The Penny Dreadfuls MEGAPACK™ (114 page)

“But you never saw a vampire, uncle?”

“Well, I don’t know that. I didn’t know anything about vampires till I came here; but that was my ignorance, you know. There might have been lots of vampires where I’ve been, for all I know.”

“Oh, certainly; but as regards this duel, will you wait now until tomorrow morning, before you take any further steps in the matter?”

“Till tomorrow morning?”

“Yes, uncle.”

“Why, only a little while ago, you were all eagerness to have something done off-hand.”

“Just so; but now I have a particular reason for waiting until tomorrow morning.”

“Have you? Well, as you please, boy—as you please. Have everything your own way.”

“You are very kind, uncle; and now I have another favour to ask of you.”

“What is it?”

“Why, you know that Henry Bannerworth receives but a very small sum out of the whole proceeds of the estate here, which ought, but for his father’s extravagance, to be wholly at his disposal.”

“So I have heard.”

“I am certain he is at present distressed for money, and I have not much. Will you lend me fifty pounds, uncle, until my own affairs are sufficiently arranged to enable you to pay yourself again?”

“Will I! of course I will.”

“I wish to offer that sum as an accommodation to Henry. From me, I dare say he will receive it freely, because he must be convinced how freely it is offered; and, besides, they look upon me now almost as a member of the family in consequence of my engagement with Flora.”

“Certainly, and quite correct too: there’s a fifty-pound note, my boy; take it, and do what you like with it, and when you want any more, come to me for it.”

“I knew I could trespass thus far on your kindness, uncle.”

“Trespass! It’s no trespass at all.”

“Well, we will not fall out about the terms in which I cannot help expressing my gratitude to you for many favours. Tomorrow, you will arrange the duel for me.”

“As you please. I don’t altogether like going to that fellow’s house again.”

“Well, then, we can manage, I dare say, by note.”

“Very good. Do so. He puts me in mind altogether of a circumstance that happened a good while ago, when I was at sea, and not so old a man as I am now.”

“Puts you in mind of a circumstance, uncle?”

“Yes; he’s something like a fellow that figured in an affair that I know a good deal about; only I do think as my chap was more mysterious by a damned sight than this one.”

“Indeed!”

“Oh, dear, yes. When anything happens in an odd way at sea, it is as odd again as anything that occurs on land, my boy, you may depend.”

“Oh, you only fancy that, uncle, because you have spent so long a time at sea.”

“No, I don’t imagine it, you rascal. What can you have on shore equal to what we have at sea? Why, the sights that come before us would make you landsmen’s hairs stand up on end, and never come down again.”

“In the ocean, do you mean, that you see those sights, uncle?”

“To be sure. I was once in the southern ocean, in a small frigate, looking out for a seventy-four we were to join company with, when a man at the mast-head sung out that he saw her on the larboard bow. Well, we thought it was all right enough, and made away that quarter, when what do you think it turned out to be?”

“I really cannot say.”

“The head of a fish.”

“A fish!”

“Yes! a damned deal bigger than the hull of a vessel. He was swimming along with his head just what I dare say he considered a shaving or so out of the water.”

“But where were the sails, uncle?”

“The sails?”

“Yes; your man at the mast-head must have been a poor seaman not to have missed the sails.”

“All, that’s one of your shore-going ideas, now. You know nothing whatever about it. I’ll tell you where the sails were, master Charley.”

“Well, I should like to know.”

“The spray, then, that he dashed up with a pair of fins that were close to his head, was in such a quantity, and so white, that they looked just like sails.”

“Oh!”

“Ah! you may say ‘oh!’ but we all saw him—the whole ship’s crew; and we sailed alongside of him for some time, till he got tired of us, and suddenly dived down, making such a vortex in the water, that the ship shook again, and seemed for about a minute as if she was inclined to follow him to the bottom of the sea.”

“And what do you suppose it was, uncle?”

“How should I know?”

“Did you ever see it again?”

“Never; though others have caught a glimpse of him now and then in the same ocean, but never came so near him as we did, that ever I heard of, at all events. They may have done so.”

“It is singular!”

