The Ghost in the Crosstrees
ICyrus Ryder, the President of the South Pacific Exploitation Company,had at last got hold of a "proposition"--all Ryder's schemes were, inhis vernacular, "propositions"--that was not only profitable beyondprecedent or belief, but that also was, wonderful to say, more or lesslegitimate. He had got an "island." He had not discovered it. Ryder hadnot felt a deck under his shoes for twenty years other than thepromenade deck of the ferry-boat San Rafael, that takes him home toBerkeley every evening after "business hours." He had not discovered it,but "Old Rosemary," captain of the barkentine Scottish Chief, ofBlyth, had done that very thing, and, dying before he was able toperfect the title, had made over his interest in it to his best friendand old comrade, Cyrus Ryder."Old Rosemary," I am told, first landed on the island--it is calledPaa--in the later '60's.He established its location and took its latitude and longitude, but asminutes and degrees mean nothing to the lay reader, let it be said thatthe Island of Paa lies just below the equator, some 200 miles west ofthe Gilberts and 1,600 miles due east from Brisbane, in Australia. It issix miles long, three wide, and because of the prevailing winds andprecipitous character of the coast can only be approached from the westduring December and January."Old Rosemary" landed on the island, raised the American flag, had thecrew witness the document by virtue of which he made himself thepossessor, and then, returning to San Francisco, forwarded to theSecretary of State, at Washington, application for title. This waswithheld till it could be shown that no other nation had a prior claim.While "Old Rosemary" was working out the proof, he died, and the wholematter was left in abeyance till Cyrus Ryder took it up. By then therewas a new Secretary in Washington and times were changed, so that theGovernment of Ryder's native land was not so averse toward acquiringEastern possessions. The Secretary of State wrote to Ryder to say thatthe application would be granted upon furnishing a bond for $50,000; andyou may believe that the bond was forthcoming.For in the first report upon Paa, "Old Rosemary" had used the magic word"guano."He averred, and his crew attested over their sworn statements, that Paawas covered to an average depth of six feet with the stuff, so that thislast and biggest of "Cy" Ryder's propositions was a vast slab of anextremely marketable product six feet thick, three miles wide and sixmiles long.But no sooner had the title been granted when there came a dislocationin the proceedings that until then had been going forward so smoothly.Ryder called the Three Black Crows to him at this juncture, one certainafternoon in the month of April. They were his best agents. The plumsthat the "Company" had at its disposal generally went to the trio, andif any man could "put through" a dangerous and desperate piece of work,Strokher, Hardenberg and Ally Bazan were those men.Of late they had been unlucky, and the affair of the contraband arms,which had ended in failure of cataclysmic proportions, yet rankled inRyder's memory, but he had no one else to whom he could intrust thepresent proposition and he still believed Hardenberg to be the best bosson his list.If Paa was to be fought for, Hardenberg, backed by Strokher and AllyBazan, was the man of all men for the job, for it looked as though Ryderwould not get the Island of Paa without a fight after all, and nitratebeds were worth fighting for."You see, boys, it's this way," Ryder explained to the three as they sataround the spavined table in the grimy back room of Ryder's "office.""It's this way. There's a scoovy after Paa, I'm told; he says he wasthere before 'Rosemary,' which is a lie, and that his Gov'ment has givenhim title. He's got a kind of dough-dish up Portland way and starts forPaa as soon as ever he kin fit out. He's got no title, in course, but ifhe gits there afore we do and takes possession it'll take fifty years o'lawing an' injunctioning to git him off. So hustle is the word for youfrom the word 'go.' We got a good start o' the scoovy. He can't put tosea within a week, while over yonder in Oakland Basin there's the IdahoLass, as good a schooner, boys, as ever wore paint, all ready but tofit her new sails on her. Ye kin do it in less than no time. The storeswill be goin' into her while ye're workin', and within the week I expectto see the Idaho Lass showing her heels to the Presidio. You see thepoint now, boys. If ye beat the scoovy--his name is Petersen, and hisboat is called the Elftruda--we're to the wind'ard of a pretty pot o'money. If he gets away before you do--well, there's no telling; weprob'ly lose the island."
