me. He whispered that the captain wanted to see me, and then scuttled
away down the passage as if very anxious to avoid any questions. I went
toward the captain’s cabin, and found him waiting for me.
“‘Sir,’ said he, ‘I want to ask a favor of you.’
“I answered that I would do anything to oblige him.
“‘Your roommate has disappeared,’ he said. ‘He is known to have turned
in early last night. Did you notice anything extraordinary in his
manner?’
“The question coming, as it did, in exact confirmation of the fears the
doctor had expressed half an hour earlier, staggered me.
“‘You don’t mean to say that he has gone overboard?’ I asked.
“‘I fear he has,’ answered the captain.
“‘This is the most extraordinary thing--’ I began.
“‘Why?’ he asked.
“‘He is the fourth, then?’ I explained. In answer to another question
from the captain, I explained, without mentioning the doctor, that I
had heard the story concerning one hundred and five. He seemed very
much annoyed at hearing that I knew of it. I told him what had occurred
in the night.
“‘What you say,’ he replied, ‘coincides almost exactly with what was
told me by the roommates of two of the other three. They bolt out of
bed and run down the passage. Two of them were seen to go overboard
by the watch, we stopped, and lowered boats, but they were not found.
Nobody, however, saw or heard the man who was lost last night--if he
is really lost. The steward, who is a superstitious fellow, perhaps,
and expected something to go wrong, went to look for him this morning,
and found his berth empty, but his clothes lying about, just as he had
left them. The steward was the only man on board who knew him by sight,
and he has been searching everywhere for him. He has disappeared! Now,
sir, I want to beg you not to mention the circumstance to any of the
passengers; I don’t want the ship to get a bad name, and nothing hangs
about an ocean-goer like stories of suicides. You shall have your
choice of any one of the officers’ cabins you like, including my own,
for the rest of the passage. Is that a fair bargain?’
“‘Very,’ I said; ‘and I am much obliged to you. But since I am alone,
and have the stateroom to myself, I would rather not move. If the
steward will take out that unfortunate man’s things, I would as lief
stay where I am. I will not say anything about the matter, and I think
I can promise you that I will not follow my roommate.’
“The captain tried to dissuade me from my intention, but I preferred
having a stateroom alone to being the chum of any officer on board. I
do not know whether I acted foolishly, but if I had taken his advice
I should have had nothing more to tell. There would have remained the
disagreeable coincidence of several suicides occurring among men who
had slept in the same cabin, but that would have been all.
“That was not the end of the matter, however, by any means. I
obstinately made up my mind that I would not be disturbed by such
tales, and I even went so far as to argue the question with the
captain. There was something wrong about the stateroom, I said. It was
rather damp. The porthole had been left open last night. My roommate
might have been ill when he came on board, and he might have become
delirious after he went to bed. He might even now be hiding somewhere
on board, and might be found later. The place ought to be aired and the
fastening of the port looked to. If the captain would give me leave, I
would see that what I thought necessary was done immediately.
“‘Of course you have a right to stay where you are if you please,’ he
replied, rather petulantly; ‘but I wish you would turn out and let me
lock the place up, and be done with it.’
“I did not see it in the same light, and left the captain, after
promising to be silent concerning the disappearance of my companion.
The latter had had no acquaintances on board, and was not missed in the
course of the day. Toward evening I met the doctor again, and he asked
me whether I had changed my mind. I told him I had not.
“‘Then you will before long,’ he said, very gravely.
III
“We played whist in the evening, and I went to bed late. I will confess
now that I felt a disagreeable sensation when I entered my stateroom.
I could not help thinking of the tall man I had seen on the previous
night, who was now dead, drowned, tossing about in the long swell, two
or three hundred miles astern. His face rose very distinctly before me
as I undressed, and I even went so far as to draw back the curtains
of the upper berth, as though to persuade myself that he was actually
gone. I also bolted the door of the stateroom. Suddenly I became aware
that the porthole was open and fastened back. This was more than I
could stand. I hastily threw on my dressing-gown, and went in search of
Robert, the steward of my passage. I was very angry, I remember, and
when I found him I dragged him roughly to the door of one hundred and
five, and pushed him toward the open porthole.
