It was a dark, starless night. We were becalmed in the Northern Pacific. Our exact position I do not know; for the sun had been hidden during the course of a weary, breathless week, by a thin haze which had seemed to float above us, about the height of our mastheads, at whiles descending and shrouding the surrounding sea.

With there being no wind, we had steadied the tiller, and I was the only man on deck. The crew, consisting of two men and a boy, were sleeping forrard in their den; while Will — my friend, and the master of our little craft — was aft in his bunk on the port side of the little cabin.

Suddenly, from out of the surrounding darkness, there came a hail:

“Schooner, ahoy!”

The cry was so unexpected that I gave no immediate answer, because of my surprise.

It came again — a voice curiously throaty and inhuman, calling from somewhere upon the dark sea away on our port broadside:

“Schooner, ahoy!”

“Hullo!” I sung out, having gathered my wits somewhat. “What are you? What do you want?”

“You need not be afraid,” answered the queer voice, having probably noticed some trace of confusion in my tone. “I am only an old man.”

The pause sounded oddly; but it was only afterwards that it came back to me with any significance.

“Why don’t you come alongside, then?” I queried somewhat snappishly; for I liked not his hinting at my having been a trifle shaken.

“I— I— can’t. It wouldn’t be safe. I—” The voice broke off, and there was silence.

“What do you mean?” I asked, growing more and more astonished. “Why not safe? Where are you?”

I listened for a moment; but there came no answer. And then, a sudden indefinite suspicion, of I knew not what, coming to me, I stepped swiftly to the binnacle, and took out the lighted lamp. At the same time, I knocked on the deck with my heel to waken Will. Then I was back at the side, throwing the yellow funnel of light out into the silent immensity beyond our rail. As I did so, I heard a slight, muffled cry, and then the sound of a splash as though someone had dipped oars abruptly. Yet I cannot say that I saw anything with certainty; save, it seemed to me, that with the first flash of the light, there had been something upon the waters, where now there was nothing.

“Hullo, there!” I called. “What foolery is this!”

But there came only the indistinct sounds of a boat being pulled away into the night.

Then I heard Will’s voice, from the direction of the after scuttle:

“What’s up, George?”

“Come here, Will!” I said.

“What is it?” he asked, coming across the deck.

I told him the queer thing which had happened. He put several questions; then, after a moment’s silence, he raised his hands to his lips, and hailed:

“Boat, ahoy!”

From a long distance away there came back to us a faint reply, and my companion repeated his call. Presently, after a short period of silence, there grew on our hearing the muffled sound of oars; at which Will hailed again.

This time there was a reply:

“Put away the light.”

“I’m damned if I will,” I muttered; but Will told me to do as the voice bade, and I shoved it down under the bulwarks.

“Come nearer,” he said, and the oar-strokes continued. Then, when apparently some half-dozen fathoms distant, they again ceased.

“Come alongside,” exclaimed Will. “There’s nothing to be frightened of aboard here!”

“Promise that you will not show the light?”

“What’s to do with you,” I burst out, “that you’re so infernally afraid of the light?”

“Because —” began the voice, and stopped short.

“Because what?” I asked quickly.

Will put his hand on my shoulder.

“Shut up a minute, old man,” he said, in a low voice. “Let me tackle him.”

He leant more over the rail.

“See here, Mister,” he said, “this is a pretty queer business, you coming upon us like this, right out in the middle of the blessed Pacific. How are we to know what sort of a hanky-panky trick you’re up to? You say there’s only one of you. How are we to know, unless we get a squint at you — eh? What’s your objection to the light, anyway?”

As he finished, I heard the noise of the oars again, and then the voice came; but now from a greater distance, and sounding extremely hopeless and pathetic.

“I am sorry — sorry! I would not have troubled you, only I am hungry, and — so is she.”

The voice died away, and the sound of the oars, dipping irregularly, was borne to us.

“Stop!” sung out Will. “I don’t want to drive you away. Come back! We’ll keep the light hidden, if you don’t like it.”

He turned to me:

“It’s a damned queer rig, this; but I think there’s nothing to be afraid of?”

There was a question in his tone, and I replied.

“No, I think the poor devil’s been wrecked around here, and gone crazy.”

The sound of the oars drew nearer.

“Shove that lamp back in the binnacle,” said Will; then he leaned over the rail and listened. I replaced the lamp, and came back to his side. The dipping of the oars ceased some dozen yards distant.

“Won’t you come alongside now?” asked Will in an even voice. “I have had the lamp put back in the binnacle.”

“I— I cannot,” replied the voice. “I dare not come nearer. I dare not even pay you for the — the provisions.”

“That’s all right,” said Will, and hesitated. “You’re welcome to as much grub as you can take —” Again he hesitated.

“You are very good,” exclaimed the voice. “May God, Who understands everything, reward you —” It broke off huskily.

“The — the lady?” said Will abruptly. “Is she —”

“I have left her behind upon the island,” came the voice.

“What island?” I cut in.

“I know not its name,” returned the voice. “I would to God —!” it began, and checked itself as suddenly.

“Could we not send a boat for her?” asked Will at this point.

“No!” said the voice, with extraordinary emphasis. “My God! No!” There was a moment’s pause; then it added, in a tone which seemed a merited reproach:

“It was because of our want I ventured — because her agony tortured me.”

“I am a forgetful brute,” exclaimed Will. “Just wait a minute, whoever you are, and I will bring you up something at once.”

In a couple of minutes he was back again, and his arms were full of various edibles. He paused at the rail.

“Can’t you come alongside for them?” he asked.

“No — I DARE NOT,” replied the voice, and it seemed to me that in its tones I detected a note of stifled craving — as though the owner hushed a mortal desire. It came to me then in a flash, that the poor old creature out there in the darkness, was SUFFERING for actual need of that which Will held in his arms; and yet, because of some unintelligible dread, refraining from dashing to the side of our little schooner, and receiving it. And with the lightning-like conviction, there came the knowledge that the Invisible was not mad; but sanely facing some intolerable horror.

