Shivers for Christmas (57 page)

Oh, heavens! how shall I describe the scene that met my eyes when I had torn the frail fence from its foundations, and lifted away the roof, that had fallen as if on purpose to hide that melancholy scene from the very stars and sun! A bed of dead leaves and mosses—a human skeleton yet clothed in a few blackened rags—three rusty muskets—a few tin cups, and knives, and such poor necessaries, all thickly coated with red dust—some cocoa shells—a couple of hatchets—a bottle corked and tied over at the mouth, as sailors prepare records for committal to the sea—these were the relics that I found, and the sight of them smote me with a terrible, unutterable conviction of misfortune.

I seized the bottle, staggered away to a distance of some yards from the fatal spot, broke it against the bark of the nearest tree, and found, as I had expected, a written paper inside. For some minutes I had not courage to read it. When, at last, my eyes were less dim, and my hand steadier, I deciphered the following words:—

August 30th 1761.

‘I, Aaron Taylor, mate of the schooner
Mary-Jane
, write these words:—Our captain, William Barlow, left the vessel in the small boat, accompanied by Joshua Dunn, seaman, two hours after daybreak on the 24th of December last,
A.D.
1760. The weather was foggy, and the ship lay to within hearing of breakers. The captain left me in charge of the vessel, with directions to anchor in the bay off which we then lay, and left orders that we were to send an exploring party ashore in case he did not return by the evening of the fourth day. In the course of the 25th (Christmas Day), the fog cleared off, and we found ourselves lying just off the curve of the bay, as our captain had stated. We then anchored according to instructions. The four days went by, and neither the captain nor Joshua Dunn returned. Neither did we see any signs of the boat along that part of the shore against which we lay at anchor. The two seamen who yet remained on board were then despatched by me in the long-boat, to search along the east coast of the island; but they returned at the end of three days without having seen any traces of the captain, the sailor, or the small boat. One of these men, named James Grey, and myself, started again at the end of a few more days of waiting. I left John Cartwright in charge of the vessel, with orders to keep a strict look-out along shore for the captain or Dunn. We landed, hauled our boat up high and dry, and made for the interior of the country, which consisted apparently of nothing but dense forest, in which we wandered for five days without success. Returning in a south-east direction from the northward part of the forest-land, James Grey fell ill with fever, and was unable to get back so far as the boat. I left him on a high spot of ground sheltered by trees, made him a bed of leaves and moss, and went back to the ship for help. When I reached the
Mary-Jane
, I found John Cartwright also sick with fever, though less ill than Grey. He was able to help in bringing along blankets and other necessaries, and he and I built up this hut together, and laid our dying messmate in it. On the second day from this, Cartwright, who had over-exerted himself while he was already ailing of the same disease, became so much worse that he, too, was unable to get back to the ship, or to do anything but lie down in the hut beside Grey. I did all I could for them, and tried to do my duty by the ship as well as by the men. I went down to the shore every evening to look after the schooner, and went on board every morning; and I nursed the poor fellows as well as I could, by keeping up fires just outside the hut, and supplying them with warm food, warm drinks, and well aired blankets. It was not for me to save them, however. They both died before a fortnight was gone by—James Grey first, and Cartwright a few hours after. I buried them both close against the hut, and returned to the ship, not knowing what better to do, but having very little hope left of ever seeing Captain Barlow or Joshua Dunn in this world again. I was now quite alone, and, as I believed, the last survivor of all the crew. I felt it my duty to remain by the ship, and at anchor in the same spot, till every chance of the captain’s return should have gone by. I made up my mind, in short, to stay till the 25th of March, namely, three months from the time when Captain Barlow left the vessel; and then to navigate her into the nearest port. Long before that, however, I began to feel myself ailing. I doctored myself from the captain’s medicine-chest; but the drugs only seemed to make me worse instead of better. I was not taken, however, exactly as Grey and Cartwright were. They fell ill and broke down suddenly—I ailed, and lingered, got better and worse, and dragged on a weary, sickly life from week to week, and from month to month, till not only the three months had gone, but three more to the back of them; and yet I had no strength or power to stir from the spot. I was so weak that I could not have weighed anchor to save my life; and so thin that I could count every bone under my skin. At length, on the night of the 18th of June, there came a tremendous hurricane, which tore the schooner from her moorings, and drove her upon the shore, high and dry—about a hundred yards above the usual high-water mark. I thought she would have been dashed to pieces, and was almost glad to think I should now be rid of my miserable life, and die in the sea at last. But it was God’s will that I should not end so. The ship was stranded, and I with her. I now saw my fate before me. I was doomed, anyhow, to live or die on the island. If I recovered, I could never get the
Mary-Jane
to sea again, but must spend all my years alone on the cursed island. This was my bitterest grief. I think it has broken my heart. Since I have been cast ashore, I have grown more and more sickly, and now that I feel I have not many more days to live, I write this narrative of all that has happened since Captain Barlow left the ship, in the hope that it may some day fall into the hands of some Christian seaman who will communicate its contents to my mother and sisters at Bristol. I have been living up at the hut of late, since the heat set in; and have written this in sight of my messmates’ graves. When I have sealed it in a bottle, I shall try to carry it down to the shore, and either leave it on board the
Mary-Jane
, or trust it to the waves. I should like my mother to have my gold watch, and I give my dog Peter, whom I left at home, to my cousin Ellen. If any kind Christian finds this paper, I pray him to bury my bones. God forgive me all my sins. Amen.

