The After House Read online

  CHAPTER XV

  A KNOCKING IN THE HOLD

  It rained heavily all that day. Late in the afternoon we got somewind, and all hands turned out to trim sail. Action was a relief, andthe weather suited our disheartened state better than had the pitilessAugust sun, the glaring white of deck and canvas, and the heat.

  The heavy drops splashed and broke on top of the jolly-boat, and, asthe wind came up, it rode behind us like a live thing.

  Our distress signal hung sodden, too wet to give more than a dejectedresponse to the wind that tugged at it. Late in the afternoon wesighted a large steamer, and when, as darkness came on, she showed noindication of changing her course, Burns and I sent up a rocket andblew the fog horn steadily. She altered her course then and cametowards us, and we ran up our code flags for immediate assistance; butshe veered off shortly after, and went on her way. We made no furthereffort to attract her attention. Burns thought her a passenger steamerfor the Bermudas, and, as her way was not ours, she could not have beenof much assistance.

  One or two of the men were already showing signs of strain. Oleson,the Swede, developed a chill, followed by fever and a mild delirium,and Adams complained of sore throat and nausea. Oleson's illness wasgenuine enough. Adams I suspected of malingering. He had told the menhe would not go up to the crow's-nest again without a revolver, andthis I would not permit.

  Our original crew had numbered nine--with the cook and Williams,eleven. But the two Negroes were not seamen, and were frightened intoa state bordering on collapse. Of the men actually useful, there wereleft only five: Clarke, McNamara, Charlie Jones, Burns, and myself; andI was a negligible quantity as regarded the working of the ship.

  With Burns and myself on guard duty, the burden fell on Clarke,McNamara, and Jones. A suggestion of mine that we release Singletonwas instantly vetoed by the men. It was arranged, finally, that Clarkeand McNamara take alternate watches at the wheel, and Jones be giventhe lookout for the night, to be relieved by either Burns or myself.

  I watched the weather anxiously. We were too short-handed to manageany sort of a gale; and yet, the urgency of our return made it unwiseto shorten canvas too much. It was as well, perhaps, that I had somuch to distract my mind from the situation in the after house.

  The second of the series of curious incidents that complicated ourreturn voyage occurred that night. I was on watch from eight bellsmidnight until four in the morning. Jones was in the crow's-nest,McNamara at the wheel. I was at the starboard forward corner of theafter house, looking over the rail. I thought that I had seen thelights of a steamer.

  The rain had ceased, but the night was still very dark. I heard a sortof rapping from the forward house, and took a step toward it,listening. Jones heard it, too, and called down to me, nervously, tosee what was wrong.

  I called up to him, cautiously, to come down and take my place while Iinvestigated. I thought it was Singleton. When Jones had taken up hisposition at the companionway, I went forward. The knocking continued,and I traced it to Singleton's cabin. His window was open, being toosmall for danger, but barred across with strips of wood outside, likethose in the after house. But he was at the door, hammeringfrantically. I called to him through the open window, but the onlyanswer was renewed and louder pounding.

  I ran around to his door, and felt for the key, which I carried.

  "What is the matter?" I called.

  "Who is it?"

  "Leslie."

  "For God's sake, open the door!"

  I unlocked it and threw it open. He retreated before me, with hishands out, and huddled against the wall beside the window. I struck amatch. His face was drawn and distorted, and he held his arm up as ifto ward off a blow.

  I lighted the lamp, for there were no electric lights in the forwardhouse, and stared at him, amazed. Satisfied that I was really Leslie,he had stooped, and was fumbling under the window. When hestraightened, he held something out to me in the palm of his shakinghand. I saw, with surprise, that it was a tobacco-pouch.

  "Well?" I demanded.

  "It was on the ledge," he said hoarsely. "I put it there myself. Allthe time I was pounding, I kept saying that, if it was still there, itwas not true--I'd just fancied it. If the pouch was on the floor, I'dknow."

  "Know what?"

  "It was there," he said, looking over his shoulder. "It's been therethree times, looking in--all in white, and grinning at me."

  "A man?"

  "It--it hasn't got any face."

  "How could it grin--at you if it hasn't any face?" I demandedimpatiently. "Pull yourself together and tell me what you saw."

  It was some time before he could tell a connected story, and, when hedid, I was inclined to suspect that he had heard us talking the nightbefore, had heard Adams's description of the intruder on theforecastle-head, and that, what with drink and terror, he had fanciedthe rest. And yet, I was not so sure.