“‘What the deuce do you mean, you scoundrel, by leaving that port open
every night? Don’t you know it is against the regulations? Don’t you
know that if the ship heeled and the water began to come in, ten men
could not shut it? I will report you to the captain, you blackguard,
for endangering the ship!’
“I was exceedingly wroth. The man trembled and turned pale, and then
began to shut the round glass plate with the heavy brass fittings.
“‘Why don’t you answer me?’ I said roughly.
“‘If you please, sir,’ faltered Robert, ‘there’s nobody on board as
can keep this ‘ere port shut at night. You can try it yourself, sir.
I ain’t a-going to stop hany longer on board o’ this vessel, sir; I
ain’t, indeed. But if I was you, sir, I’d just clear out and go and
sleep with the surgeon, or something, I would. Look ’ere, sir, is that
fastened what you may call securely, or not, sir? Try it, sir, see if
it will move a hinch.’
“I tried the port, and found it perfectly tight.
“‘Well, sir,’ continued Robert, triumphantly; ‘I wager my reputation
as an A 1 steward, that in arf an hour it will be open again; fastened
back, too, sir, that’s the horful thing--fastened back!’
“I examined the great screw and the looped nut that ran on it.
“‘If I find it open in the night, Robert, I will give you a sovereign.
It is not possible. You may go.’
“Soverin, did you say, sir? Very good, sir. Thank ye, sir. Good-night,
sir. Pleasant reepose, sir, and all manner of hinchantin’ dreams, sir.’
“Robert scuttled away, delighted at being released. Of course, I
thought he was trying to account for his negligence by a silly story,
intended to frighten me, and I disbelieved him. The consequence was
that he got his sovereign, and I spent a very peculiarly unpleasant
night.
“I went to bed, and five minutes after I had rolled myself up in my
blankets the inexorable Robert extinguished the light that burned
steadily behind the ground-glass pane near the door. I lay quite still
in the dark trying to go to sleep, but I soon found that impossible.
It had been some satisfaction to be angry with the steward, and the
diversion had vanished that unpleasant sensation I had at first
experienced when I thought of the drowned man who had been my chum; but
I was no longer sleepy, and I lay awake for some time, occasionally
glancing at the porthole, which I could just see from where I lay,
and which, in the darkness, looked like a faintly luminous soup-plate
suspended in blackness. I believe I must have lain there for an hour,
and, as I remember, I was just dozing into sleep, when I was roused by
a draught of cold air, and by distinctly feeling the spray of the sea
blown upon my face. I started to my feet, and not having allowed in
the dark for the motion of the ship, I was instantly thrown violently
across the stateroom upon the couch which was placed beneath the
porthole. I recovered myself immediately, however, and climbed upon my
knees. The porthole was again wide open and fastened back!
“Now these things are facts. I was wide awake when I got up, and
I should certainly have been waked by the fall had I been dozing.
Moreover, I bruised my elbows and knees badly, and the bruises were
there on the following morning to testify to the fact, if I myself had
doubted it. The porthole was wide open and fastened back--a thing so
unaccountable, that I remember very well feeling astonishment rather
than fear when I discovered it. I at once closed the plate again, and
screwed down the loop nut with all my strength. It was very dark in
the stateroom. I reflected that the port had certainly been opened
within an hour after Robert had at first shut it in my presence, and
I determined to watch it and see whether it would open again. Those
brass fittings are very heavy and by no means easy to move; I could not
believe that the clamp had been turned by the shaking of the screw. I
stood peering out through the thick glass at the alternate white and
gray streaks of the sea that foamed beneath the ship’s side. I must
have remained there a quarter of an hour.
“Suddenly, as I stood, I distinctly heard something moving behind
me in one of the berths, and a moment afterward, just as I turned
instinctively to look--though I could, of course, see nothing in the
darkness--I heard a very faint groan. I sprang across the stateroom,
and tore the curtains of the upper berth aside, thrusting in my hands
to discover if there were any one there. There was some one.
“I remember that the sensation as I put my hands forward was as though
I were plunging them into the air of a damp cellar, and from behind the
curtain came a gust of wind that smelled horribly of stagnant seawater.
