WILLIAM HOPE HODGSON: Horror Classics, Supernatural Tales and Poems. William Hope Hodgson
to me, and wouldn’t laugh. I could stand anything, but this being alone. There’s a good chap, don’t pretend you don’t understand. Tell me what it all means. What is this horrible man that I’ve twice seen? You know you know something, and I believe you’re afraid to tell anyone, for fear of being laughed at. Why don’t you tell me? You needn’t be afraid of my laughing.”
He stopped, suddenly. For the moment, I said nothing in reply.
“Don’t treat me like a kid, Jessop!” he exclaimed, quite passionately.
“I won’t,” I said, with a sudden resolve to tell him everything. “I need someone to talk to, just as badly as you do.”
“What does it all mean, then?” he burst out. “Are they real? I always used to think it was all a yarn about such things.”
“I’m sure I don’t know what it all means, Tammy,” I answered. “I’m just as much in the dark, there, as you are. And I don’t know whether they’re real — that is, not as we consider things real. You don’t know that I saw a queer figure down on the maindeck, several nights before you saw that thing up here.”
“Didn’t you see this one?” he cut in, quickly.
“Yes,” I answered.
“Then, why did you pretend not to have?” he said, in a reproachful voice. “You don’t know what a state you put me into, what with my being certain that I had seen it and then you being so jolly positive that there had been nothing. At one time I thought I was going clean off my dot — until the Second Mate saw that man go up the main. Then, I knew that there must be something in the thing I was certain I’d seen.”
“I thought, perhaps, that if I told you I hadn’t seen it, you would think you’d been mistaken,” I said. “I wanted you to think it was imagination, or a dream, or something of that sort.”
“And all the time, you knew about that other thing you’d seen?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied.
“It was thundering decent of you,” he said. “But it wasn’t any good.”
He paused a moment. Then he went on:
“It’s terrible about Williams. Do you think he saw something, up aloft?”
“I don’t know, Tammy,” I said. “It’s impossible to say. It may have been only an accident.” I hesitated to tell him what I really thought.
“What was he saying about his pay-day? Who was he saying it to?”
“I don’t know,” I said, again. “He was always cracked about taking a pay-day out of her. You know, he stayed in her, on purpose, when all the others left. He told me that he wasn’t going to be done out of it, for anyone.”
“What did the other lot leave for?” he asked. Then, as the idea seemed to strike him —“Jove! do you think they saw something, and got scared? It’s quite possible. You know, we only joined her in ’Frisco. She had no ’prentices on the passage out. Our ship was sold; so they sent us aboard here to come home.”
“They may have,” I said. “Indeed, from things I’ve heard Williams say, I’m pretty certain, he for one, guessed or knew a jolly sight more than we’ve any idea of.”
“And now he’s dead!” said Tammy, solemnly. “We’ll never be able to find out from him now.”
For a few moments, he was silent. Then he went off on another track.
“Doesn’t anything ever happen in the Mate’s watch?”
“Yes,” I answered. “There’s several things happened lately, that seem pretty queer. Some of his side have been talking about them. But he’s too jolly pig-headed to see anything. He just curses his chaps, and puts it all down to them.”
“Still,” he persisted, “things seem to happen more in our watch than in his — I mean, bigger things. Look at tonight.”
“We’ve no proof, you know,” I said.
He shook his head, doubtfully.
“I shall always funk going aloft, now.”
“Nonsense!” I told him. “It may only have been an accident.”
“Don’t!” he said. “You know you don’t think so, really.”
I answered nothing, just then; for I knew very well that he was right. We were silent for a couple of moments.
Then he spoke again:
“Is the ship haunted?”
For an instant I hesitated.
“No,” I said, at length. “I don’t think she is. I mean, not in that way.”
“What way, then?”
“Well, I’ve formed a bit of a theory, that seems wise one minute, and cracked the next. Of course, it’s as likely to be all wrong; but it’s the only thing that seems to me to fit in with all the beastly things we’ve had lately.”
“Go on!” he said, with an impatient, nervous movement.
“Well, I’ve an idea that it’s nothing in the ship that’s likely to hurt us. I scarcely know how to put it; but, if I’m right in what I think, it’s the ship herself that’s the cause of everything.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, in a puzzled voice. “Do you mean that the ship is haunted, after all?”
“No!” I answered. “I’ve just told you I didn’t. Wait until I’ve finished what I was going to say.”
“All right!” he said.
“About that thing you saw tonight,” I went on. “You say it came over the lee rail, up on to the poop?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“Well, the thing I saw, came up out of the sea, and went back into the sea.”
“Jove!” he said; and then: “Yes, go on!”
“My idea is, that this ship is open to be boarded by those things,” I explained. “What they are, of course I don’t know. They look like men — in lots of ways. But — well, the Lord knows what’s in the sea. Though we don’t want to go imagining silly things, of course. And then, again, you know, it seems fat-headed, calling anything silly. That’s how I keep going, in a sort of blessed circle. I don’t know a bit whether they’re flesh and blood, or whether they’re what we should call ghosts or spirits.”
“They can’t be flesh and blood,” Tammy interrupted. “Where would they live? Besides, that first one I saw, I thought I could see through it. And this last one — the Second Mate would have seen it. And they would drown —”
“Not necessarily,” I said.
“Oh, but I’m sure they’re not,” he insisted. “It’s impossible —”
“So are ghosts — when you’re feeling sensible,” I answered. “But I’m not saying they are flesh and blood; though, at the same time, I’m not going to say straight out they’re ghosts — not yet, at any rate.”
“Where do they come from?” he asked, stupidly enough.
“Out of the sea,” I told him. “You saw for yourself!”
“Then why don’t other vessels have them coming aboard?” he said. “How do you account for that?”
“In a way — though sometimes it seems cracky — I think I can, according to my idea,” I answered.
“How?” he inquired again.
“Why, I believe that this ship is open, as I’ve told you — exposed, unprotected, or whatever you like to call it. I should say it’s reasonable to think