Part 21 (1/2)

peculiar unaccountableness, which it ain't easy to explain, but is most oncommon disagreeable to feel. It wos very still, too--desperate still.

The beatin' o' my own heart sounded quite loud, and I heer'd the tickin' o' my watch goin' like the click of a church clock. Oh, it was awful!”

At this point in the story the men crept closer together, and listened with intense earnestness.

”Suddently,” continued Rokens--”for things in sich circ.u.mstances always comes suddently--suddently I seed somethin' black jump up right ahead o'

me.”

Here Rokens paused.

”Wot was it?” inquired Gurney, in a solemn whisper.

”It was,” resumed Rokens slowly, ”the stump of a old tree.”

”Oh, I thought it had been the ghost,” said Gurney, somewhat relieved, for that fat little Jack-tar fully believed in apparitions, and always listened to a ghost story in fear and trembling.

”No it wasn't the ghost; it was the stump of a tree. Well, I set sail again, an' presently I sees a great white thing risin' up ahead o' me.”

”Hah! _that_ was it,” whispered Gurney.

”No, that wasn't it,” retorted Rokens; ”that was a hinn, a white-painted hinn, as stood by the roadside, and right glad wos I to see it, I can tell ye, s.h.i.+pmates, for I wos gittin' tired as well as frightened. I soon roused the landlord by kickin' at the door till it nearly comed off its hinges; and arter gettin' another gla.s.s o' grog, I axed the landlord to show me my bunk, as I wanted to turn in.

”It was a queer old house that hinn wos. A great ramblin' place, with no end o' staircases and pa.s.sages. A dreadful gloomy sort o' place. No one lived in it except the landlord, a dark-faced surly fellow as one would like to kick out of his own door, and his wife, who wos little better than his-self. They also had a hostler, but he slept with the cattle in a hout-house.

”`Ye won't be fear'd,' says the landlord, as he hove ahead through the long pa.s.sages holdin' the candle high above his head to show the way, `to sleep in the far end o' the house. It's the old bit; the new bit's undergoin' repairs. You'll find it comfortable enough, though it's raither gusty, bein' old, ye see; but the weather ain't cold, so ye won't mind it.'

”`Oh! niver a bit,' says I, quite bold like; `I don't care a rap for nothin'. There ain't no ghosts, is there?'

”`Well, I'm not sure; many travellers wot has stayed here has said to me they've seed 'em, particklerly in the old part o' the buildin', but they seems to be quite harmless, and never hurts any one as lets 'em alone.

I never seed 'em myself, an' there's cer'nly not more nor half-a-dozen on 'em--hallo!--'

”At that moment, s.h.i.+pmates, a strong gust o' cold air came rus.h.i.+n' down the pa.s.sage we was in, and blow'd out the candle. `Ah! it's gone out,'

said the landlord; `just wait here a moment, and I'll light it;' and with that he shuffled off, and left me in the blackest and most thickest darkness I ever wos in in all my life. I didn't dare to move, for I didn't know the channels, d'ye see, and might ha' run myself aground or against the rocks in no time. The wind came moanin' down the pa.s.sage; as if all the six ghosts the landlord mentioned, and a dozen or two o'

their friends besides, was a-dyin' of stommick-complaint. I'm not easy frightened, lads, but my knees did feel as if the bones in 'em had turned to water, and my hair began to git up on end, for I felt it risin'. Suddenly I saw somethin' comin' along the pa.s.sage towards me--”

”That's the ghost, _now_,” interrupted Gurney, in a tremulous whisper.

Rokens paused, and regarded his fat s.h.i.+pmate with a look of contemptuous pity; then turning to the others, he said--

”It wos _the landlord_, a-comin' back with the candle. He begged pardon for leavin' me in the dark so long, and led the way to a room at the far end o' the pa.s.sage. It was a big, old-fas.h.i.+oned room, with a treemendius high ceiling, and no furniture, 'cept one chair, one small table, and a low camp-bed in a corner. `Here's your room,' says the landlord; `it's well-aired. I may as well mention that the latch of the door ain't just the thing. It sometimes blows open with a bang, but when you know it may happen, you can be on the look-out for it, you know, and so you'll not be taken by surprise. Good-night.' With that the fellow set the candle down on the small table at the bedside, and left me to my cogitations. I heerd his footsteps echoin' as he went clankin' along the pa.s.sages; then they died away, an' I was alone.

”Now, I tell ye wot it is, s.h.i.+pmates; I've bin in miny a fix, but I niver wos in sich a fix as that. The room was empty and big; so big that the candle could only light up about a quarter of it, leavin' the rest in gloom. There was one or two old picturs on the walls; one on 'em a portrait of a old admiral, with a blue coat and bra.s.s b.u.t.tons and white veskit. It hung just opposite the fut o' my bunk, an' I could hardly make it out, but I saw that the admiral kep his eye on me wheriver I turned or moved about the room, an' twice or thrice, if not more, I saw him wink with his weather eye. Yes, he winked as plain as I do myself. Says I to myself, says I, `Tim Rokens, you're a British tar, an' a whaler, an' a harpooner; so, Tim, my boy, don't you go for to be a babby.'

”With that I smoked a pipe, and took off my clo's, and tumbled in, and feeling a little bolder by this time, I blew out the candle. In gittin'

into bed I knocked over the snuffers, w'ich fell with an awful clatter, and my heart lep' into my mouth as I lep' under the blankets, and kivered up my head. Howsever, I was uncommon tired, so before my head was well on the pillow, I went off to sleep.

”How long I slep' I can't go for to say, but w'en I wakened it wos pitch-dark. I could only just make out the winder by the pale starlight that shone through it, but the moment I set my two eyes on it, wot does I see? I seed a sight that made the hair on my head stand on end, and my flesh creep up like a m.u.f.fin. It was a--”

”A ghost!” whispered Gurney, while his eyes almost started out of his head.

Before Tim Rokens could reply, something fell with a heavy flop from the yard over their heads right in among the men, and vanished with a shriek. It was Jacko, who, in his nocturnal rambles in the rigging, had been shaken off the yard on which he was perched, by a sudden lurch of the vessel as the tide began to move her about. At any time such an event would have been startling, but at such a time as this it was horrifying. The men recoiled with sharp cries of terror, and then burst into laughter as they observed what it was that had fallen amongst them.