“Singular or not, it’s a fool to what I can tell you. Why, I’ve seen things that, if I were to set about describing them to you, you would say I was making up a romance.”

“Oh, no; it’s quite impossible, uncle, any one could ever suspect you of such a thing.”

“You’d believe me, would you?”

“Of course I would.”

“Then here goes. I’ll just tell you now of a circumstance that I haven’t liked to mention to anybody yet.”

“Indeed! why so?”

“Because I didn’t want to be continually fighting people for not believing it; but here you have it:—”

We were outward bound; a good ship, a good captain, and good messmates, you know, go far towards making a prosperous voyage a pleasant and happy one, and on this occasion we had every reasonable prospect of all.

Our hands were all tried men—they had been sailors from infancy; none of your French craft, that serve an apprenticeship and then become land lubbers again. Oh, no, they were stanch and true, and loved the ocean as the sluggard loves his bed, or the lover his mistress.

Ay, and for the matter of that, the love was a more enduring and a more healthy love, for it increased with years, and made men love one another, and they would stand by each other while they had a limb to lift—while they were able to chew a quid or wink an eye, leave alone wag a pigtail.

We were outward bound for Ceylon, with cargo, and were to bring spices and other matters home from the Indian market. The ship was new and good—a pretty craft; she sat like a duck upon the water, and a stiff breeze carried her along the surface of the waves without your rocking, and pitching, and tossing, like an old wash-tub at a mill-tail, as I have had the misfortune to sail in more than once afore.

No, no, we were well laden, and well pleased, and weighed anchor with light hearts and a hearty cheer.

Away we went down the river, and soon rounded the North Foreland, and stood out in the Channel. The breeze was a steady and stiff one, and carried us through the water as though it had been made for us.

“Jack,” said I to a messmate of mine, as he stood looking at the skies, then at the sails, and finally at the water, with a graver air than I thought was at all consistent with the occasion or circumstances.

“Well,” he replied.

“What ails you? You seem as melancholy as if we were about to cast lots who should be eaten first. Are you well enough?”

“I am hearty enough, thank Heaven,” he said, “but I don’t like this breeze.”

“Don’t like the breeze!” said I; “why, mate, it is as good and kind a breeze as ever filled a sail. What would you have, a gale?”

“No, no; I fear that.”

“With such a ship, and such a set of hearty able seamen, I think we could manage to weather out the stiffest gale that ever whistled through a yard.”

“That may be; I hope it is, and I really believe and think so.”

“Then what makes you so infernally mopish and melancholy?”

“I don’t know, but can’t help it. It seems to me as though there was something hanging over us, and I can’t tell what.”

“Yes, there are the colours, Jack, at the masthead; they are flying over us with a hearty breeze.”

“Ah! ah!” said Jack, looking up at the colours, and then went away without saying anything more, for he had some piece of duty to perform.

I thought my messmate had something on his mind that caused him to feel sad and uncomfortable, and I took no more notice of it; indeed, in the course of a day or two he was as merry as any of the rest, and had no more melancholy that I could perceive, but was as comfortable as anybody.

We had a gale off the coast of Biscay, and rode it out without the loss of a spar or a yard; indeed, without the slightest accident or rent of any kind.

“Now, Jack, what do you think of our vessel?” said I.

“She’s like a duck upon water, rises and falls with the waves, and doesn’t tumble up and down like a hoop over stones.”

“No, no; she goes smoothly and sweetly; she is a gallant craft, and this is her first voyage, and I predict a prosperous one.”

“I hope so,” he said.

Well, we went on prosperously enough for about three weeks; the ocean was as calm and as smooth as a meadow, the breeze light but good, and we stemmed along majestically over the deep blue waters, and passed coast after coast, though all around was nothing but the apparently pathless main in sight.

“A better sailer I never stepped into,” said the captain one day; “it would be a pleasure to live and die in such a vessel.”

Well, as I said, we had been three weeks or thereabouts, when one morning, after the sun was up and the decks washed, we saw a strange man sitting on one of the water-casks that were on deck, for, being full, we were compelled to stow some of them on deck.