‘A
ARON
T
AYLOR
.

‘August 30th, 1761.’

I will not try to describe what I felt on reading this simple and straightforward narrative; or with what bitter remorse and helpless wonder I looked back upon the evil my obstinacy had wrought. But for me, and my insatiate thirst for wealth, these men would now have been living and happy. I felt as if I had been their murderer, and raved and wept miserably as I dug a third trench, and laid in it the remains of my brave and honest mate.

Besides all this, there was a heavy mystery hanging upon me, which I tried to fathom, and could not comprehend. Taylor’s narrative was dated just eight months after I left the ship, and to me it seemed that scarcely three had gone by. Nor was that all. His body had had time to decay to a mere skeleton—the ship had had time to become a mere wreck—my own head had had time to grow grey! What had happened to me? I asked myself that weary question again, and again, and again, till my head and my heart ached, and I could only kneel down and pray to God that my wits were not taken from me.

I found the watch with difficulty, and, taking it and the paper with me, went back, sadly and wearily, to my cavern by the sea. I had now no hope or object left but to escape from the island if I could, and this thought haunted me all the way home, and possessed me day and night. For more than a week I deliberated as to what means were best for my purpose, and hesitated whether to build me a raft of the ship’s timbers, or try to fit the long-boat for sea. I decided at last upon the latter. I spent many weeks in piecing, caulking and trimming her to the best of my ability, and thought myself quite a skilful ship’s carpenter when I had fitted her with a mast, and a sail, and a new rudder, and got her ready for the voyage. This done, I hauled her down, with infinite labour and difficulty, as far as the tide mark on the beach; ballasted her with provisions and fresh water, shoved her off at high tide, and put to sea. So eager was I to escape, that I had all but forgotten my bundle of jewels, and had to run for them at the last moment, at the risk of seeing my boat floated off before I could get back. As to venturing once again to the city of treasures, it had never crossed my mind for an instant since the morning when I came down through the palm forests and found the
Mary-Jane
a ruin on the beach. Nothing would now have induced me to return there. I believed the place to be accursed, and could not think of it without a shudder. As for the captain of the
Adventure
, I believed him to be the Evil One in person, and his store of gold an infernal bait to lure men to destruction! I believed it then, and I believe it now, solemnly.

