The Death Ship (Vol. 1-3). William Clark Russell
terror seized my heart. I sprang erect with a loud cry of fear, and rushed to the rail to see if the Saracen was near that I might hail her, but was stayed in that by being seized by the arm.
He who clutched me exclaimed in Dutch, "What would you do? If you could swim for a week you would not catch her."
I perfectly understood him, but made no reply, did not even look at him, staring about the sea for the Saracen in an anguish of mind not to be expressed. Suddenly I caught sight of the smudge of her, and perceived she was heading away on her course; she was out on our starboard beam. I cast my eyes aloft, and found the yards of the ship I was in braced up to meet the wind on the larboard tack, whence I knew that every instant was widening the space between the two vessels. On mastering this I could have dashed myself down on the deck with grief and terror. One of the group observing me as if I should fall, extended his hand, but I shrunk back with horror, and covered my face, whilst deep hysteric sobs burst from my breast, for now, without heeding any further appearances, I knew that I was on board the Phantom Ship, the Sea Spectre, dreaded of marines, a fabric accurst by God, in the presence of men dead and yet alive, more terrible in their supernatural existence, in their clothing of flesh whose human mortality had been rendered undecaying by a fate that shrunk up the soul in one to think of, than had they been ghosts—essences through which you might pass your hand as through a moonbeam!
I stood awhile as though paralysed, but was presently rallied by the chill of the night wind striking through my streaming clothes. A lantern was near where the three men were grouped, no doubt the same that had been carried in the boat, but the dim illumination would have sufficed for no more than to throw out the proportion of things within its sphere, had it not been helped by the faint moonlight and a corpus sant that shone with the power of a planet close against the blocks of the jeers of the mainyard. 'Twas a ghostly radiance to behold the men in, but I found nerve now to survey them.
There were three, as I have said: one very tall, above six feet, with a grey—almost white—beard, that descended to his waist; the second was a broad, corpulent man, of the true Dutch build without hair on his face; in the third man I could see nothing striking, if it were not for a ruggedness of seafaring aspect. I could not distinguish their apparel beyond that the stout man wore boots to the height of his knees, whereas the tall personage was clad in black hose, shoes with large buckles, and breeches terminating at the knees; their head-dresses were alike, a sort of cap of skin, with flaps for the ears.
"Do you speak Dutch?" said the tallest of the three, after eyeing me in silence whilst a man could have counted a hundred. He it was who had responded to my hail from the Saracen, as my ear immediately detected—now that I had my faculties—by the deep, organ-like melodiousness and tremor of his voice.
I answered "Yes."
"Why were your people afraid of us? We intended no harm. We desired but a little favour—a small quantity of tobacco, of which we are short."
This speech I followed, though some of the words, or the pronunciation of them, were different from what I had been used to hear at Rotterdam. He spoke imperiously, with a hint even of passion, and, rearing himself to his full stature, clasped his hands behind him, and stared at me as some Indian King might at a slave.
"Sir," said I, speaking brokenly, for I was a slow hand at his tongue, and besides, the chill of my clothes was now become a pain, "first let me ask what ship is this, and who are you and your men who have rescued me from death?"
"The name of this ship is the Braave," he answered, in his deep, solemn voice. "I, who command the vessel, am known as Cornelius Vanderdecken; the three seamen, to whom you owe your life, are Frederick Houtman, John de Bremen, and this man," indicating the rough, uncouth person who stood on his left, "the mate, Herman Van Vogelaar."
I felt a sensation as of ice pressed to my chest when he pronounced his own name, yet, recollecting he had called his ship the Braave, I asked, though 'twas wonderful he could follow my utterance—
"What port do you belong to?"
"Amsterdam."
"Where are you from?"
"Batavia."
I said, "When did you sail?"
"On the twenty-second of July in last year! By the glory of the Holy Trinity, but it is dreary work; see how the wind heads us even yet!" He sighed deeply and glanced aloft in a manner that suggested grievous weariness.
"Last year!" I thought, a sudden elation expanding my soul and calming me as an opiate might, "if that be so why, then, though this ship had made a prodigiously long voyage of it from Java to these parallels, there is nothing wildly out of nature in such tardiness." Last year! Had I caught the true signification of the words he used?
"Pray, sir," said I, speaking in as firm a voice as the shivers which chased me permitted, "what might last year be?"
The mate, Van Vogelaar, growled out some exclamation I could not catch, the captain made a gesture with his hands, whilst their burly companion said in thick, Dutch accents, "It needs not salt water, but good, strong liquor to take away a Hollander's brain."
"Last year!" exclaimed Vanderdecken, unbending his haughty, imperious manner, "why, mynheer, what should be last year but 1653?"
CHAPTER XIII.
WY ZYN AL VERDOMD.
When he said this I felt like one in whom there is suddenly wrought a dual action of the brain; where from one side, so to say, there is darted into the mind thoughts utterly illogical and insane, which the same side marvels at, and seeks to reject, though if the fit linger the whole intelligence may be seized.
I recollect of seeking for confirmation of the words of the man who styled himself Vanderdecken, in the ship, and of noticing, for the first time, that upon the planks of the deck which were out of the reach of the corpus sant, were the same crawling, elusive fires, as of phosphorus, creeping and coming and going upon a dark wall, which I had observed on the vessel's sides. Several figures of men moved forward. Close beside me was a small gun of the kind carried by ships in the beginning of the last century, termed a light saker, and discharging a six-pound ball. There were three of these on the larboard side, and, in the haze of the moonlight and the sheen of the jelly-like star that shone with a pure, pale gold over my head, I could discern upon the bulwarks of the quarter-deck and poop several swivels furnished with handles for pointing them. I also observed a short flight of steps conducting to the quarter-deck, with two sets of a like kind leading to the poop, the front of which was furnished with a door and little window.
These matters I took in with a sweep of the eye, for the light was confusing, a faint, erroneous ray glancing from imperfect surfaces and flinging half an image; and then an indescribable fear possessing me again, I looked in the direction where I had last beheld the smudge made by the Saracen, and, not seeing her, cried out wildly, in my broken Dutch, "Sirs, for the love of God follow my ship, and make some signals that she may know I am here!"
"Skipper," exclaimed the smooth-faced, corpulent man, who proved to be the boatswain, named Antony Jans, "after their cowardly inhumanity in firing upon a small unarmed boat, and putting in peril the life of our mate, Van Vogelaar, we should have nothing more to do with her."
"Henceforth this Englishman will know that the Dutch are a merciful people," said Van Vogelaar, scornfully. "Had our nationalities been reversed, he would have been left to drown as a tribute to the courage of his comrades."
Whilst this was said, Vanderdecken continued to regard me steadfastly and with great sternness, then on a sudden relaxing his frown, he exclaimed in that wondrous voice of his, which put a solemn music into his least utterance: "Come, you shiver with the cold, and have the look of the drowned. Jans, send Prins to me; sir, please to follow."
He motioned in a haughty manner towards the poop and walked that way. One desperate look I cast round the sea, and then with a prayer to God that this