The Ghost: A Modern Fantasy Part 22

"Don't know."

"And where's the ship that struck us?"

"Oh, somewhere over there--two or three miles away." He pointed vaguely to the northeast. "You see, half the paddle-wheel was knocked off, and when that sank, of course the port side rose out of the water. I believe those paddle-wheels weigh a deuce of a lot."

"Are we going to sink?"

"Don't know. Can tell you more in half an hour. I've got two life-belts hidden under a seat. They're rather a nuisance to carry about. You're shivering, Lottie. We must take some more exercise. See you later, sir."

And the two went off again. The girl had not looked at me, nor I at her. She did not seem to be interested in our conversation. As for her companion, he restored my pride in my race.

I began to whistle. Suddenly the whistle died on my lips. Standing exactly opposite to me, on the starboard side, was the mysterious being whom I had last seen in the railway carriage at Sittingbourne.

He was, as usual, imperturbable, sardonic, terrifying. His face, which chanced to be lighted by the rays of a deck lantern, had the pallor and the immobility of marble, and the dark eyes held me under their hypnotic gaze.

Again I had the sensation of being victimized by a conspiracy of which this implacable man was the head. I endured once more the mental tortures which I had suffered in the railway carriage, and now, as then, I felt helpless and bewildered. It seemed to me that his existence overshadowed mine, and that in some way he was connected with the death of Alresca. Possibly there was a plot, in which the part played by the jealousy of Carlotta Deschamps was only a minor one. Possibly I had unwittingly stepped into a net of subtle intrigue, of the extent of whose boundaries and ramifications I had not the slightest idea. Like one set in the blackness of an unfamiliar chamber, I feared to step forward or backward lest I might encounter some unknown horror.

It may be argued that I must have been in a highly nervous condition in order to be affected in such a manner by the mere sight of a man--a man who had never addressed to me a single word of conversation.

Perhaps so. Yet up to that period of my life my temperament and habit of mind had been calm, unimpressionable, and if I may say so, not specially absurd.

What need to inquire how the man had got on board that ship--how he had escaped death in the railway accident--how he had eluded my sight at Dover Priory? There he stood. Evidently he had purposed to pursue me to Paris, and little things like railway collisions were insufficient to deter him. I surmised that he must have quitted the compartment at Sittingbourne immediately after me, meaning to follow me, but that the starting of the train had prevented him from entering the same compartment as I entered. According to this theory, he must have jumped into another compartment lower down the train as the train was moving, and left it when the collision occurred, keeping his eye on me all the time, but not coming forward. He must even have walked after me down the line from Dover Priory to the pier.

However, a shipwreck was a more serious affair than a railway accident. And if the ship were indeed doomed, it would puzzle even him to emerge with his life. He might seize me in the water, and from simple hate drag me to destruction,--yes, that was just what he would do,--but he would have a difficulty in saving himself. Such were my wild and fevered notions!

On the starboard bow I saw the dim bulk and the masthead lights of a steamer approaching us. The other pa.s.sengers had observed it, too, and there was a buzz of antic.i.p.ation on the slanting deck. Only the inimical man opposite to me seemed to ignore the stir. He did not even turn round to look at the object which had aroused the general excitement. His eyes never left me.

The vessel came nearer, till we could discern clearly the outline of her, and a black figure on her bridge. She was not more than a hundred yards away when the beat of her engines stopped. She hailed us. We waited for the answering call from our own captain, but there was no reply. Twice again she hailed us, and was answered only by silence.

"Why don't our people reply?" an old lady asked, who came up to me at that moment, breathing heavily.

"Because they are d----d fools," I said roughly. She was a most respectable and prim old lady; yet I could not resist shocking her ears by an impropriety.

The other ship moved away into the night.

Was I in a dream? Was this a pantomime shipwreck? Then it occurred to me that the captain was so sure of being ultimately able to help himself that he preferred from motives of economy to decline a.s.sistance which would involve a heavy salvage claim.

My self-possessed young man came along again in the course of his peregrinations, the girl whom he called Lottie still on his arm. He stopped for a chat.

"Most curious thing!" he began.

"What now?"

"Well, I found out about the collision."

"How did it occur?"

"In this way. The captain was on duty on the bridge, with the steersman at the wheel. It was thickish weather then, much thicker than it is now--in fact, there'll soon be no breeze left, and look at the stars! Suddenly the lookout man shouted that there was a sail on the weather bow, and it must have been pretty close, too. The captain ordered the man at the wheel to put the boat to port--I don't know the exact phraseology of the thing--so that we could pa.s.s the other ship on our starboard side. Instead of doing that, the triple idiot shoved us to starboard as hard as he could, and before the captain could do anything, we were struck on the port paddle. The steersman had sent us right into the other ship. If he had wanted specially to land us into a good smash-up, he could scarcely have done it better. A good thing we got caught on the paddle; otherwise we should have been cut clean in two. As it was, the other boat recoiled and fell away."