“Damn it, Will!” I said, full of many feelings, over which predominated a vast sympathy. “Get a box. We must float off the stuff to him in it.”

This we did — propelling it away from the vessel, out into the darkness, by means of a boathook. In a minute, a slight cry from the Invisible came to us, and we knew that he had secured the box.

A little later, he called out a farewell to us, and so heartful a blessing, that I am sure we were the better for it. Then, without more ado, we heard the ply of oars across the darkness.

“Pretty soon off,” remarked Will, with perhaps just a little sense of injury.

“Wait,” I replied. “I think somehow he’ll come back. He must have been badly needing that food.”

“And the lady,” said Will. For a moment he was silent; then he continued:

“It’s the queerest thing ever I’ve tumbled across, since I’ve been fishing.”

“Yes,” I said, and fell to pondering.

And so the time slipped away — an hour, another, and still Will stayed with me; for the queer adventure had knocked all desire for sleep out of him.

The third hour was three parts through, when we heard again the sound of oars across the silent ocean.

“Listen!” said Will, a low note of excitement in his voice.

“He’s coming, just as I thought,” I muttered.

The dipping of the oars grew nearer, and I noted that the strokes were firmer and longer. The food had been needed.

They came to a stop a little distance off the broadside, and the queer voice came again to us through the darkness:

“Schooner, ahoy!”

“That you?” asked Will.

“Yes,” replied the voice. “I left you suddenly; but — but there was great need.”

“The lady?” questioned Will.

“The — lady is grateful now on earth. She will be more grateful soon in — in heaven.”

Will began to make some reply, in a puzzled voice; but became confused, and broke off short. I said nothing. I was wondering at the curious pauses, and, apart from my wonder, I was full of a great sympathy.

The voice continued:

“We — she and I, have talked, as we shared the result of God’s tenderness and yours —”

Will interposed; but without coherence.

“I beg of you not to — to belittle your deed of Christian charity this night,” said the voice. “Be sure that it has not escaped His notice.”

It stopped, and there was a full minute’s silence. Then it came again:

“We have spoken together upon that which — which has befallen us. We had thought to go out, without telling any, of the terror which has come into our — lives. She is with me in believing that to-night’s happenings are under a special ruling, and that it is God’s wish that we should tell to you all that we have suffered since — since —”

“Yes?” said Will softly.

“Since the sinking of the Albatross.”

“Ah!” I exclaimed involuntarily. “She left Newcastle for ‘Frisco some six months ago, and hasn’t been heard of since.”

“Yes,” answered the voice. “But some few degrees to the North of the line she was caught in a terrible storm, and dismasted. When the day came, it was found that she was leaking badly, and, presently, it falling to a calm, the sailors took to the boats, leaving — leaving a young lady — my fiancée — and myself upon the wreck.

“We were below, gathering together a few of our belongings, when they left. They were entirely callous, through fear, and when we came up upon the deck, we saw them only as small shapes afar off upon the horizon. Yet we did not despair, but set to work and constructed a small raft. Upon this we put such few matters as it would hold including a quantity of water and some ship’s biscuit. Then, the vessel being very deep in the water, we got ourselves on to the raft, and pushed off.

“It was later, when I observed that we seemed to be in the way of some tide or current, which bore us from the ship at an angle; so that in the course of three hours, by my watch, her hull became invisible to our sight, her broken masts remaining in view for a somewhat longer period. Then, towards evening, it grew misty, and so through the night. The next day we were still encompassed by the mist, the weather remaining quiet.

“For four days we drifted through this strange haze, until, on the evening of the fourth day, there grew upon our ears the murmur of breakers at a distance. Gradually it became plainer, and, somewhat after midnight, it appeared to sound upon either hand at no very great space. The raft was raised upon a swell several times, and then we were in smooth water, and the noise of the breakers was behind.

“When the morning came, we found that we were in a sort of great lagoon; but of this we noticed little at the time; for close before us, through the enshrouding mist, loomed the hull of a large sailing-vessel. With one accord, we fell upon our knees and thanked God; for we thought that here was an end to our perils. We had much to learn.

“The raft drew near to the ship, and we shouted on them to take us aboard; but none answered. Presently the raft touched against the side of the vessel, and, seeing a rope hanging downwards, I seized it and began to climb. Yet I had much ado to make my way up, because of a kind of grey, lichenous fungus which had seized upon the rope, and which blotched the side of the ship lividly.

“I reached the rail and clambered over it, on to the deck. Here I saw that the decks were covered, in great patches, with grey masses, some of them rising into nodules several feet in height; but at the time I thought less of this matter than of the possibility of there being people aboard the ship. I shouted; but none answered. Then I went to the door below the poop deck. I opened it, and peered in. There was a great smell of staleness, so that I knew in a moment that nothing living was within, and with the knowledge, I shut the door quickly; for I felt suddenly lonely.

“I went back to the side where I had scrambled up. My — my sweetheart was still sitting quietly upon the raft. Seeing me look down she called up to know whether there were any aboard of the ship. I replied that the vessel had the appearance of having been long deserted; but that if she would wait a little I would see whether there was anything in the shape of a ladder by which she could ascend to the deck. Then we would make a search through the vessel together. A little later, on the opposite side of the decks, I found a rope side-ladder. This I carried across, and a minute afterwards she was beside me.

“Together we explored the cabins and apartments in the after part of the ship; but nowhere was there any sign of life. Here and there within the cabins themselves, we came across odd patches of that queer fungus; but this, as my sweetheart said, could be cleansed away.

“In the end, having assured ourselves that the after portion of the vessel was empty, we picked our ways to the bows, between the ugly grey nodules of that strange growth; and here we made a further search which told us that there was indeed none aboard but ourselves.