IIAbout ten days before the morning set for their departure I went over tothe Oakland Basin to see how the Three Black Crows were getting on.Hardenberg welcomed me as my boat bumped alongside, and extending agreat tarry paw, hauled me over the rail. The schooner was a wildernessof confusion, with the sails covering, apparently, nine-tenths of thedecks, the remaining tenth encumbered by spars, cordage, tangledrigging, chains, cables and the like, all helter-skeltered together insuch a haze of entanglements that my heart misgave me as I looked on it.Surely order would not issue from this chaos in four days' time withonly three men to speed the work.But Hardenberg was reassuring, and little Ally Bazan, the colonial, toldme they would "snatch her shipshape in the shorter end o' two days, ifso be they must."I stayed with the Three Crows all that day and shared their dinner withthem on the quarterdeck when, wearied to death with the strain ofwrestling with the slatting canvas and ponderous boom, they at lastthrew themselves upon the hamper of "cold snack" I had brought off withme and pledged the success of the venture in tin dippers full ofPilsener."And I'm thinking," said Ally Bazan, "as 'ow ye might as well turn inalong o' us on board 'ere, instead o' hykin' back to town to-night.There's a fairish set o' currents up and daown 'ere about this time o'dye, and ye'd find it a stiff bit o' rowing.""We'll sling a hammick for you on the quarterdeck, m'son," urgedHardenberg.And so it happened that I passed my first night aboard the Idaho Lass.We turned in early. The Three Crows were very tired, and only Ally Bazanand I were left awake at the time when we saw the 8:30 ferryboatnegotiating for her slip on the Oakland side. Then we also went to bed.And now it becomes necessary, for a better understanding of what is tofollow, to mention with some degree of particularization the places andmanners in which my three friends elected to take their sleep, as wellas the condition and berth of the schooner Idaho Lass.Hardenberg slept upon the quarterdeck, rolled up in an army blanket anda tarpaulin. Strokher turned in below in the cabin upon the fixed loungeby the dining-table, while Ally Bazan stretched himself in one of thebunks in the fo'c's'le.As for the location of the schooner, she lay out in the stream, somethree or four cables' length off the yards and docks of a ship-buildingconcern. No other ship or boat of any description was anchored nearerthan at least 300 yards. She was a fine, roomy vessel, three-masted,about 150 feet in length overall. She lay head up stream, and from whereI lay by Hardenberg on the quarterdeck I could see her tops sharplyoutlined against the sky above the Golden Gate before I went to sleep.I suppose it was very early in the morning--nearer two than three--whenI awoke. Some movement on the part of Hardenberg--as I afterward foundout--had aroused me. But I lay inert for a long minute trying to findout why I was not in my own bed, in my own home, and to account for therushing, rippling sound of the tide eddies sucking and chuckling aroundthe Lass's rudder-post.Then I became aware that Hardenberg was awake. I lay in my hammock,facing the stern of the schooner, and as Hardenberg had made up his bedbetween me and the wheel he was directly in my line of vision when Iopened my eyes, and I could see him without any other movement than thatof raising the eyelids. Just now, as I drifted more and more intowakefulness, I grew proportionately puzzled and perplexed to account fora singularly strange demeanour and conduct on the part of my friend.He was sitting up in his place, his knees drawn up under the blanket,one arm thrown around both, the hand of the other arm resting on theneck and supporting the weight of his body. He was broad awake. I couldsee the green shine of our riding lantern in his wide-open eyes, andfrom time to time I could hear him muttering to himself, "What is it?What is it? What the devil is it, anyhow?" But it was not his attitude,nor the fact of his being so broad awake at the unseasonable hour, noryet his unaccountable words, that puzzled me the most. It was the man'seyes and the direction in which they looked that startled me.His gaze was directed not upon anything on the deck of the boat, norupon the surface of the water near it, but upon something behind me andat a great height in the air. I was not long in getting myself broadawake.
