The Ghost Ship Part 24

"Is the young lady slight in figure, and has she long golden-coloured hair hanging loose about her head, sir?" I eagerly asked, almost breathless in my excitement. "And, tell me too, did she have a large black Newfoundland or retriever dog by her side that same evening, sir?"

Colonel Vereker seemed even more astonished by this question of mine than I had been by his reply to Captain Applegarth the moment before.

"My brave young sir," said he, using this somewhat grandiloquent form of addressing me, I suppose, in remembrance of the slight service I had done him by swimming with the line to the drifting boat when we picked up him and his companion. "My little Elsie is tall and slight for her age, and her hair is a.s.suredly of a golden hue, ah, yes! like liquid sunshine; though, how you, my good young gentleman, who, to my knowledge, can _never_ have seen her face to face in this life, can know the colour of her hair or what she is like, I must confess that pa.s.ses my comprehension!"

"But the dog, sir?"

"That is stranger still," remarked Colonel Vereker. "I had forgotten to mention that I brought with me on board the _Saint Pierre_ from my old home at Caracas a splendid Russian wolf-hound, as faithful a creature as my poor negro servant Cato. His name is Ivan, and he is now, I sincerely hope and trust, guarding my little darling girl, as I would have done if I had remained with her, for not a living soul would dare to touch her with him there. Ivan would tear them limb from limb first.

He is a large greyish-black dog, with a rough s.h.a.ggy coat, and in reply to your enquiry, I must tell you he _was_ on the p.o.o.p of the ship, by the side of my child, at the very time that she declared she saw that steamer, which I, myself, could not see anywhere!"

For the moment I was unable to speak. I was so overcome at this unexpected confirmation of the sight I had seen on that eventful Friday night, though I had afterwards been inclined to disbelieve the evidence of my own senses, as everybody else had done, even the skipper at last joining in with the opinion of Mr Fosset and all the rest, save the boatswain, old Masters. Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as they called my vision, and that I had not seen it at all!

But this statement from the colonel absolutely staggered the skipper, and he looked from me to the American and back again at me in the most bewildering manner possible; the old chief, Mr Stokes, and Garry O'Neil staring at the pair of us with equal amazement.

"By George, the girl and the dog, the girl and the dog. Why, it's the very same ship, as you say, Haldane; it must be so, and, by George, my boy, you were right after all! By George, you were!" at length exclaimed the skipper in a voice, the genuineness of whose astonishment could not be doubted. "Colonel Vereker, I would not have credited this had any one told it me and sworn to the truth of it on oath, but the proof is so strong that I cannot possibly disbelieve it, sir, though it is to my mind a downright impossibility according to every argument of common sense. It is certainly the most wonderful thing that has ever happened to me, and the most wonderful thing that I have ever heard of since I have been at sea!"

"Heavens!" cried the other. "But why? You surprise me, sir."

"Aye, colonel," rejoined the skipper. "But I am going to surprise you more. Now don't laugh at me, and don't think me an idiot and gone off my head, sir, when I tell you that this lad, d.i.c.k Haldane, here, whether by reason of some mirage or other I cannot tell, for it's beyond my understanding altogether, distinctly saw your ship with her signal of distress, and says he saw your little daughter with the dog by her side, aboard her, last Friday night at sunset. More than that, sir, he described to me at the time, exactly as you have done now, colonel, everything he saw, even to the very hue of the young girl's hair and the colour and texture of the dog's coat! It is altogether marvellous and, indeed, incredible!"

"Well, but--" said Colonel Vereker slowly, and pausing between every word as if trying to comprehend it all. "Why, how is that, sir?"

"Your ship, colonel, must have been more than five hundred miles away from ours at the time--that is all!"

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

BUTCHERED.

"Dios!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker. "Are you--certain of this, sir?"

Captain Applegarth shrugged his shoulders.

"Ask Mr Stokes here and your doctor there, Mr O'Neil, whether they did not hear Haldane's yarn about your ship five days ago, sir, before we ever clapped eyes on you," said he in a slightly aggrieved tone, as if he thought his word was being doubted. "Why, colonel, this poor lad was becoming the b.u.t.t for everybody's chaff on board on account of it!"

"Gracious!" cried the other. "This is indeed really wonderful!"

"Aye, colonel, and more than that! But for the lad seeing this mirage, or whatever else it was, and telling me about it, we would not have gone off our course in search of you to render what a.s.sistance we could-- yours being the 'ship in distress' Haldane reported having sighted to the southward. This divergence from our track, sir, took us into the very teeth of the gale which we encountered later on, that same evening, and conduced to our breaking down."

"Faith," put in Garry O'Neil, "that's thrue for sure, sor!"

"This breakdown of ours, colonel, led to our drifting to the southward into the trail of the Gulf Stream," continued the skipper, following up the strange sequence of events as they occurred, one by one. "Your ship--the real ship, I mean--was drifting north and east meanwhile, carried along by the same current, and then it came about that, although apparently going in opposite directions and acted on by different causes, our tracks _crossed each other on the chart last night_--at least, that is my opinion."

