The Collected Fiction of William Hope Hodgson: The Dream Of X & Other Fantastic Visions (30 page)

At that the good fellow’s blood boiled up in a heavyish sort of way, and I knew that it would be safe to talk to him straightly. I hinted at my suspicions that the skipper’s death had not been natural, but this he would not have. Yet I know that he was impressed in spite of himself, and he agreed to act with me in mounting guard as much as possible over Miss Vairne. Then I left him, and returned for’ard.

The next day the second mate started in to show the sort of stuff of which he was made. He ran the men round like a lot of slaves, and when one or two of them grumbled, came down on to the main deck, and laid them out with a belaying-pin. In his own watch, and in his own particular way, the first mate was just as bad, and for a week the ship was more like a floating prison than aught else.

At the end of that time, being a crowd of Britishers, they were just ripe for mutiny, and when at last the second struck me, and in return I laid him out upon the deck with a blow in the face, they would have torn him to pieces and mutinied outright, only that I bade them “hold on” and wait.

After that time the second went armed, though never again did he venture to touch me. I had taught him one lesson. And all these weary days I listened and listened perchance the whistle should call me to rescue my darling from vile hands.

It was two nights later, and in the middle watch, that the call came. I was lying half dressed in my bunk, and, though asleep when the note went, it thrilled in my ears like a bugle. In one instant of time I was upon the deck, and racing aft in my stockinged feet. As I ran I thought I caught a faint scream from aft. Then I was at the saloon doorway that opens on to the main-deck under the poop. The door was open, and I leapt into the short passage, my stockings making no sound. Even as I entered, from within there came a man’s voice raised in anger. It was the third mate’s. Then a pistol-shot, and a cry of agony from him, and a curse in the second’s voice, accompanied by the colder, more deadly laughter of the first mate. Immediately afterwards there rose a short, despairing scream from Eina, and then I was among them. My gad! I am a quiet man, but then I was mad. They—the first and second mates—had hold of her. In the first mate’s left hand there still smoked a revolver. Standing by, holding a candle, was the hideous steward, an evil grin on his monkey face.

He sung out something, and the mate glanced round. He saw me, and raised his revolver; but in the same instant I struck him, and his face disappeared from sight. The second mate staggered back, loosing Eina, and reaching back to his pistol-pocket. Yet he, like the mate, was too late. Once, and then again, I struck him with my clenched hands; and after that there was scarcely life, let alone fight, in him. He collapsed with a crash on to the now diddering steward, and the two rolled helplessly on to the deck.

Then I turned to her, and caught her into my arms just as she fell senseless. I carried her out on to the deck, and laid her on the after-hatch. The crew had come aft, hearing the firing and the shouts. To some of them I shouted to go into the saloon, and make the steward hustle out with brandy; yet I had scarcely spoken before the cringing object stood beside me with a decanter half full.

Presently, when my sweetheart was revived, she told me how that she had waked to find the second mate in the doorway of her berth. Evidently he must have got in by means of a master key, probably obtained from the rascally steward. She had blown her whistle, and, before she could do so again, he had snatched it from her. Then the first mate had appeared upon the scene, and almost directly the third mate. The third had interposed, but him the first had shot down like a dog without a word. Then—I had come.

The tone in which she said that thrilled me. Yet she called me to myself, by asking whether anything had yet been done for the poor third mate. I told her no, but that I would go at once. At that she said she would come with me.

We found him lying on the port side of the saloon table, and a short examination showed that he had been shot through the chest. Yet he still lived, and we carried him into his berth and laid him in his bunk, and left him in Eina’s charge, while I, with some of the men, carried the second into a spare berth and locked him in; first, however, removing from him his pistol. When we came to the mate, there was need of nothing but some old canvas, for he was stone dead. I directed them to carry him out on to one of the hatches for the present. As they went, I caught a man’s voice.

“My Gawd!” it said. “That’s where ’e ’it ’im!”