“This being now beyond any doubt, we returned to the stern of the ship and proceeded to make ourselves as comfortable as possible. Together we cleared out and cleaned two of the cabins: and after that I made examination whether there was anything eatable in the ship. This I soon found was so, and thanked God in my heart for His goodness. In addition to this I discovered the whereabouts of the fresh-water pump, and having fixed it I found the water drinkable, though somewhat unpleasant to the taste.

“For several days we stayed aboard the ship, without attempting to get to the shore. We were busily engaged in making the place habitable. Yet even thus early we became aware that our lot was even less to be desired than might have been imagined; for though, as a first step, we scraped away the odd patches of growth that studded the floors and walls of the cabins and saloon, yet they returned almost to their original size within the space of twenty-four hours, which not only discouraged us, but gave us a feeling of vague unease.

“Still we would not admit ourselves beaten, so set to work afresh, and not only scraped away the fungus, but soaked the places where it had been, with carbolic, a can-full of which I had found in the pantry. Yet, by the end of the week the growth had returned in full strength, and, in addition, it had spread to other places, as though our touching it had allowed germs from it to travel elsewhere.

“On the seventh morning, my sweetheart woke to find a small patch of it growing on her pillow, close to her face. At that, she came to me, so soon as she could get her garments upon her. I was in the galley at the time lighting the fire for breakfast.

“Come here, John,” she said, and led me aft. When I saw the thing upon her pillow I shuddered, and then and there we agreed to go right out of the ship and see whether we could not fare to make ourselves more comfortable ashore.

“Hurriedly we gathered together our few belongings, and even among these I found that the fungus had been at work; for one of her shawls had a little lump of it growing near one edge. I threw the whole thing over the side, without saying anything to her.

“The raft was still alongside, but it was too clumsy to guide, and I lowered down a small boat that hung across the stern, and in this we made our way to the shore. Yet, as we drew near to it, I became gradually aware that here the vile fungus, which had driven us from the ship, was growing riot. In places it rose into horrible, fantastic mounds, which seemed almost to quiver, as with a quiet life, when the wind blew across them. Here and there it took on the forms of vast fingers, and in others it just spread out flat and smooth and treacherous. Odd places, it appeared as grotesque stunted trees, seeming extraordinarily kinked and gnarled — the whole quaking vilely at times.

“At first, it seemed to us that there was no single portion of the surrounding shore which was not hidden beneath the masses of the hideous lichen; yet, in this, I found we were mistaken; for somewhat later, coasting along the shore at a little distance, we descried a smooth white patch of what appeared to be fine sand, and there we landed. It was not sand. What it was I do not know. All that I have observed is that upon it the fungus will not grow; while everywhere else, save where the sand-like earth wanders oddly, path-wise, amid the grey desolation of the lichen, there is nothing but that loathsome greyness.

“It is difficult to make you understand how cheered we were to find one place that was absolutely free from the growth, and here we deposited our belongings. Then we went back to the ship for such things as it seemed to us we should need. Among other matters, I managed to bring ashore with me one of the ship’s sails, with which I constructed two small tents, which, though exceedingly rough-shaped, served the purpose for which they were intended. In these we lived and stored our various necessities, and thus for a matter of some four weeks all went smoothly and without particular unhappiness. Indeed, I may say with much of happiness — for — for we were together.

“It was on the thumb of her right hand that the growth first showed. It was only a small circular spot, much like a little grey mole. My God! how the fear leapt to my heart when she showed me the place. We cleansed it, between us, washing it with carbolic and water. In the morning of the following day she showed her hand to me again. The grey warty thing had returned. For a little while, we looked at one another in silence. Then, still wordless, we started again to remove it. In the midst of the operation she spoke suddenly.

“‘What’s that on the side of your face, dear?’ Her voice was sharp with anxiety. I put my hand up to feel.

“‘There! Under the hair by your ear. A little to the front a bit.’ My finger rested upon the place, and then I knew.

“‘Let us get your thumb done first,’ I said. And she submitted, only because she was afraid to touch me until it was cleansed. I finished washing and disinfecting her thumb, and then she turned to my face. After it was finished we sat together and talked awhile of many things for there had come into our lives sudden, very terrible thoughts. We were, all at once, afraid of something worse than death. We spoke of loading the boat with provisions and water and making our way out on to the sea; yet we were helpless, for many causes, and — and the growth had attacked us already. We decided to stay. God would do with us what was His will. We would wait.

“A month, two months, three months passed and the places grew somewhat, and there had come others. Yet we fought so strenuously with the fear that its headway was but slow, comparatively speaking.

“Occasionally we ventured off to the ship for such stores as we needed. There we found that the fungus grew persistently. One of the nodules on the maindeck became soon as high as my head.

“We had now given up all thought or hope of leaving the island. We had realized that it would be unallowable to go among healthy humans, with the things from which we were suffering.

“With this determination and knowledge in our minds we knew that we should have to husband our food and water; for we did not know, at that time, but that we should possibly live for many years.

“This reminds me that I have told you that I am an old man. Judged by the years this is not so. But — but —”

He broke off; then continued somewhat abruptly:

“As I was saying, we knew that we should have to use care in the matter of food. But we had no idea then how little food there was left of which to take care. It was a week later that I made the discovery that all the other bread tanks — which I had supposed full — were empty, and that (beyond odd tins of vegetables and meat, and some other matters) we had nothing on which to depend, but the bread in the tank which I had already opened.

“After learning this I bestirred myself to do what I could, and set to work at fishing in the lagoon; but with no success. At this I was somewhat inclined to feel desperate until the thought came to me to try outside the lagoon, in the open sea.

“Here, at times, I caught odd fish; but so infrequently that they proved of but little help in keeping us from the hunger which threatened.

It seemed to me that our deaths were likely to come by hunger, and not by the growth of the thing which had seized upon our bodies.

“We were in this state of mind when the fourth month wore out. When I made a very horrible discovery. One morning, a little before midday. I came off from the ship with a portion of the biscuits which were left. In the mouth of her tent I saw my sweetheart sitting, eating something.