IIII rolled out on the deck and crossed over to where Hardenberg sathuddled in his blankets."What the devil--" I began.He jumped suddenly at the sound of my voice, then raised an arm andpointed toward the top of the foremast."D'ye see it?" he muttered. "Say, huh? D'ye see it? I thought I saw itlast night, but I wasn't sure. But there's no mistake now. D'ye see it,Mr. Dixon?"I looked where he pointed. The schooner was riding easily to anchor, thesurface of the bay was calm, but overhead the high white sea-fog wasrolling in. Against it the foremast stood out like the hand of anilluminated town clock, and not a detail of its rigging that was not asdistinct as if etched against the sky.And yet I saw nothing."Where?" I demanded, and again and again "where?""In the crosstrees," whispered Hardenberg. "Ah, look there."He was right. Something was stirring there, something that I hadmistaken for the furled tops'l. At first it was but a formless bundle,but as Hardenberg spoke it stretched itself, it grew upright, it assumedan erect attitude, it took the outlines of a human being. From head toheel a casing housed it in, a casing that might have been anything atthat hour of the night and in that strange place--a shroud, if you like,a winding-sheet--anything; and it is without shame that I confess to acreep of the most disagreeable sensation I have ever known as I stood atHardenberg's side on that still, foggy night and watched the stirring ofthat nameless, formless shape standing gaunt and tall and grisly andwrapped in its winding-sheet upon the crosstrees of the foremast of theIdaho Lass.We watched and waited breathless for an instant. Then the creature onthe foremast laid a hand upon the lashings of the tops'l and undid them.Then it turned, slid to the deck by I know not what strange process,and, still hooded, still shrouded, still lapped about by itsmummy-wrappings, seized a rope's end. In an instant the jib was set andstood on hard and billowing against the night wind. The tops'l followed.Then the figure moved forward and passed behind the companionway of thefo'c's'le.We looked for it to appear upon the other side, but looked in vain. Wesaw it no more that night.What Hardenberg and I told each other between the time of thedisappearing and the hour of breakfast I am now ashamed to recall. Butat last we agreed to say nothing to the others--for the time being. Justafter breakfast, however, we two had a few words by the wheel on thequarterdeck. Ally Bazan and Strokher were forward."The proper thing to do," said I--it was a glorious, exhilaratingmorning, and the sunlight was flooding every angle and corner of theschooner--"the proper thing to do is to sleep on deck by the foremastto-night with our pistols handy and interview the--party if it walksagain.""Oh, yes," cried Hardenberg heartily. "Oh, yes; that's the proper thing.Of course it is. No manner o' doubt about that, Mr. Dixon. Watch for theparty--yes, with pistols. Of course it's the proper thing. But I knowone man that ain't going to do no such thing.""Well," I remember to have said reflectively, "well--I guess I knowanother."But for all our resolutions to say nothing to the others about thenight's occurrences, we forgot that the tops'l and jib were both set andboth drawing."An' w'at might be the bloomin' notion o' setting the bloomin' kite andjib?" demanded Ally Bazan not half an hour after breakfast. ShamelesslyHardenberg, at a loss for an answer, feigned an interest in the grummetsof the life-boat cover and left me to lie as best I might.But it is not easy to explain why one should raise the sails of ananchored ship during the night, and Ally Bazan grew very suspicious.Strokher, too, had something to say, and in the end the whole mattercame out.Trust a sailor to give full value to anything savouring of thesupernatural. Strokher promptly voted the ship a "queer old hookeranyhow, and about as seaworthy as a hen-coop." He held forth at greatlength upon the subject."You mark my words, now," he said. "There's been some fishy doin's inthis 'ere vessel, and it's like somebody done to death crool hard, an''e wants to git away from the smell o' land, just like them as is killedon blue water. That's w'y 'e takes an' sets the sails between dark an'dawn."But Ally Bazan was thoroughly and wholly upset, so much so that at firsthe could not speak. He went pale and paler while we stood talking itover, and crossed himself--he was a Catholic--furtively behind thewater-butt."I ain't never 'a' been keen on ha'nts anyhow, Mr. Dixon," he told meaggrievedly at dinner that evening. "I got no use for 'em. I ain't neverknown any good to come o' anything with a ha'nt tagged to it, an' we'remakin' a ill beginnin' o' this island business, Mr. Dixon--a blyme illbeginnin'. I mean to stye awyke to-night."But if he was awake the little colonial was keeping close to his bunk atthe time when Strokher and Hardenberg woke me at about three in themorning.I rolled out and joined them on the quarterdeck and stood beside themwatching. The same figure again towered, as before, gray and ominous inthe crosstrees. As before, it set the tops'l; as before, it came down tothe deck and raised the jib; as before, it passed out of sight amid theconfusion of the forward deck.But this time we all ran toward where we last had seen it, stumblingover