  "I was asleep, the first time," he said. "I don't know how long ago itwas. I woke up cold, with the feeling that something was looking atme. I raised up in bed, and there was a thing at the window. It waslooking in."

  "What sort of a thing?"

  "What I told you--white."

  "A white head?"

  "It wasn't a head. For God's sake, Leslie! I can't tell you any morethan that. I saw it. That's enough. I saw it three times."

  "It isn't enough for me," I said doggedly. "It hadn't any head orface, but it looked in! It's dark out there. How could you see?"

  For reply, he leaned over and, turning down the lamp, blew it out. Wesat in the smoking darkness, and slowly, out of the thick night, thewindow outlined itself. I could see it distinctly. But how, white andfaceless, had it stared in at the window, or reached through the bars,as Singleton declared it had done, and waved a fingerless hand at us?

  He was in a state of mental and physical collapse, and begged sopitifully not to be left, that at last I told him I would take him withme, on his promise to remain in a chair until dawn, and to go backwithout demur. He sat near me, amidships, huddled down among thecushions of one of the wicker chairs, not sleeping, but staringstraight out, motionless.

  With the first light of dawn Burns relieved me, and I went forward withSingleton. He dropped into his bunk, and was asleep almostimmediately. Then, inch by inch, I went over the deck for footprints,for any clue to what, under happier circumstances, I should haveconsidered a ghastly hoax. But the deck was slippery and sodden, therail dripping, and between the davits where the jolly-boat had swungwas stretched a line with a shirt of Burns's hung on it, absurdlyenough, to dry. Poor Burns, promoted to the dignity of first mate, andtrying to dress the part!

  Oleson and Adams made no attempt to work that day; indeed, Oleson wasnot able. As I had promised, the breakfast for the after house wasplaced on the companion steps by Tom, the cook, whence it was removedby Mrs. Sloane. I saw nothing of either Elsa Lee or Mrs. Johns. Burnswas inclined to resent the deadline the women had drawn below, andsuggested that, since they were so anxious to take care of themselves,we give up guarding the after house and let them do it. We wereshort-handed enough, he urged, and, if they were going to take thatattitude, let them manage. I did not argue, but my eyes traveled overthe rail to where the jolly-boat rose to meet the fresh sea of themorning, and he colored. After that he made no comment.

  Singleton awakened before noon, and ate his first meal since themurders. He looked better, and we had a long talk, I outside thewindow and he within. He held to his story of the night before, butwas still vague as to just how the thing looked. Of what it was heseemed to have no doubt. It was the specter of either the captain orVail; he excluded the woman, because she was shorter. As I stoodoutside, he measured on me the approximate height of theapparition--somewhere about five feet eight. He could see Burns'sshirt, he admitted, but the thing had been close to the window.

  I found myself convinced against my will, and that afternoon, alone, Imade a second and more thorough
examination of the forecastle and thehold. In the former I found nothing. Having been closed for overtwenty-four hours, it was stifling and full of odors. The crew,abandoning it in haste, had left it in disorder. I made a systematicsearch, beginning forward and working back. I prodded in and underbunks, and moved the clothing that hung on every hook and swung, to theundoing of my nerves, with every swell. Much curious salvage I foundunder mattresses and beneath bunks: a rosary and a dozen filthypictures under the same pillow; more than one bottle of whiskey; andeven, where it had been dropped in the haste of flight, a bottle ofcocaine. The bottle set me to thinking: had we a "coke" fiend onboard, and, if we had, who was it?

  The examination of the hold led to one curious and not easily explaineddiscovery. The Ella was in gravel ballast, and my search there wasdifficult and nerve-racking. The creaking of the girders andfloor-plates, the groaning overhead of the trestle-trees, and once anunexpected list that sent me careening, head first, against aballast-tank, made my position distinctly disagreeable. And above allthe incidental noises of a ship's hold was one that I could notplace--a regular knocking, which kept time with the list of the boat.

  I located it at last, approximately, at one of the ballast ports, butthere was nothing to be seen. The port had been carefully barred andcalked over. The sound was not loud. Down there among the othernoises, I seemed to feel as well as hear it. I sent Burns down, and hecame up, puzzled.

  "It's outside," he said. "Something cracking against her ribs."

  "You didn't notice it yesterday, did you?"

  "No; but yesterday we were not listening for noises."

  The knocking was on the port side. We went forward together, and,leaning well out, looked over the rail.

  The missing marlinespike was swinging there, banging against the hullwith every roll of the ship. It was fastened by a rope lanyard to alarge bolt below the rail, and fastened with what Burns called aBlackwall hitch--a sailor's knot.