“‘What is it, my dear?’ I called out as I leapt ashore. Yet, on hearing my voice, she seemed confused, and, turning, slyly threw something towards the edge of the little clearing. It fell short, and a vague suspicion having arisen within me, I walked across and picked it up. It was a piece of the grey fungus.

“As I went to her with it in my hand, she turned deadly pale; then rose red.

“I felt strangely dazed and frightened.

“‘My dear! My dear!’ I said, and could say no more. Yet at words she broke down and cried bitterly. Gradually, as she calmed, I got from her the news that she had tried it the preceding day, and — and liked it. I got her to promise on her knees not to touch it again, however great our hunger. After she had promised she told me that the desire for it had come suddenly, and that, until the moment of desire, she had experienced nothing towards it but the most extreme repulsion.

“Later in the day, feeling strangely restless, and much shaken with the thing which I had discovered, I made my way along one of the twisted paths — formed by the white, sand-like substance — which led among the fungoid growth. I had, once before, ventured along there; but not to any great distance. This time, being involved in perplexing thought, I went much further than hitherto.

“Suddenly I was called to myself by a queer hoarse sound on my left. Turning quickly I saw that there was movement among an extraordinarily shaped mass of fungus, close to my elbow. It was swaying uneasily, as though it possessed life of its own. Abruptly, as I stared, the thought came to me that the thing had a grotesque resemblance to the figure of a distorted human creature. Even as the fancy flashed into my brain, there was a slight, sickening noise of tearing, and I saw that one of the branch-like arms was detaching itself from the surrounding grey masses, and coming towards me. The head of the thing — a shapeless grey ball, inclined in my direction. I stood stupidly, and the vile arm brushed across my face. I gave out a frightened cry, and ran back a few paces. There was a sweetish taste upon my lips where the thing had touched me. I licked them, and was immediately filled with an inhuman desire. I turned and seized a mass of the fungus. Then more and — more. I was insatiable. In the midst of devouring, the remembrance of the morning’s discovery swept into my mazed brain. It was sent by God. I dashed the fragment I held to the ground. Then, utterly wretched and feeling a dreadful guiltiness, I made my way back to the little encampment.

“I think she knew, by some marvelous intuition which love must have given, so soon as she set eyes on me. Her quiet sympathy made it easier for me, and I told her of my sudden weakness; yet omitted to mention the extraordinary thing which had gone before. I desired to spare her all unnecessary terror.

“But, for myself, I had added an intolerable knowledge, to breed an incessant terror in my brain; for I doubted not but that I had seen the end of one of those men who had come to the island in the ship in the lagoon; and in that monstrous ending I had seen our own.

“Thereafter we kept from the abominable food, though the desire for it had entered into our blood. Yet our drear punishment was upon us; for, day by day, with monstrous rapidity, the fungoid growth took hold of our poor bodies. Nothing we could do would check it materially, and so — and so — we who had been human, became — Well, it matters less each day. Only — only we had been man and maid!

“And day by day the fight is more dreadful, to withstand the hungerlust for the terrible lichen.

“A week ago we ate the last of the biscuit, and since that time I have caught three fish. I was out here fishing tonight when your schooner drifted upon me out of the mist. I hailed you. You know the rest, and may God, out of His great heart, bless you for your goodness to a — a couple of poor outcast souls.”

There was the dip of an oar — another. Then the voice came again, and for the last time, sounding through the slight surrounding mist, ghostly and mournful.

“God bless you! Good-bye!”

“Good-bye,” we shouted together, hoarsely, our hearts full of many emotions.

I glanced about me. I became aware that the dawn was upon us.

The sun flung a stray beam across the hidden sea; pierced the mist dully, and lit up the receding boat with a gloomy fire. Indistinctly I saw something nodding between the oars. I thought of a sponge — a great, grey nodding sponge — The oars continued to ply. They were grey — as was the boat — and my eyes searched a moment vainly for the conjunction of hand and oar. My gaze flashed back to the — head. It nodded forward as the oars went backward for the stroke. Then the oars were dipped, the boat shot out of the patch of light, and the — the thing went nodding into the mist.

The post The Voice in the Night appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.

Dear Monstrous Reader:

For our last day of 12 Days of Monsters, we have consolidated all of our Things in one place, for a veritable explosion of…things. Three classics and a modern eccentricity we find classic…

“The Thing in the Hall” by E.F. Benson

“The Thing in the Weeds” by William Hope Hodgson

“The Thing in the Cellar” by David H. Keller

“The Thing in the Jar” by Michael Cisco

 
If you’ve missed any of our other fiction offerings during 12 Days of Monsters, here are the links:

“Replacements” by Lisa Tuttle

“Weiroot” by Jeffrey Ford

“Creature” by Ramsey Shehadeh

“Pretty Monsters” by Kelly Link (only the week of March 19)

“The Dire Wolf” by Genevieve Valentine

“Blood Makes Noise” by Gemma Files

“The Dust Enforcer” by Reza Negarestani

 Sincerely,

Thing 1,Thing 2, & Thing 3

The post The Thing In: The Weeds, The Hall, The Cellar, The Jar appeared first on Weird Fiction Review.

 ***

I.

This is an extraordinary tale. We had come up from the Cape, and owing to the Trades heading us more than usual, we had made some hundreds of miles more westing than I ever did before or since.

I remember the particular night of the happening perfectly. I suppose what occurred stamped it solid into my memory, with a thousand little details that, in the ordinary way, I should never have remembered an hour. And, of course, we talked it over so often among ourselves that this, no doubt, helped to fix it all past any forgetting.

I remember the mate and I had been pacing the weather side of the poop and discussing various old shellbacks’ superstitions. I was third mate, and it was between four and five bells in the first watch, i.e. between ten and half-past. Suddenly he stopped in his walk and lifted his head and sniffed several times.

“My word, mister,” he said, “there’s a rum kind of stink somewhere about. Don’t you smell it?”