"I see, I see," cried Colonel Vereker quickly, interrupting him, and in a state of great excitement. "Thank G.o.d! But for that you would never have sighted our drifting boat and picked up myself and poor Captain Alphonse! Thank G.o.d, Senor Haldane saw us in that mysterious way. It seems to have been an interposition of heaven to warn you of our peril and bring you to our aid!"

"Just so, colonel; that's what I think myself now," said the skipper impressively, taking off his cap and looking upward with a grave reflective air. "Aye, and I thank G.o.d, too, for putting us in the way of helping you, with all my heart, sir!"

"Ah!" observed old Mr Stokes, who had remained silent the while. "The ways of Providence are as wonderful as they are mysterious!"

There was a pause after this in our conversation which no one seemed anxious to break till Garry O'Neil spoke.

"Faith, sor, you haven't tould us yit how ye come by this wound in your leg, an' about that poor chap in yander," he said to the colonel, nodding his head in the direction of Captain Applegarth's inner state cabin, where the French captain was lying in his cot. "Sure, we're dyin' to hear the end of your scrimmage with those black divvles!"

Colonel Vereker heaved a sigh.

"Well, I ought not to doubt that the good G.o.d is watching over my little, darling daughter after what I have just learnt, my friends,"

said he in a more hopeful tone than his depressed manner indicated, looking round at us with his large, melancholy, dark eyes. "I ought not to despair!"

"Certainly not, sir; I dare say we'll soon overhaul the ship now, for we're more than an hour and a half in chase of her at full speed,"

remarked the skipper, recovering himself from his fit of abstraction and looking at his watch to see the time. "Go on, colonel; go on, please, and tell us the end of your story."

"There is little more for you to hear, sir," replied the other, settling himself back in his seat again, after Mr O'Neil had once more dressed the wound in his leg. "Before it was dark that terrible night I sent Elsie below, while Captain Alphonse with myself stayed up on the p.o.o.p for the first watch, each of us with a loaded revolver, besides having a box of cartridges handy on the skylight near by, should we want to replenish our ammunition. But the Haytians, sir, had evidently had enough of us for that evening, making no further attempts to attack us as the hours wore on.

"They were as watchful as ourselves, though, for as Cato, anon, trying to creep forwards so as to release the French sailors confined under the main hatchway, had a narrow escape of his life, a heavy spar being suddenly let down by the run almost on top of his head when he ventured out on the exposed deck. This was at midnight, when the second mate, Ba.s.seterre, and Don Miguel, with the French sailor Duval, relieved Captain Alphonse and me, taking the middle watch.

"Next morning, however, soon after Captain Alphonse and I, with the little Englishman, had resumed charge of the p.o.o.p and the others were resting--alas, my friends, without my knowledge or sanction, poor Cato made another attempt to reach the hatchway, which, unfortunately resulted in his death!

"Hearing Ivan growl and my little daughter cry out as if something had frightened her, I had gone down to the cabin shortly after daylight to see what was the matter, cautioning Captain Alphonse, who hardly needed my caution, not to leave his post for a moment, and not thinking of Cato, who had disappeared from the top of the companion-way and had gone below to Elsie--heard her cry, I thought, and gone to her even before myself.

"He was not in the cabin, however; nor did I find anything much the matter with my child, who had evidently unconsciously cried out in some dream she had, Ivan, of course, gushing in sympathy and waking her up.

So, telling Elsie to compose herself and go off to sleep again, as everything was going on all right and there was nothing to be alarmed about, beyond the snoring of Monsieur and Madame Boisson at the further end of the cabin, I, feeling greatly relieved, returned on deck.

"I looked round for Cato at once, naturally, for our forces were not so strong that one would not be missed, especially such a one as he!

"But my faithful negro was nowhere in sight! Captain Alphonse said, too, he had not seen him during my absence below, nor indeed, for some time prior to my going down to the cabin.

"I then searched the wheel-house aft without discovering him.

"'Cato!' I called out, 'where are you? Come here immediately!'

"My poor servant did not answer, but that black fiend, the pseudo 'marquis' advanced from the forepart of the deck, sheltering himself, you may be sure, from my aim in the rear of the windla.s.s bitts, which were in a line between us.

"'You will have to call louder,' he cried with a mocking laugh like that of a hyena, and full of devilish glee. 'I a.s.sure you, much louder, my friend, before that spy slave of yours will ever be able to answer you again!'

"Heavens! I feared the worst then. Poor Cato! They had caught him reconnoitring.

"'What have you done with him, you son of Satan?' I yelled out, full of rage and anger, and with a terrible foreboding. 'If you have hurt a hair of his head I will make you pay dearly for it, I can tell you, you fiend!'

"The malicious, murdering wretch only replied to my threat with another mocking laugh, which his companions echoed, as if enjoying a joke, while I noticed them dragging at a shapeless ma.s.s from the forecastle forwards.

"'Kick the carrion aft!' I heard the inhuman brute say to his followers. 'Let the "white trash" see the dog's carca.s.s! He will then believe what I have said, Name of G.o.d! and know what is in store for himself!'

"My G.o.d! Senor Applegarth and you, gentlemen, I can hardly tell you what followed. It is all too horrible.

"The sight of what I saw will haunt me to my grave!

"For the shapeless ma.s.s I had observed slowly raised itself up from the deck, and I saw that it was my poor Cato. The savages had hacked the unfortunate man to pieces with their knives!