The rest of my story may be told very briefly. After running before the wind for eleven days and nights, in a northeasterly direction, I was picked up by a Plymouth merchantman, about forty-five miles west of Marignana. The captain and crew treated me with kindness, but evidently looked upon me as a harmless madman. No one believed my story. When I described the islands, they laughed; when I opened my store of jewels, they shook their heads, and gravely assured me that they were only lumps of spar and sandstone; when I described the condition of my ship, and related the misfortunes of my crew, they told me the schooner
Mary-Jane
had been lost at sea twenty years ago, with every hand on board. Unfortunately, I found that I had left my mate’s narrative behind me in the cavern, or perhaps my story would have found more credit. When I swore that to me it seemed less than six months since I had put off in the small boat with Joshua Dunn, and was capsized among the breakers, they brought the ship’s log to prove that instead of its being the 25th of December
A.D.
1760, when I came back to the beach, and saw the
Mary-Jane
lying high and dry between the rocks, it must have been nearer the 25th of December, 1780, the twentieth Christmas, namely, of the glorious and happy reign of our most gracious sovereign, King George the Third.

Was this true? I know not. Everyone says so but I cannot bring myself to believe that twenty years could have passed over my head like one long summer day. Yet the world is strangely changed, and I with it, and the mystery is still unexplained as ever to my bewildered brain.

I went back to England with the merchantman, and to my native place among the Mendip Hills. My mother had been dead twelve years. Bessie Robinson was married, and the mother of four children. My youngest brother was gone to America; and my old friends had all forgotten me. I came among them like a ghost, and for a long time they could hardly believe that I was indeed the same William Barlow who had sailed away in the
Mary-Jane
, young and full of hope twenty years before.

Since my return home, I have tried to sell my jewels again and again; but in vain. No merchant will buy them. I have sent charts of the Treasure Isles over and over again to the Board of Admiralty, but receive no replies to my letters. My dream of wealth has faded year by year, with my strength and my hopes. I am poor, and I am declining into old age. Everyone is kind to me, but their kindness is mixed with pity; and I feel strange and bewildered at times, not knowing what to think of the past, and seeing nothing to live for in the future. Kind people who read this true statement, pray for me.

(Signed) WILLIAM BARLOW

Discoverer of the Treasure Isles, and formerly Captain of the Schooner
Mary-Jane
.

*
   From a MS found on a bookstall.

*
   The writer alludes, evidently, to King George III, who was proclaimed throughout the kingdom on the 26th October, 1760; King George II having died suddenly, at Kensington, on the 25th.

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An unusual tale by the celebrated short story writer ‘Saki’ (Hector Hugh Munro, 1870–1916).

His tales of
Beasts and Super-Beasts
and
The Chronicles of Clovis
are perennial favourites, being regularly dramatised on radio. A weaver of ‘fairy-tales grimmer than Grimm’, he was a master of satire and the uncanny.

‘A
re there any old legends attached to the castle?’ asked Conrad of his sister. Conrad was a prosperous Hamburg merchant, but he was the one poetically-dispositioned member of an eminently practical family.

The Baroness Gruebel shrugged her plump shoulders.

‘There are always legends hanging about these old places. They are not difficult to invent and they cost nothing. In this case there is a story that when anyone dies in the castle all the dogs in the village and the wild beasts in the forest howl the night long. It would not be pleasant to listen to, would it?’

‘It would be weird and romantic,’ said the Hamburg merchant.

‘Anyhow, it isn’t true,’ said the Baroness complacently; ‘since we bought the place we have had proof that nothing of the sort happens. When the old mother-in-law died last springtime we all listened, but there was no howling. It is just a story that lends dignity to the place without costing anything.’

‘The story is not as you have told it,’ said Amalie, the grey old governess. Everyone turned and looked at her in astonishment. She was wont to sit silent and prim and faded in her place at table, never speaking unless someone spoke to her, and there were few who troubled themselves to make conversation with her. Today a sudden volubility had descended on her; she continued to talk, rapidly and nervously, looking straight in front of her and seeming to address no one in particular.

‘It is not when
anyone
does in the castle that the howling is heard. It was when one of the Cernogratz family died here that the wolves came from far and near and howled at the edge of the forest just before the death hour. There were only a few couple of wolves that had their lairs in this part of the forest, but at such a time the keepers say there would be scores of them, gliding about in the shadows and howling in chorus, and the dogs of the castle and the village and all the farms round would bay and howl in fear and anger at the wolf chorus, and as the soul of the dying one left its body a tree would crash down in the park. That is what happened when a Cernogratz died in his family castle. But for a stranger dying here, of course no wolf would howl and no tree would fall. Oh, no.’