I sniffed once or twice at the light airs that were coming in on the beam; then I walked to the rail and leaned over, smelling again at the slight breeze. And abruptly I got a whiff of it, faint and sickly, yet vaguely suggestive of something I had once smelt before.

“I can smell something, Mr. Lammart,” I said. “I could almost give it name; and yet somehow I can’t.” I stared away into the dark to windward. “What do you seem to smell?” I asked him.

“I can’t smell anything now,” he replied, coming over and standing beside me. “It’s gone again. No! By Jove! there it is again. My goodness! Phew!”

The smell was all about us now, filling the night air. It had still that indefinable familiarity about it, and yet it was curiously strange, and, more than anything else, it was certainly simply beastly.

The stench grew stronger, and presently the mate asked me to go for’ard and see whether the look-out man noticed anything. When I reached the break of the fo’c’s’le head I called up to the man, to know whether he smelled anything.

“Smell anythin’, sir?” he sang out. “Jumpin’ larks! I sh’u’d think I do. I’m fair p’isoned with it.”

I ran up the weather steps and stood beside him. The smell was certainly very plain up there, and after savouring it for a few moments I asked him whether he thought it might be a dead whale. But he was very emphatic that this could not be the case, for, as he said, he had been nearly fifteen years in whaling ships, and knew the smell of a dead whale, “like as you would the smell of bad whiskey, sir,” as he put it. “ ‘Tain’t no whale yon, but the Lord He knows what ’tis. I’m thinking it’s Davy Jones come up for a breather.”

I stayed with him some minutes, staring out into the darkness, but could see nothing; for, even had there been something big close to us, I doubt whether I could have seen it, so black a night it was, without a visible star, and with a vague, dull haze breeding an indistinctness all about the ship.

I returned to the mate and reported that the look-out complained of the smell, but that neither he nor I had been able to see anything in the darkness to account for it.

By this time the queer, disgusting odour seemed to be in all the air about us, and the mate told me to go below and shut all the ports, so as to keep the beastly smell out of the cabins and the saloon.

When I returned he suggested that we should shut the companion doors, and after that we commenced to pace the poop again, discussing the extraordinary smell, and stopping from time to time to stare through our night-glasses out into the night about the ship.

“I’ll tell you what it smells like, mister,” the mate remarked once, “and that’s like a mighty old derelict I once went aboard in the North Atlantic. She was a proper old-timer, an’ she gave us all the creeps. There was just this funny, dank, rummy sort of century-old bilge-water and dead men an’ seaweed. I can’t stop thinkin’ we’re nigh some lonesome old packet out there; an’ a good thing we’ve not much way on us!”

“Do you notice how almighty quiet everything’s gone the last half-hour or so?” I said a little later. “It must be the mist thickening down.”

“It is the mist,” said the mate, going to the rail and staring out. “Good Lord, what’s that?” he added.

Something had knocked his hat from his head, and it fell with a sharp rap at my feet. And suddenly, you know, I got a premonition of something horrid.

“Come away from the rail, sir!” I said sharply, and gave one jump and caught him by the shoulders and dragged him back. “Come away from the side!”

“What’s up, mister?” he growled at me, an twisted his shoulders free. “What’s wrong with you? Was it you knocked off my cap?” He stooped and felt around for it, and as he did so I heard something unmistakably fiddling away at the rail which the mate had just left.

“My God, sir!” I said “there’s something there. Hark!”

The mate stiffened up, listening; then he heard it. It was for all the world as if something was feeling and rubbing the rail there in the darkness, not two fathoms away from us.

“Who’s there?” said the mate quickly. Then, as there was no answer: “What the devil’s this hanky-panky? Who’s playing the goat there?” He made a swift step through the darkness towards he rail, but I caught him by the elbow.

“Don’t go, mister!” I said, hardly above a whisper. “It’s not one of the men. Let me get a light.”

“Quick, then!” he said, and I turned and ran aft to the binnacle and snatched out the lighted lamp. As I did so I heard the mate shout something out of the darkness in a strange voice. There came a sharp, loud, rattling sound, and then a crash, and immediately the mate roaring to me to hasten with the light. His voice changed even whilst he shouted, and gave out somthing that was nearer a scream than anything else. There came two loud, dull blows and an extraordinary gasping sound; and then, as I raced along the poop, there was a tremendous smashing of glass and an immediate silence.

“Mr. Lammart!” I shouted. “Mr. Lammart!” And then I had reached the place where I had left the mate for forty seconds before; but he was not there.

“Mr. Lammart!” I shouted again, holding the light high over my head and turning quickly to look behind me. As I did so my foot glided on some slippery substance, and I went headlong to the deck with a tremendous thud, smashing the lamp and putting out the light.

I was on my feet again in an instant. I groped a moment for the lamp, and as I did so I heard the men singing out from the maindeck and the noise of their feet as they came running aft. I found the broken lamp and realised it was useless; then I jumped for the companion-way, and in half a minute I was back with the big saloon lamp glaring bright in my hands.

I ran for’ard again, shielding the upper edge of the glass chimney from the draught of my running, and the blaze of the big lamp seemed to make the weather side of the poop as bright as day, except for the mist, that gave something of a vagueness to things.

Where I had left the mate there was blood upon the deck, but nowhere any signs of the man himself. I ran to the weather rail and held the lamp to it. There was blood upon it, and the rail itself seemed to have been wrenched by some huge force. I put out my hand and found that I could shake it. Then I leaned out-board and held the lamp at arm’s length, staring down over the ship’s side.

“Mr. Lammart!” I shouted into the night and the thick mist. “Mr. Lammart! Mr. Lammart!” But my voice seemed to go, lost and muffled and infinitely small, away into the billowy darkness.

I heard the men snuffling and breathing, waiting to leeward of the poop. I whirled round to them, holding the lamp high,

“We heard somethin’, sir,” said Tarpley, the leading seaman in our watch. “Is anythin’ wrong, sir?”