And when they came back, quite naturally for further orders, they eyed me with awe-stricken glances.

There is little remaining to be told. I took charge of the ship, and worked her home. The third mate, under the unremitting care and attention of Eina, recovered. Indeed, he acted as my best man at a certain ceremony that Eina and I went through soon after our return. With regard to the second mate and the steward, the newspapers have already told what happened to them, and I will leave it there. There would I also leave all the flattering things that were said about my unworthy self, but that I cannot resist quoting one line:

“Mr. John Kenstone is indeed to be envied in his bonny wife.”

And I am.

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How Sir Jerrold Treyn Dealt with the Dutch in Caunston Cove

I.

M
y father, Sir Charles Treyn, stamped his foot. “Confound the ways of the Government” he said, walking up and down the room.

He had just received a letter from my uncle (on my mother’s side), who owned what is still called Ralby Common, seven miles inland from Rayle, on the South Coast, about twenty miles from Caunston.

“Hear this,” said my father, and read from my uncle’s letter:

“ ‘A Dutch frigate, Van Ruyter, landed a hundred men at Rayle yestermorn, so I have just heard. They have burned Starly Manor, and half the village, and were gone clean away before the soldiers were come from Bideford. They made their raid in their own devilish way, which is to sail in from the sea during the night, with never a light showing, and to land at daybreak. They use not the big guns, lest this bring the soldiers upon them quickly from the big towns. Likewise, their burnings are not seen so well afar in the daylight. They killed twenty-three men, of Rayle village, that opposed them, and two women, and harmed many more. They shot an herd lad in the Manor lane, where he lay dead all day; and this because he would have run off to warn old Sir James, who, by the blessing of Providence, heard that same shot, and roused his household, and escaped by the well passage.’

“He says,” added my father, “that we must build more and better ships to hunt the Dutch from the sea. Everyone knows that we build no ships as good as those we take from the Dutch; but, thank God, we fight ’em as they should be fought. But we need more ships and better ships, and we need coast ships.”

“We ought to have more guns, and heavier, on the Head,” I told my father. “James Corby’s schooner is in, and he’s two guns in the hold, long thirty-two-pounders, that he lifted out of the wreck of a French frigate. They will throw a shot near two miles, and at close range would go near through the two sides of a line-of-battleship.”

“I’ve done my duty to our cove,” said my father, pinching his forehead, as is his way when vexed. “Two hundred and thirty pounds I paid in good money for the guns and the mountings and the powder and shot, and the conveying of them to the Head, and building the platform to carry them. Let Sir Beant show his loyalty, and match them with three more guns on the Lanstock cliff, and we shall be very well prepared for any of these murdering Dutch who may think they will run in here and play the Old Harry with our property and our lives.”

I looked at John, my brother, and made a motion to him to keep silent. I knew that when my father had made up his mind, it was no use arguing with him, and I feared to explain the plans John and I had talked over, lest our father put a stop to all.

II.

“Come down to the cove,” I said later. “I believe we can buy one of those guns out of our allowance, if only Corby will not be so everlastingly greedy. Leave it to me to handle him.”

“Well, Corby,” I said, as we clambered aboard, “my father will not buy the guns. He has done more than his share for the cove. If anyone here is going to buy them, you’d better try Sir Beant. Or else take them up the coast as far as Mallington.”

“No use, sir,” said Corby, as I knew he would. “Sir Beant’s as stingy as my own mother, an’ that’s saying a heap. He’d never pay for mounting ’em, let alone the guns themselves. And I don’t want to bother takin’ them up the coast. Guns is mighty rum things to market.”

“I’d buy them off you myself,” I said, as carelessly as I could, “but I’d have to buy out of my allowance, and I don’t see why I should stint myself for the good of the cove, any more than anyone else.”

“I’d cut the price for you, sir, as close as my head,” he said.

And I knew, suddenly (as indeed I had half guessed) that he was mighty anxious to have them out of his vessel, so that I supposed he must have gone against the law in some way; but Corby never was a scrupulous man.

