The Ghost Pirates. Уильям Хоуп Ходжсон
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shoulder.
Very soon we had the gantline rigged, and Tom down on deck. Then we took him into the fo'cas'le and put him in his bunk. The Second Mate had sent for some brandy, and now he started to dose him well with it. At the same time a couple of the men chafed his hands and feet. In a little, he began to show signs of coming round. Presently, after a sudden fit of coughing, he opened his eyes, with a surprised, bewildered stare. Then he caught at the edge of his bunk-board, and sat up, giddily. One of the men steadied him, while the Second Mate stood back, and eyed him, critically. The boy rocked as he sat, and put up his hand to his head.
"Here," said the Second Mate, "take another drink."
Tom caught his breath and choked a little; then he spoke.
"By gum!" he said, "my head does ache."
He put up his hand, again, and felt at the lump on his forehead. Then he bent forward and stared round at the men grouped about his bunk.
"What's up?" he inquired, in a confused sort of way, and seeming as if he could not see us clearly.
"What's up?" he asked again.
"That's just what I want to know!" said the Second Mate, speaking for the first time with some sternness.
"I ain't been snoozin' while there's been a job on?" Tom inquired, anxiously.
He looked round at the men appealingly.
"It's knocked 'im dotty, strikes me," said one of the men, audibly.
"No," I said, answering Tom's question, "you've had—"
"Shut that, Jessop!" said the Second Mate, quickly, interrupting me. "I want to hear what the boy's got to say for himself."
He turned again to Tom.
"You were up at the fore royal," he prompted.
"I carn't say I was, Sir," said Tom, doubtfully. I could see that he had not gripped the Second Mate's meaning.
"But you were!" said the Second, with some impatience. "It was blowing adrift, and I sent you up to shove a gasket round it."
"Blowin' adrift, Sir?" said Tom, dully.
"Yes! blowing adrift. Don't I speak plainly?"
The dullness went from Tom's face, suddenly.
"So it was, Sir," he said, his memory returning. "The bloomin' sail got chock full of wind. It caught me bang in the face."
He paused a moment.
"I believe—" he began, and then stopped once more.
"Go on!" said the Second Mate. "Spit it out!"
"I don't know, Sir," Tom said. "I don't understand—"
He hesitated again.
"That's all I can remember," he muttered, and put his hand up to the bruise on his forehead, as though trying to remember something.
In the momentary silence that succeeded, I caught the voice of Stubbins.
"There hain't hardly no wind," he was saying, in a puzzled tone.
There was a low murmur of assent from the surrounding men.
The Second Mate said nothing, and I glanced at him, curiously. Was he beginning to see, I wondered, how useless it was to try to find any sensible explanation of the affair? Had he begun at last to couple it with that peculiar business of the man up the main? I am inclined now to think that this was so; for, after staring a few moments at Tom, in a doubtful sort of way, he went out of the fo'cas'le, saying that he would inquire further into the matter in the morning. Yet, when the morning came, he did no such thing. As for his reporting the affair to the Skipper, I much doubt it. Even did he, it must have been in a very casual way; for we heard nothing more about it; though, of course, we talked it over pretty thoroughly among ourselves.
With regard to the Second Mate, even now I am rather puzzled by his attitude to us aloft. Sometimes I have thought that he must have suspected us of trying to play off some trick on him—perhaps, at the time, he still half suspected one of us of being in some way connected with the other business. Or, again, he may have been trying to fight against the conviction that was being forced upon him, that there was really something impossible and beastly about the old packet. Of course, these are only suppositions.
And then, close upon this, there were further developments.
V
As I have said, there was a lot of talk, among the crowd of us forrard, about Tom's strange accident. None of the men knew that Williams and I had seen it happen. Stubbins gave it as his opinion that Tom had been sleepy, and missed the foot-rope. Tom, of course, would not have this by any means. Yet, he had no one to appeal to; for, at that time, he was just as ignorant as the rest, that we had seen the sail flap up over the yard.
Stubbins insisted that it stood to reason it couldn't be the wind. There wasn't any, he said; and the rest of the men agreed with him.
"Well," I said, "I don't know about all that. I'm a bit inclined to think Tom's yarn is the truth."
"How do you make that hout?" Stubbins asked, unbelievingly. "There haint nothin' like enough wind."
"What about the place on his forehead?" I inquired, in turn. "How are you going to explain that?"
"I 'spect he knocked himself there when he slipped," he answered.
"Likely 'nuffli," agreed old Jaskett, who was sitting smoking on a chest near by.
"Well, you're both a damn long way out of it!" Tom chipped in, pretty warm. "I wasn't asleep; an' the sail did bloomin' well hit me."
"Don't you be impertinent, young feller," said Jaskett.
I joined in again.
"There's another thing, Stubbins," I said. "The gasket Tom was hanging by, was on the after side of the yard. That looks as if the sail might have flapped it over? If there were wind enough to do the one, it seems to me that it might have done the other."
"Do you mean that it was hunder ther yard, or hover ther top?" he asked.
"Over the top, of course. What's more, the foot of the sail was hanging over the after part of the yard, in a bight."
Stubbins was plainly surprised at that, and before he was ready with his next objection, Plummer spoke.
"'oo saw it?" he asked.
"I saw it!" I said, a bit sharply. "So did Williams; so—for that matter—did the Second Mate."
Plummer relapsed into silence; and smoked; and Stubbins broke out afresh.
"I reckon Tom must have had a hold of the foot and the gasket, and pulled 'em hover the yard when he tumbled."
"No!" interrupted Tom. "The gasket was under the sail. I couldn't even see it. An' I hadn't time to get hold of the foot of the sail, before it up and caught me smack in the face."
"'ow did yer get 'old er ther gasket, when yer fell, then?" asked Plummer.
"He didn't get hold of it," I answered for Tom. "It had taken a turn round his wrist, and that's how we found him hanging."
"Do you mean to say as 'e 'adn't got 'old of ther garsket?," Quoin inquired, pausing in the lighting of his pipe.
"Of course, I do," I said. "A chap doesn't go hanging on to a rope when he's jolly well been knocked senseless."
"Ye're richt," assented Jock. "Ye're quite richt there, Jessop."
Quoin concluded the lighting of his pipe.
"I dunno," he said.
I went on, without noticing him.
"Anyway, when Williams and I found him, he was hanging by the gasket, and it had a couple of turns round his wrist. And besides that, as I said before, the foot of the sail was hanging over the after side of the yard, and Tom's weight on the gasket was holding it there."
"It's damned queer," said Stubbins, in a puzzled voice. "There don't seem to be no way of gettin' a proper hexplanation to it."
I