“The mate’s gone,” I said blankly. “We heard something, and I went for the binnacle lamp. Then he shouted, and I heard a sound of things smashing, and when I got back he’d gone clean.” I turned and held the light out again over the unseen sea, and the men crowded round along the rail and stared, bewildered.

“Blood, sir,” said Tarpley, pointing. “There’s somethin’ almighty queer out there.” He waved a huge hand into the darkness. “That’s what stinks—”

He never finished; for suddenly one of the men cried out something in a frightened voice: “Look out, sir! Look out, sir!”

I saw, in one brief flash of sight, something come in with an infernal flicker of movement; and then, before I could form any notion of what I had seen, the lamp was dashed to pieces across the poop deck. In that instant my perceptions cleared, and I saw the incredible folly of what we were doing; for there we were, standing up against the blank, unknowable night, and out there in the darkness there surely lurked some thing of monstrousness; and we were at its mercy. I seemed to feel it hovering—hovering over us, so that I felt the sickening creep of gooseflesh all over me.

“Stand back from the rail!” I shouted. “Stand back from the rail!” There was a rush of feet as the men obeyed, in sudden apprehension of their danger, and I gave back with them. Even as I did so I felt some invisible thing brush my shoulder, and an indescribable smell was in my nostrils from something that moved over me in the dark.

“Down into the saloon everyone!” I shouted. “Down with you all! Don’t wait a moment!”

There was a rush along the dark weather deck, and then the men went helter-skelter down the companion steps into the saloon, falling and cursing over one another in the darkness. I sang out to the man at the wheel to join them, and then I followed.

I came upon the men huddled at the foot of the stairs and filling up the passage, all crowding each other in the darkness. The skipper’s voice was filling the saloon, and he was demanding in violent adjectives the cause of so tremendous a noise. From the steward’s berth there came also a voice and the splutter of a match, and then the glow of a lamp in the saloon itself.

I pushed my way through the men and found the captain in the saloon in his sleeping gear, looking both drowsy and angry, though perhaps bewilderment topped every other feeling. He held his cabin lamp in his hand, and shone the light over the huddle of men.

I hurried to explain, and told him of the incredible disappearance of the mate, and of my conviction that some extraordinary thing was lurking near the ship out in the mist and the darkness. I mentioned the curious smell, and told how the mate had suggested that we had drifted down near some old-time, sea-rotted derelict. And, you know, even as I put it into awkward words, my imagination began to awaken to horrible discomforts; a thousand dreadful impossibilities of the sea became suddenly possible.

The captain (Jeldy was his name) did not stop to dress, but ran back into his cabin, and came out in a few moments with a couple of revolvers and a handful of cartridges. The second mate had come running out of his cabin at the noise, and had listed intensely to what I had to say; and now he jumped back into his berth and brought out his own lamp and a large Smith and Wesson, which was evidently ready loaded.

Captain Jeldy pushed one of his revolvers into my hands, with some of the cartridges, and we began hastily to load the weapons. Then the captain caught up his lamp and made for the stairway, ordering the men into the saloon out of his way.

“Shall you want them, sir?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “It’s no use their running any unnecessary risks.” He threw a word over his shoulder: “Stay quiet here, men; if I want you I’ll give you a shout; then come spry!”

“Aye, aye, sir,” said the watch in a chorus; and then I was following the captain up the stairs, with the second mate close behind.

We came up through the companion-way on to the silence of the deserted poop. The mist had thickened up, even during the brief time that I had been below, and there was not a breath of wind. The mist was so dense that it seemed to press in upon us, and the two lamps made a kind of luminous halo in the mist, which seemed to absorb their light in a most peculiar way.

“Where was he?” the captain asked me, almost in a whisper.

“On the port side, sir,” I said, “a little foreside the charthouse and about a dozen feet in from the rail. I’ll show you the exact place.”

We went for’ard along what had been the weather side, going quietly and watchfully, though, indeed, it was little enough that we could see, because of the mist. Once, as I led the way, I thought I heard a vague sound somewhere in the mist, but was all unsure because of the slow creak, creak of the spars and gear as the vessel rolled slightly upon an odd, oily swell. Apart from this slight sound, and the far-up rustle of the canvas slatting gently against the masts, there was no sound of all throughout the ship. I assure you the silence seemed to me to be almost menacing, in the tense, nervous state in which I was.

“Hereabouts is where I left him,” I whispered to the captain a few seconds later. “Hold your lamp low, sir. There’s blood on the deck.”

Captain Jeldy did so, and made a slight sound with his mouth at what he saw. Then, heedless of my hurried warning, he walked across to the rail, holding his lamp high up. I followed him, for I could not let him go alone; and the second mate came too, with his lamp. They leaned over the port rail and held their lamps out into the mist and the unknown darkness beyond the ship’s side. I remember how the lamps made just two yellow glares in the mist, ineffectual, yet serving somehow to make extraordinarily plain the vastitude of the night and the possibilities of the dark. Perhaps that is a queer way to put it, but it gives you the effect of that moment upon my feelings. And all the time, you know, there was upon me the brutal, frightening expectancy of something reaching in at us from out of that everlasting darkness and mist that held all the sea and the night, so that we were just three mist-shrouded, hidden figures, peering nervously.

The mist was now so thick that we could not even see the surface of the water overside, and fore and aft of us the rail vanished away into the fog and the dark. And then, as we stood here staring, I heard something moving down on the maindeck. I caught Captain Jeldy by the elbow.

“Come away from the rail, sir,” I said, hardly above a whisper; and he, with the swift premonition of danger, stepped back and allowed me to urge him well inboard. The second mate followed, and the three of us stood there in the mist, staring round about us and holding our revolvers handily, and the dull waves of the mist beating in slowly upon the lamps in vague wreathings and swirls of fog.

“What was it you heard, mister?” asked the captain after a few moments.

“Ssst!” I muttered. “There it is again. There’s something moving down on the maindeck!”

Captain Jeldy heard it himself now, and the three of us stood listening intensely. Yet it was hard to know what to make of the sounds. And then suddenly there was the rattle of a deck ringbolt, and then again, as if something or someone were fumbling and playing with it.