I laid hold of something that had the shape of a man’s arm, but was
smooth, and wet, and icy cold. But suddenly, as I pulled, the creature
sprang violently forward against me, a clammy, oozy mass, as it seemed
to me, heavy and wet, yet endowed with a sort of supernatural strength.
I reeled across the stateroom, and in an instant the door opened and
the thing rushed out. I had not had time to be frightened, and quickly
recovering myself, I sprang through the door and gave chase at the top
of my speed, but I was too late. Ten yards before me I could see--I
am sure I saw it--a dark shadow moving in the dimly lighted passage,
quickly as the shadow of a fast horse thrown before a dog-cart by the
lamp on a dark night. But in a moment it had disappeared, and I found
myself holding on to the polished rail that ran along the bulkhead
where the passage turned toward the companion. My hair stood on end,
and the cold perspiration rolled down my face. I am not ashamed of it
in the least: I was very badly frightened.
“Still I doubted my senses, and pulled myself together. It was absurd,
I thought. The Welsh rarebit I had eaten had disagreed with me. I had
been in a nightmare. I made my way back to my stateroom, and entered
it with an effort. The whole place smelled of stagnant seawater, as it
had when I had waked on the previous evening. It required my utmost
strength to go in and grope among my things for a box of wax lights.
As I lighted a railway reading-lantern which I always carry in case I
want to read after the lamps are out, I perceived that the porthole was
again open, and a sort of creeping horror began to take possession of
me which I never felt before, nor wish to feel again. But I got a light
and proceeded to examine the upper berth, expecting to find it drenched
with seawater.
But I was disappointed. The bed had been slept in, and the smell of
the sea was strong, but the bedding was as dry as a bone. I fancied
that Robert had not had the courage to make the bed after the accident
of the previous night--it had all been a hideous dream. I drew the
curtains back as far as I could, and examined the place very carefully.
It was perfectly dry. But the porthole was open again. With a sort
of dull bewilderment of horror, I closed it and screwed it down, and
thrusting my heavy stick through the brass loop, wrenched it with all
my might, till the thick metal began to bend with the pressure. Then I
hooked my reading-lantern into the red velvet at the head of the couch,
and sat down to recover my senses if I could. I sat there all night,
unable to think of rest--hardly able to think at all. But the porthole
remained closed, and I did not believe it would now open again without
the application of a considerable force.
“The morning dawned at last, and I dressed myself slowly, thinking
over all that had happened in the night. It was a beautiful day and
I went on deck, glad to get out in the early pure sunshine, and to
smell the breeze from the blue water, so different from the noisome,
stagnant odor from my stateroom. Instinctively I turned aft, toward the
surgeon’s cabin. There he stood with a pipe in his mouth, taking his
morning airing precisely as on the preceding day.
“‘Good-morning,’ said he quietly, but looking at me with evident
curiosity.
“‘Doctor, you were quite right,’ said I. ‘There is something wrong
about that place.’
“‘I thought you would change your mind,’ he answered, rather
triumphantly. ‘You have had a bad night, eh? Shall I make you a
pick-me-up? I have a capital recipe.’
“‘No, thanks,’ I cried. ‘But I would like to tell you what happened.’
“I then tried to explain as clearly as possible precisely what had
occurred, not omitting to state that I had been scared as I had never
been scared in my whole life before. I dwelt particularly on the
phenomenon of the porthole, which was a fact to which I could testify,
even if the rest had been an illusion. I had closed it twice in the
night, and the second time I had actually bent the brass in wrenching
it with my stick. I believe I insisted a good deal on this point.
“‘You seem to think I am likely to doubt the story,’ said the doctor,
smiling at the detailed account of the state of the porthole. ‘I do not
doubt it in the least. I renew my invitation to you. Bring your traps
here, and take half my cabin.’
“‘Come and take mine for half of one night,’ I said. ‘Help me to get at
the bottom of this thing.’
“‘You will get at the bottom of something else if you try,’ answered
the doctor.
“‘What?’ I asked.
“‘The bottom of the sea. I am going to leave the ship. It is not canny.’