"Was she damaged?"

"Probably not."

"How does the man at the wheel explain his action?"

"Well, that's the curious part. I was just coming to that. Naturally he's in a great state of terror just now, but he can just talk. He swears that when the captain gave his order a third person ran up the steps leading to the bridge, and so frightened him that he was sort of dazed, and did exactly the wrong thing."

"A queer tale!"

"I should think so. But he sticks to it. He even says that this highly mysterious third person made him do the wrong thing. But that's absolute tommy-rot."

"The man must be mad."

"I should have said he had been drunk, but there doesn't seem to be any trace of that. Anyhow, he sees visions, and I maintain that the Chatham and Dover people oughtn't to have their boats steered by men who see visions, eh?"

"I agree with you. I suppose we aren't now in any real danger?"

"I should hardly think so. We might have been. It was pure luck that we happened to get struck on the paddle-box, and also it was pure luck that the sea has gone down so rapidly. With a list like this, a really lively cross-sea would soon have settled us."

We were silent for a few moments. The girl looked idly round the ship, and her eyes encountered the figure of the mysterious man. She seemed to shiver.

"Oh!" she exclaimed under her breath, "what a terrible face that man has!"

"Where?" said her friend.

"Over there. And how is it he's wearing a silk hat--here?"

His glance followed hers, but my follower had turned abruptly round, and in a moment was moving quickly to the after-part of the ship. He pa.s.sed behind the smoke-stack, and was lost to our view.

"The back of him looks pretty stiff," the young man said. "I wonder if he's the chap that alarmed the man at the wheel."

I laughed, and at the same time I accidentally dropped Rosa's jewel-case, which had never left my hand. I picked it up hurriedly.

"You seem attached to that case," the young man said, smiling. "If we had foundered, should you have let it go, or tried to swim ash.o.r.e with it?"

"The question is doubtful," I replied, returning his smile. In shipwrecks one soon becomes intimate with strangers.

"If I mistake not, it is a jewel-case."

"It is a jewel-case."

He nodded with a moralizing air, as if reflecting upon the sordid love of property which will make a man carry a jewel-case about with him when the next moment he might find himself in the sea. At least, that was my interpretation of the nodding. Then the brother and sister--for such I afterwards discovered they were--left me to take care of my jewel-case alone.

Why had I dropped the jewel-case? Was it because I was startled by the jocular remark which identified the mysterious man with the person who had disturbed the steersman? That remark was made in mere jest. Yet I could not help thinking that it contained the truth. Nay, I knew that it was true; I knew by instinct. And being true, what facts were logically to be deduced from it? What aim had this mysterious man in compelling, by his strange influences, the innocent sailor to guide the ship towards destruction--the ship in which I happened to be a pa.s.senger?... And then there was the railway accident. The stoker had said that the engine-driver had been dazed--like the steersman. But no. There are avenues of conjecture from which the mind shrinks. I could not follow up that train of thought.

Happily, I did not see my enemy again--at least, during that journey.

And my mind was diverted, for the dawn came--the beautiful September dawn. Never have I greeted the sun with deeper joy, and I fancy that my sentiments were shared by everyone on board the vessel. As the light spread over the leaden waters, and the coast of France was silhouetted against the sky, the pa.s.sengers seemed to understand that danger was over, and that we had been through peril, and escaped. Some threw themselves upon their knees, and prayed with an ecstasy of thankfulness. Others re-commenced their hymning. Others laughed rather hysterically, and began to talk at a prodigious rate. A few, like myself, stood silent and apparently unmoved.

Then the engines began to beat. There was a frightful clatter of sc.r.a.p-iron and wood in the port paddle-box, and they stopped immediately, whereupon we noticed that the list of the vessel was somewhat more marked than before. The remainder of the port paddle had, in fact, fallen away into the water. The hymn-singers ceased their melodies, absorbed in antic.i.p.ating what would happen next. At last, after many orders and goings to and fro, the engines started again, this time, of course, the starboard paddle, deeply immersed, moved by itself. We progressed with infinite slowness, and in a most peculiar manner, but we did progress, and that was the main thing. The pa.s.sengers cheered heartily.

We appeared to go in curves, but each curve brought us nearer to Calais. As we approached that haven of refuge, it seemed as if every steamer and smack of Calais was coming out to meet us. The steamers whistled, the owners of smacks bawled and shouted. They desired to a.s.sist; for were we not disabled, and would not the English railway company pay well for help so gallantly rendered? Our captain, however, made no sign, and, like a wounded, sullen animal, from whom its companions timidly keep a respectful distance, we at length entered Calais harbor, and by dint of much seamanship and polyglottic swearing brought up safely at the quay.