“Down there on the maindeck!” shouted the captain abruptly, his voice seeming hoarse close to my ear, yet immediately smothered by the fog. “Down there on the maindeck! Who’s there?”

But there came never an answering sound. And the three of us stood there, looking quickly this way and that, and listening. Abruptly the second mate muttered something:

“The look-out, sir! The look-out!”

Captain Jeldy took the hint on the instant.

“On the look-out there!” he shouted.

And then, far away and muffled-sounding, there came the answering cry of the look-out man from the fo’c’sle head:

“Sir-r‑r?” A little voice, long drawn out through unknowable alleys of fog.

“Go below into the fo’c’sle and shut both doors, an’ don’t stir out till you’re told!” sung out Captain Jeldy, his voice going lost into the mist. And then the man’s answering “Aye, aye, sir!” coming to us faint and mournful. And directly afterwards the clang of a steel door, hollow-sounding and remote; and immediately the sound of another.

“That puts them safe for the present, anyway,” said the second mate. And even as he spoke there came again that indefinite noise down upon the maindeck of something moving with an incredible and unnatural stealthiness.

“On the maindeck there!” shouted Captain Jeldy sternly. “If there is anyone there, answer, or I shall fire!”

The reply was both amazing and terrifying, for suddenly a tremendous blow was stricken upon the deck, and then there came the dull, rolling sound of some enormous weight going hollowly across the maindeck. And then an abominable silence.

“My God!’ said Captain Jeldy in a low voice, “what was that?” And he raised his pistol, but I caught him by the wrist. “Don’t shoot, sir!” I whispered. “It’ll be no good. That—that—whatever it is I—mean it’s something enormous, sir. I—I really wouldn’t shoot .” I found it impossible to put my vague idea into words; but I felt there was a force aboard, down on the maindeck, that it would be futile to attack with so ineffectual a thing as a puny revolver bullet.

And then, as I held Captain Jeldy’s wrist, and he hesitated, irresolute, there came a sudden bleating of sheep and the sound of lashings being burst and the cracking of wood; and the next instant a huge crash, followed by crash after crash, and the anguished m‑aa-a-a-ing of sheep.

“My God!” said the second mate, “the sheep-pen’s being beaten to pieces against the deck. Good God! What sort of thing could do that?”

The tremendous beating ceased, and there was a splashing overside; and after that a silence so profound that it seemed as if the whole atmosphere of the night was full of an unbearable, tense quietness. And then the damp slatting of a sail, far up in the night, that made me start—a lonesome sound to break suddenly through that infernal silence upon my raw nerves.

“Get below, both of you. Smartly now!” muttered Captain Jeldy. “There’s something run either aboard us or alongside; and we can’t do anything till daylight.”

We went below and shut the doors of the companion-way, and there we lay in the wide Atlantic, without wheel or look-out or officer in charge, and something incredible down on the dark maindeck.

II.

For some hours we sat in the captain’s cabin talking the matter over whilst the watch slept, sprawled in a dozen attitudes on the floor of the saloon. Captain Jeldy and the second mate still wore their pyjamas, and our loaded revolvers lay handy on the cabin table. And so we watched anxiously through the hours for the dawn to come in.

As the light strengthened we endeavoured to get some view of the sea from the ports, but the mist was so thick about us that it was exactly like looking out into a grey nothingness, that became presently white as the day came.

“Now,” said Captain Jeldy, “we’re going to look into this.”

He went out through the saloon to the companion stairs. At the top he opened the two doors, and the mist rolled in on us, white and impenetrable. For a little while we stood there, the three of us, absolutely silent and listening, with our revolvers handy; but never a sound came to us except the odd, vague slatting of a sail or the slight creaking of the gear as the ship lifted on some slow, invisible swell.

Presently the captain stepped cautiously out on to the deck; he was in his cabin slippers, and therefore made no sound. I was wearing gum-boots, and followed him silently, and the second mate after me in his bare feet. Captain Jeldy went a few paces along the deck, and the mist hid him utterly. “Phew!” I heard him mutter, “the stink’s worse than ever!” His voice came odd and vague to me through the wreathing of the mist.

“The sun’ll soon eat up all this fog,” said the second mate at my elbow, in a voice little above a whisper.

We stepped after the captain, and found him a couple of fathoms away, standing shrouded in the mist in an attitude of tense listening.

“Can’t hear a thing!” he whispered. “We’ll go for’ard to the break, as quiet as you like. Don’t make a sound.”

We went forward, like three shadows, and suddenly Captain Jeldy kicked his shin against something and pitched headlong over it, making a tremendous noise. He got up quickly, swearing grimly, and the three of us stood there in silence, waiting lest any infernal thing should come upon us out of all that white invisibility. Once I felt sure I saw something coming towards me, and I raised my revolver, but saw in a moment that there was nothing. The tension of imminent, nervous expectancy eased from us, and Captain Jeldy stooped over the object on the deck.

“The port hencoop’s been shifted out here!” he muttered. “It’s all stove!”

“That must be what I heard last night when the mate went,” I whispered. There was a loud crash just before he sang out to me to hurry with the lamp.”

Captain Jeldy left the smashed hencoop, and the three of us tiptoed silently to the rail across the break of the poop. Here we leaned over and stared down into the blank whiteness of the mist that hid everything.

“Can’t see a thing,” whispered the second mate; yet as he spoke I could fancy that I heard a slight, indefinite, slurring noise somewhere below us; and I caught them each by an arm to draw them back.

“There’s something down there,” I muttered. “For goodness’ sake come back from the rail.”

We gave back a step or two, and then stopped to listen; and even as we did so there came a slight air playing through the mist.

“The breeze is coming,” said the second mate. “Look, the mist is clearing already.”

He was right. Already the look of white impenetrability had gone, and suddenly we could see the corner of the after-hatch coamings through the thinning fog. Within a minute we could see as far for’ard as the mainmast, and then the stuff blew away from us, clear of the vessel, like a great wall of whiteness, that dissipated as it went.