“‘Then you will not help me to find out--’
“‘Not I,’ said the doctor quickly. ‘It is my business to keep my wits
about me--not to go fiddling about with ghosts and things.’
“‘Do you really believe it is a ghost?’ I inquired, rather
contemptuously. But as I spoke, I remembered very well the horrible
sensation of the supernatural which had got possession of me during the
night. The doctor turned sharply on me:
“‘Have you any reasonable explanation of these things to offer?’ he
asked. ‘No, you have not. Well, you say you will find an explanation. I
say that you won’t, sir, simply because there is not any.’
“‘But, my dear sir,’ I retorted, ‘do you, a man of science, mean to
tell me that such things can not be explained?’
“‘I do,’ he answered, stoutly. ‘And if they could, I would not be
concerned in the explanation.’
“I did not care to spend another night alone in the stateroom, and yet
I was obstinately determined to get at the root of the disturbances.
I do not believe there are many men who would have slept there
alone, after passing two such nights. But I made up my mind to try
it, if I could not get any one to share a watch with me. The doctor
was evidently not inclined for such an experiment. He said he was
a surgeon, and that in case any accident occurred on board, he
must always be in readiness. He could not afford to have his nerve
unsettled. Perhaps he was quite right, but I am inclined to think
that this precaution was prompted by his inclination. On inquiry, he
informed me that there was no one on board who would be likely to join
me in my investigations, and after a little more conversation I left
him. A little later I met the captain, and told him my story. I said
that if no one would spend the night with me, I would ask leave to have
the light burning all night, and would try it alone.
“‘Look here,’ said he, ‘I will tell you what I will do. I will share
your watch myself, and we will see what happens. It is my belief that
we can find out between us. There may be some fellow skulking on board
who steals a passage by frightening the passengers. It is just possible
that there may be something queer in the carpentering of that berth.’
“I suggested taking the ship’s carpenter below and examining the place;
but I was overjoyed at the captain’s offer to spend the night with me.
He accordingly sent for the workman and ordered him to do anything I
required. We went below at once. I had all the bedding cleared out of
the upper berth, and we examined the place thoroughly to see if there
was a board loose anywhere, or a panel which could be opened or pushed
aside. We tried the planks everywhere, tapped the flooring, unscrewed
the fittings of the lower berth and took it to pieces--in short, there
was not a square inch of the stateroom which was not searched and
tested. Everything was in perfect order, and we put everything back in
its place. As we were finishing our work, Robert came to the door, and
looked in.
“‘Well, sir--find anything, sir?’ he asked with a ghastly grin.
“‘You were right about the porthole, Robert,’ I said, and I gave
him the promised sovereign. The carpenter did his work silently and
skilfully, following my directions. When he had done he spoke.
“‘I’m a plain man, sir,’ he said. ‘But it’s my belief you had better
just turn out your things and let me run half a dozen four-inch screws
through the door of this cabin. There’s no good never came o’ this
cabin yet, sir, and that’s all about it. There’s been four lives lost
out o’ here to my own remembrance, and that in four trips. Better give
it up, sir--better give it up!’
“‘I will try it for one night more,’ I said.
“‘Better give it up, sir--better give it up! It’s a precious bad job,’
repeated the workman, putting his tools in his bag and leaving the
cabin.
“But my spirits had risen considerably at the prospect of having the
captain’s company, and I made up my mind not to be prevented from going
to the end of the strange business. I abstained from Welsh rarebits
and grog that evening, and did not even join in the customary game of
whist. I wanted to be quite sure of my nerves, and my vanity made me
anxious to make a good figure in the captain’s eyes.
IV
“The captain was one of those splendidly tough and cheerful specimens
of seafaring humanity, whose combined courage, hardihood, and calmness
in difficulty leads them naturally into high positions of trust. He
was not the man to be led away by an idle tale, and the mere fact
that he was willing to join me in the investigation was proof that
he thought there was something seriously wrong, which could not be
accounted for on ordinary theories, nor laughed down as a common
superstition. To some extent, too, his reputation was at stake, as well
as the reputation of the ship. It is no light thing to lose passengers
overboard, and he knew it.
