural visitations, I deemed it
desirable not to enter into any discussion, and I also made up my mind
that it would be a fatal mistake to let her know that captain’s story,
so I merely said, in answer to her statement, ‘I hope not,’ and passed
to my cabin.
Now I want to repeat here, and for very obvious reasons, what were
the views I held at this stage. I considered that the captain was
suffering from a distressing nervous illness, the result of long
pondering over an incident which could not fail to make a tremendous
impression on him. But not for a moment did I entertain any belief in
the supernatural. Necessarily I was exceedingly anxious, for there was
no doctor on board, I had no medical knowledge myself, and we could not
hope to reach our destination for another three weeks. There was every
prospect then of the prognostications about a fine and rapid passage
being falsified. The barometer had been steadily falling for some time,
and all the indications were for bad weather. I knew that in that
latitude, at that time of year, heavy storms were not uncommon, and it
seemed likely that we should experience them. The anxious state of my
mind kept me awake for some time, revolving all sorts of schemes, but
nothing that seemed to me satisfactory. Eight bells midnight sounded,
and I heard the mate come out of his room and go on deck to take the
watch. I slipped out of bed, put on my dressing-gown and slippers, and
stole over to the captain’s cabin. To my intense relief I found he was
sleeping soundly.
As the motion of the vessel made it evident there was a heavy sea on,
I went up the companion-way to see what the weather was like. It was a
wild, weird night. A south-west gale was blowing and a tremendous sea
running. There was no moon, but the stars shone with a superb lustre
wherever the ragged, storm-driven scud allowed them to be seen. I
passed a few words with the mate, and asked him what he thought of the
weather.
‘It’s a bad wind for us,’ he answered, ‘and the heavy squalls that come
up every now and then prevent our setting much sail. But if I were
skipper, I would crack on and let things rip. I’d drive the ship even
at the risk of losing canvas.’
‘Why don’t you do so, as it is?’ I asked. ‘You’ve got charge of the
deck for the next four hours, and have practically a free hand.’
‘No I haven’t,’ he answered. ‘I’ve got to obey orders, though I think
sometimes, between you and me, sir, that the old man’s got a bee in his
bonnet, as they say in Scotland.’