“Look!” we all exclaimed together. The whole of the vessel was now clear to our sight; but it was not at the ship herself that we looked, for, after one quick glance along the empty maindeck, we had seen something beyond the ship’s side. All around the vessel there lay a submerged spread of weed, for, maybe, a good quarter of a mile upon every side.

“Weed!” sang out Captain Jeldy in a voice of comprehension. “Weed! Look! By Jove, I guess I know now what got the mate!”

He turned and ran to the port side and looked over. And suddenly he stiffened and beckoned silently over his shoulder to us to come and see. We had followed, and now we stood, one on each side of him, staring.

“Look!” whispered the captain, pointing. “See the great brute! Do you see it? There! Look!”

At first I could see nothing except the submerged spread of the weed, into which we had evidently run after dark. Then, as I stared intently, my gaze began to separate from the surrounding weed a leathery-looking something that was somewhat darker in hue than the weed itself.

“My God!” said Captain Jeldy. “What a monster! What a monster! Just look at the brute! Look at the thing’s eyes! That’s what got the mate. What a creature out of hell itself!”

I saw it plainly now; three of the massive feelers lay twined in and out among the clumpings of the weed; and then, abruptly, I realised that the two extraordinary round disks, motionless and inscrutable, were the creature’s eyes, just below the surface of the water. It appeared to be staring, expressionless, up at the steel side of the vessel. I traced, vaguely, the shapeless monstrosity of what must be termed its head. “My God!” I muttered. “It’s an enormous squid of some kind! What an awful brute! What—”

The sharp report of the captain’s revolver came at that moment. He had fired at the thing, and instantly there was a most awful commotion alongside. The weed was hove upward, literally in tons. An enormous quantity was thrown aboard us by the thrashing of the monster’s great feelers. The sea seemed almost to boil, in one great cauldron of weed and water, all about the brute, and the steel side of the ship resounded with the dull, tremendous blows that the creature gave in its struggle. And into all that whirling boil of tentacles, weed, and seawater the three of us emptied our revolvers as fast as we could fire and reload. I remember the feeling of fierce satisfaction I had in thus aiding to avenge the death of the mate.

Suddenly the captain roared out to us to jump back, and we obeyed on the instant. As we did so the weed rose up into a great mound over twenty feet in height, and more than a ton of it slopped aboard. The next instant three of the monstrous tentacles came in over the side, and the vessel gave a slow, sullen roll to port as the weight came upon her, for the monster had literally hove itself almost free of the sea against our port side, in one vast, leathery shape, all wreathed with weed-fronds, and seeming drenched with blood and curious black liquid.

The feelers that had come inboard thrashed round here and there, and suddenly one of them curled in the most hideous, snake-like fashion around the base of the mainmast. This seemed to attract it, for immediately it curled the two others about the mast, and forthwith wrenched upon it with such hideous violence that the whole towering length of spars, through all their height of a hundred and fifty feet, were shaken visibly, whilst the vessel herself vibrated with the stupendous efforts of the brute.

“It’ll have the mast down, sir!” said the second mate, with a gasp. “My God! It’ll strain her side open! My—”

“One of those blasting cartridges!” I said to Jeldy almost in a shout, as the inspiration took me. “Blow the brute to pieces!”

“Get one, quick!” said the captain, jerking his thumb towards the companion. “You know where they are.”

In thirty seconds I was back with the cartridge. Captain Jeldy took out his knife and cut the fuse dead short; then, with a steady hand, he lit the fuse, and calmly held it, until I backed away, shouting to him to throw it, for I knew it must explode in another couple of seconds.

Captain Jeldy threw the thing like one throws a quoit, so that it fell into the sea just on the outward side of the vast bulk of the monster. So well had he timed it that it burst, with a stunning report, just as it struck the water. The effect upon the squid was amazing. It seemed literally to collapse. The enormous tentacles released themselves from the mast and curled across the deck helplessly, and were drawn inertly over the rail, as the enormous bulk sank away from the ship’s side, out of sight, into the weed. The ship rolled slowly to starboard, and then steadied. “Thank God!” I muttered, and looked at the two others. They were pallid and sweating, and I must have been the same.

“Here’s the breeze again,” said the second mate, a minute later. “We’re moving.” He turned, without another word, and raced aft to the wheel, whilst the vessel slid over and through the weedfield.

“Look where that brute broke up the sheep-pen!” cried Jeldy, pointing. “And here’s the skylight of the sail-locker smashed to bits!”

He walked across to it, and glanced down. And suddenly he let out a tremendous shout of astonishment:

“Here’s the mate down here!” he shouted. “He’s not overboard at all! He’s here!”

He dropped himself down through the skylight on to the sails, and I after him; and, surely, there was the mate, lying all huddled and insensible on a hummock of spare sails. In his right hand he held a drawn sheath-knife, which he was in the habit of carrying A. B. fashion, whilst his left hand was all caked with dried blood, where he had been badly cut. Afterwards, we concluded he had cut himself in slashing at one of the tentacles of the squid, which had caught him round the left wrist, the tip of the tentacle being still curled tight about his arm, just as it had been when he hacked it through. For the rest, he was not seriously damaged, the creature having obviously flung him violently away through the framework of the skylight, so that he had fallen in a studded condition on to the pile of sails.

We got him on deck, and down into his bunk, where we left the steward to attend to him. When we returned to the poop the vessel had drawn clear of the weed-field, and the captain and I stopped for a few moments to stare astern over the taffrail.

As we stood and looked something wavered up out of the heart of the weed—a long, tapering, sinous thing, that curled and wavered against the dawn-light, and presently sank back again into the demure weed—a veritable spider of the deep, waiting in the great web that Dame Nature had spun for it in the eddy of her tides and currents.

And we sailed away northwards, with strengthening “trades,” and left that patch of monstrousness to the loneliness of the sea.

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