“About ten o’clock that evening, as I was smoking a last cigar, he came
up to me and drew me aside from the beat of the other passengers who
were patrolling the deck in the warm darkness.
“‘This is a serious matter, Mr. Brisbane,’ he said. ‘We must make up
our minds either way--to be disappointed or to have a pretty rough time
of it. You see, I cannot afford to laugh at the affair, and I will ask
you to sign your name to a statement of whatever occurs. If nothing
happens to-night, we will try it again to-morrow and next day. Are you
ready?’
“So we went below and entered the stateroom. As we went in I could
see Robert, the steward, who stood a little further down the passage,
watching us, with his usual grin, as though certain that something
dreadful was about to happen. The captain closed the door behind us and
bolted it.
“‘Suppose we put your portmanteau before the door,’ he suggested. ‘One
of us can sit on it. Nothing can get out then. Is the port screwed
down?’
“I found it as I had left it in the morning. Indeed, without using
a lever, as I had done, no one could have opened it. I drew back the
curtains of the upper berth so that I could see well into it. By the
captain’s advice, I lighted my reading-lantern, and placed it so that
it shone upon the white sheets above. He insisted upon sitting on the
portmanteau, declaring that he wished to be able to swear that he had
sat before the door.
“Then he requested me to search the stateroom thoroughly, an operation
very soon accomplished, as it consisted merely in looking beneath the
lower berth and under the couch below the porthole. The spaces were
quite empty.
“‘It is impossible for any human being to get in,’ I said, ’or for any
human being to open the port.’
“‘Very good,’ said the captain, calmly. ‘If we see anything now, it
must be either imagination or something supernatural.’
“I sat down on the edge of the lower berth.
“‘The first time it happened,’ said the captain, crossing his legs and
leaning back against the door, ‘was in March. The passenger who slept
here, in the upper berth, turned out to have been a lunatic--at all
events, he was known to have been a little touched, and he had taken
his passage without the knowledge of his friends. He rushed out in the
middle of the night, and threw himself overboard, before the officer
who had the watch could stop him. We stopped and lowered a boat, it was
a quiet night, just before that heavy weather came on; but we could not
find him. Of course his suicide was afterward accounted for on the
ground of his insanity.’
“‘I suppose that often happens?’ I remarked, rather absently.
“‘Not often--no,’ said the captain; ‘never before in my experience,
though I have heard of it happening on board of other ships. Well, as I
was saying, that occurred in March. On the very next trip--What are you
looking at?’ he asked, stopping suddenly in his narration.
“I believe I gave no answer. My eyes were riveted upon the porthole.
It seemed to me that the brass loop-nut was beginning to turn very
slowly upon the screw--so slowly, however, that I was not sure it moved
at all. I watched it intently, fixing its position in my mind, and
trying to ascertain whether it changed. Seeing where I was looking, the
captain looked too.
“‘It moves!’ he exclaimed, in a tone of conviction. ‘No, it does not,’
he added, after a minute.
“‘If it were the jarring of the screw,’ said I, ‘it would have opened
during the day; but I found it this evening jammed tight as I left it
this morning.’
“I rose and tried the nut. It was certainly loosened, for by an effort
I could move it with my hands.
“‘The queer thing,’ said the captain, ‘is that the second man who was
lost is supposed to have got through that very port. We had a terrible
time over it. It was in the middle of the night, and the weather was
very heavy; there was an alarm that one of the ports was open and the
sea running in. I came below and found everything flooded, the water
pouring in every time she rolled, and the whole port swinging from the
top bolts--not the porthole in the middle. Well, we managed to shut
it, but the water did some damage. Ever since that the place smells
of seawater from time to time. We supposed the passenger had thrown
himself out, though the Lord only knows how he did it. The steward
kept telling me that he could not keep anything shut here. Upon my
word--I can smell it now, cannot you?’ he inquired, sniffing the air
suspiciously.
“‘Yes--distinctly,’ I said, and I shuddered as that same odor of
stagnant seawater grew stronger in the cabin. ‘Now, to smell like this,
the place must be damp,’ I continued, ‘and yet when I examined it with
the carpenter this morning, everything was perfectly dry. It is most
extraordinary--hallo!’