You may guess those on deck did a little more than stare at this strange and unexpected apparition. By jingo, I never saw men open their eyes wider in all my life, nor was I any exception to the rule. I stared, as well I might; but we said nothing for some minutes, and the stranger looked calmly on us, and then cocked his eye with a nautical air up at the sky, as if he expected to receive a twopenny-post letter from St. Michael, or a
billet doux
from the Virgin Mary.

“Where has he come from?” said one of the men in a low tone to his companion, who was standing by him at that moment.

“How can I tell?” replied his companion. “He may have dropped from the clouds; he seems to be examining the road; perhaps he is going back.”

The stranger sat all this time with the most extreme and provoking coolness and unconcern; he deigned us but a passing notice, but it was very slight.

He was a tall, spare man—what is termed long and lathy—but he was evidently a powerful man. He had a broad chest, and long, sinewy arms, a hooked nose, and a black, eagle eye. His hair was curly, but frosted by age; it seemed as though it had been tinged with white at the extremities, but he was hale and active otherwise, to judge from appearances.

Notwithstanding all this, there was a singular repulsiveness about him that I could not imagine the cause, or describe; at the same time there was an air of determination in his wild and singular-looking eyes, and over their whole there was decidedly an air and an appearance so sinister as to be positively disagreeable.

“Well,” said I, after we had stood some minutes, “where did you come from, shipmate?”

He looked at me and then up at the sky, in a knowing manner.

“Come, come, that won’t do; you have none of Peter Wilkins’s wings, and couldn’t come on the aerial dodge; it won’t do; how did you get here?”

He gave me an awful wink, and made a sort of involuntary movement, which jumped him up a few inches, and he bumped down again on the water-cask.

“That’s as much as to say,” thought I, “that he’s sat himself on it.”

“I’ll go and inform the captain,” said I, “of this affair; he’ll hardly believe me when I tell him, I am sure.”

So saying, I left the deck and went to the cabin, where the captain was at breakfast, and related to him what I had seen respecting the stranger. The captain looked at me with an air of disbelief, and said—

“What?—do you mean to say there’s a man on board we haven’t seen before?”

“Yes, I do, captain. I never saw him afore, and he’s sitting beating his heels on the water-cask on deck.”

“The devil!”

“He is, I assure you, sir; and he won’t answer any questions.”

“I’ll see to that. I’ll see if I can’t make the lubber say something, providing his tongue’s not cut out. But how came he on board? Confound it, he can’t be the devil, and dropped from the moon.”

“Don’t know, captain,” said I. “He is evil-looking enough, to my mind, to be the father of evil, but it’s ill bespeaking attentions from that quarter at any time.”

“Go on, lad; I’ll come up after you.”

I left the cabin, and I heard the captain coming after me. When I got on deck, I saw he had not moved from the place where I left him. There was a general commotion among the crew when they beard of the occurrence, and all crowded round him, save the man at the wheel, who had to remain at his post.

The captain now came forward, and the men fell a little back as he approached. For a moment the captain stood silent, attentively examining the stranger, who was excessively cool, and stood the scrutiny with the same unconcern that he would had the captain been looking at his watch.

“Well, my man,” said the captain, “how did you come here?”

“I’m part of the cargo,” he said, with an indescribable leer.

“Part of the cargo be damned!” said the captain, in sudden rage, for he thought the stranger was coming his jokes too strong. “I know you are not in the bills of lading.”

“I’m contraband,” replied the stranger; “and my uncle’s the great chain of Tartary.”

The captain stared, as well he might, and did not speak for some minutes; all the while the stranger kept kicking his heels against the water-casks and squinting up at the skies; it made us feel very queer.

“Well, I must confess you are not in the regular way of trading.”

“Oh, no,” said the stranger; “I am contraband—entirely contraband.”

“And how did you come on board?”

At this question the stranger again looked curiously up at the skies, and continued to do so for more than a minute; he then turned his gaze upon the captain.

“No, no,” said the captain; “eloquent dumb show won’t do with me; you didn’t come, like Mother Shipton, upon a birch broom. How did you come on board my vessel?”