“I’ll give you five guineas apiece for each gun,” I said calmly, offering half of what I had meant before to offer, though my heart was beating fast, and Jack was actually pale with suppressed anxiety.

“Couldn’t do it possibly, sir,” said Corby. “I might, as it’s you, sir, take ten guineas apiece, money down.”

“I’ve made my offer.” I said. “I don’t pretend the guns are not worth more; but that’s all they are worth to me.” I stood up suddenly. “Come along, John,” I said. “I’m sorry, Corby, we could not deal in this matter; but I don’t blame you. I’ve no doubt you will do better up the coast.”

“Master Jerrold,” he said, as I reached the door of the cuddy, “they’re yours, cash down. I swear I wouldn’t ’a’ done it for no one else in the world.”

“Very well,” I said easily, and pinching John’s elbow to keep him from showing any excitement. “I’ll pay you as soon as the two guns are on the quay,”

I looked at Corby, half minded to ask him a question or two. It was very plain that there was something funny at the back of his eagerness to sell me two thirty-two-pounders for the sum of five guineas apiece. However, I kept quiet; for, after all, I thought, the less I knew, the less I’d have to worry about.

Two hours later the guns were on the quay and I had paid Corby, who spat ruefully, I thought, on the money; but tried to appear content, which he never could be.

III.

My father was called to London two days after we had bought the thirty-two-pounders, and my mother went with him.

I had told my father nothing about the guns, for I meant to have my will in the matter, and he was a little apt to forget that I was nineteen years grown, and somewhat irked to have him cross my intention more often maybe than was occasion for; though a better and more loving father no man ever had, and well I, and all of us, loved him for his solid goodness.

On the evening of the day that I had bought the guns, I had sent Mardy, one of our labourers, down to the quay with the timber-wain, and we had lifted the guns, one at a time, and taken them up into one of our fir-woods; for I thought that if Corby had come by them in some lawless manner, they should lie no longer on the quayside than might be.

Then, on the night after father was gone north to London Town, John and I went into the village, and had word with certain cronies of ours, that had been our playmates when we were boys, and were and are still our very good friends.

There were Tommy Larg, the young blacksmith; James and Henry Bowden, ’prentice wheelwrights and cart-makers, and near out of their time; and the three Cartwright brothers, young and smart fishermen, who already had their own boat. To these I explained our plans, and read to them that part of my uncle’s letter which told of the burning of Rayle village, which they had heard some rumours of, but nothing certain.

When I had said all, they were as eager as John and I to strengthen our defence further; and Tom Larg, the blacksmith, and the two Bowden brothers promised there and then to make the gun-carriage for the cannon, I to pay for the material, and them to charge nothing on their labour; but to be, as we say, for love.

But before all else, then, I needed their help that night; and a solemn promise to secrecy, which they gave readily and honourably kept, I had from them, that they should give their help to get the two guns to a certain place that I had planned for them, and this must be done in the darkness, for I wished no talk or knowledge of my planning to get about.

“I’m going to mount them in the High Cave in the Winston Cliff,” I told them, and smiled to myself to hear them answer on the instant that it could never be done, that the High Cave was three hundred feet above the water edge and seventy-one from the brow of the great Head, which hangs out prodigiously.

“There is no gear that us have that could lower the guns from the Head,” said the elder Bowden; “nor could us ever swing ’em in.”

“Wait!” I said, laughing a little. “That’s the secret you’ve got to keep, lads. John and I have found a secret way into the High Cave, from the back, where the shoulder of the Winston comes down on to the downs, among all the big rocks up there.”

There was a great exclaiming at this.

“Oft I ha’ heard my old Uncle Ebenezer say as there was another way into the High Cave,” said one of the Cartwrights, “but none on us ever found it, an’ never ha’ been in but once when I were a boy. It’s a long swing into the cave, by reason o’ the overhang above, and a dangerous place to come to that way.”