Part 11 (1/2)

He had knocked about the world a good deal, and had the knack of not only a quick observation, but also of being able to clearly and accurately recall what he had seen, and the impressions thereby produced upon himself.

He was expatiating, on this occasion, on the charms of nature, of which he was an enthusiastic admirer, the subject having been suggested by the beauty of the sunset which we had both been watching, and I was thoroughly enjoying the rugged eloquence with which the scene had inspired him, when we were startled by a long, low, wailing cry which rang out upon the still air, apparently not half a dozen fathoms from us, making our blood curdle and our hair stiffen with, horror at its unearthly and thrilling cadence.

We looked earnestly and eagerly in the direction from which the cry had seemed to proceed, but nothing was visible in that or, indeed, in any other direction.

The sun had set, and the grey of evening was deepening over the gla.s.sy surface of the water; but there was still light enough reflected from the sky to have enabled us to see any object within sight almost as distinctly as in broad day, but not an object of any description could we see, not even a solitary albatross.

We had carefully scanned, as far as was possible, the entire visible surface of the ocean, and had turned inquiringly towards each other, when once more rang out that mysterious cry, this time apparently close under our stern.

We turned, unutterably horror-stricken, in that direction, but there was _nothing_. Seamen are, as a rule, as brave as lions; but anything mysterious and unaccountable completely cowes them, and such, I confess, was now the case with us.

The cry was too sharp and loud to have proceeded from any distance; and there was no visible explanation of it. It was not repeated a third time, I am happy to say; and I wish never to hear anything like it again. What it was, or whence it came, we never knew, and I was, and am to this day, utterly unable to account for it. I have since been informed that such sounds have occasionally been heard at sea by others as well as ourselves, but never with the result of any discovery as to their origin.

During the next three days we had nothing but light variable winds, and calms.

On the morning of the fourth day, at daybreak, we made a sail directly ahead. At this time we had a nice little breeze, and were going about six knots.

As we neared her, we noticed that she was hove-to, her courses brailed up, and her topgallant yards on the caps. When close to her, it struck us that something must be the matter on board, for not a soul could we see about her decks. The vessel herself too--a full-rigged s.h.i.+p of about fourteen hundred tons--struck us as being unusually deep in the water. There being no sea on, we decided to run alongside and board her, thinking she might possibly prove derelict. We did so, accordingly, rounding to under her stern, and ranging up alongside on her lee quarter; having first, however, taken in our gaff-topsail and lowered our topmast, so as not to foul her rigging.

As we came gently alongside, an exclamation escaped Bob, who was standing forward, ready to heave a line on board or jump up the side with it, according to circ.u.mstances.

”Here's been some cursed foul play here, by the look of it, Harry,”

exclaimed he; ”mutiny and murder, I should judge, by this,” pointing to the scuppers of the s.h.i.+p, from which blood had evidently been flowing, large semi-coagulated gouts still adhering to the sides of the vessel, and about the mouths of the scupper-holes. The vessel being, as I have said, very low in the water, we had no difficulty whatever in boarding her; both, springing up the side at the same moment, each with the end of a line in our hands.

Good heavens! what a sight met our horrified gaze as we leaped down upon the s.h.i.+p's deck!

Some three or four and twenty corpses lay there, with the blood still slowly oozing in a few instances from wounds in various parts of their bodies.

The wounds were mostly inflicted by cutla.s.ses and pistol-shots; but two of the bodies, apparently those of officers, had the heads almost severed from the trunks, the gashes having been evidently inflicted by a keener weapon than a s.h.i.+p's cutla.s.s. These bodies had the arms lashed tightly behind the back.

Too horror-stricken to speak a word, I walked aft, Bob following me, and entered the cabin, which was on deck, and from which I thought I heard a groan issuing. On entering, the first object I saw was the body of a young man, about four and twenty years of age, lying close across the doorway, and covered with wounds. His left arm was almost completely cut through; a long gash had laid his forehead open from above the right temple to the left eyebrow; a pistol-bullet had entered his forehead nearly fair between the eyes; and blood had evidently flowed copiously from his right breast. This body lay across three others, dressed in the usual attire of seamen.

On a sofa, which stretched entirely across the after-part of the cabin, lay the body of a young and most beautiful girl, her night-dress torn to shreds, and her fair skin disfigured by deep blue marks, and smeared with blood, indicating but too clearly that she had been the victim of most atrocious outrages.

And lastly, under the cabin-table, lay another body, from which, whilst we stood gazing in speechless horror at these evidences of diabolical atrocity, a faint groan issued.

Bob a.s.sisted me to draw the sufferer from under the table; and we then saw that he was an old man, grey-haired, and dressed in fine blue cloth garnished with gilt b.u.t.tons, and a stripe of gold lace round the cuffs of the jacket; no doubt the master of the vessel Bob drew the corpse of the young girl somewhat aside, spreading the table-cover over the body reverently, to hide the naked limbs; and then, between us, we placed the wounded man on the sofa.

The cabin had, notwithstanding the ghastly appearance it presented, been the scene of a wild carouse, for the table was covered with gla.s.ses and wine and spirit bottles, and broken bottles and gla.s.ses littered the floor. I searched among the contents of the table until I found a bottle only partly empty, and from this I poured out a gla.s.s of its contents, which proved to be port, and managed with considerable difficulty to get a small quant.i.ty of the wine down the wounded man's throat. The skylight was open, and the air coming down through it in a cool gentle breeze, a.s.sisted the wine in restoring him to consciousness.

He opened his eyes, and gazed round him vacantly for a moment or so, and then memory returned, and he burst violently into tears. We soothed him as well as we could, a.s.suring him that we were friends, and that we would not leave him; and in a minute or two he recovered strength and composure enough to speak.

”Thank you, gentlemen, thank you,” said he, ”but my time here is very short, and your well-meant efforts for my relief are not only useless, but they also increase my suffering. You are, I presume, from some s.h.i.+p which has come up with us since those fiends left. Kindly prop me up a little higher on the sofa, gentlemen, if you please, and I will endeavour to tell you what has happened before I pa.s.s away.”

We did so; and as we were making his position as easy as we could for him, his eye fell upon the body of the young girl, and once more his tears burst forth, mingled with prayers for her, and the most bitter curses upon her destroyers.

He raised one hand to his face as though to brush his tears away, and we then noticed for the first time--horror upon horror!--that his fingers had all been cut, or rather _hacked_ out, at the knuckle-joints, the wounds still slowly bleeding.

He saw our looks of compa.s.sion, and said, as if in reply:

”Ah, gentlemen, willingly would I have submitted to be torn limb from limb by the demons, had they but spared my poor Rose--my darling, my only daughter.”