the encumbered decks, jostling and tripping, but keepingwonderfully close together. It was not twenty seconds from the time thecreature had disappeared before we stood panting upon the exact spot wehad last seen it. We searched every corner of the forward deck in vain.We looked over the side. The moon was up. This night there was no fog.We could see for miles each side of us, but never a trace of a boat wasvisible, and it was impossible that any swimmer could have escaped themerciless scrutiny to which we subjected the waters of the bay in everydirection.Hardenberg and I dived down into the fo'c's'le. Ally Bazan was soundasleep in his bunk and woke stammering, blinking and bewildered by thelantern we carried."I sye," he cried, all at once scrambling up and clawing at our arms,"D'd the bally ha'nt show up agyne?" And as we nodded he went on moreaggrievedly than ever--"Oh, I sye, y' know, I daon't like this. I eyen'tshipping in no bloomin' 'ooker wot carries a ha'nt for supercargo. Theywaon't no good come o' this cruise--no, they waon't. It's a sign, that'swot it is. I eyen't goin' to buck again no signs--it eyen't humannature, no it eyen't. You mark my words, 'Bud' Hardenberg, we clear thisport with a ship wot has a ha'nt an' we waon't never come back agyne, myhearty."That night he berthed aft with us on the quarterdeck, but though westood watch and watch till well into the dawn, nothing stirred about theforemast. So it was the next night, and so the night after that. Whenthree successive days had passed without any manifestation the keen edgeof the business became a little blunted and we declared that an end hadbeen made.Ally Bazan returned to his bunk in the fo'c's'le on the fourth night,and the rest of us slept the hours through unconcernedly.But in the morning there were the jib and tops'l set and drawing asbefore.
IVAfter this we began experimenting--on Ally Bazan. We bunked him forwardand we bunked him aft, for some one had pointed out that the "ha'nt"walked only at the times when the colonial slept in the fo'c's'le. Wefound this to be true. Let the little fellow watch on the quarterdeckwith us and the night passed without disturbance. As soon as he took uphis quarters forward the haunting recommenced. Furthermore, it began toappear that the "ha'nt" carefully refrained from appearing to him. He ofus all had never seen the thing. He of us all was spared the chills andthe harrowings that laid hold upon the rest of us during these stillgray hours after midnight when we huddled on the deck of the IdahoLass and watched the sheeted apparition in the rigging; for by nowthere was no more charging forward in attempts to run the ghost down. Wehad passed that stage long since.But so far from rejoicing in this immunity or drawing courage therefrom,Ally Bazan filled the air with his fears and expostulations. Just thefact that he was in some way differentiated from the others--that he wassingled out, if only for exemption--worked upon him. And that he wasunable to scale his terrors by actual sight of their object excited themall the more.And there issued from this a curious consequence. He, the very one whohad never seen the haunting, was also the very one to unsettle whatlittle common sense yet remained to Hardenberg and Strokher. He neverallowed the subject to be ignored--never lost an opportunity ofreferring to the doom that o'erhung the vessel. By the hour he pouredinto the ears of his friends lugubrious tales of ships, warned as thisone was, that had cleared from port, never to be seen again. He recalledto their minds parallel incidents that they themselves had heard; heforetold the fate of the Idaho Lass when the land should lie behindand she should be alone in midocean with this horrid supercargo thattook liberties with the rigging, and at last one particular morning, twodays before that which was to witness the schooner's departure, he cameout flatfooted to the effect that "Gaw-blyme him, he couldn't stand thegaff no longer, no he couldn't, so help him, that if the owners werewishful for to put to sea" (doomed to some unnamable destruction) "hefor one wa'n't fit to die, an' was going to quit that blessed day." Forthe sake of appearances, Hardenberg and Strokher blustered and fumed,but I could hear the crack in Strokher's voice as plain as in a brokenship's bell. I was not surprised at what happened later in the day, whenhe told the others that he was a very sick man. A congenital stomachtrouble, it seemed--or was it liver complaint--had found him out again.He had contracted it when a lad at Trincomalee, diving for pearls; itwas acutely painful, it appeared. Why, gentlemen, even at that verymoment, as he stood there talking--Hi, yi! O Lord !--talking, it wasa-griping of him something uncommon, so it was. And no, it was no mannerof use for him to think of going on this voyage; sorry he was, too, forhe'd made up his mind, so he had, to find out just what was wrong withthe foremast, etc.And thereupon Hardenberg swore a great oath and threw down the capstanbar he held in his hand."Well, then," he cried wrathfully, "we might as well chuck up the wholebusiness. No use going to sea with a sick man and a scared man.""An' there's the first word o' sense," cried Ally Bazan, "I've heardthis long day. 'Scared,' he says; aye, right ye are, me bully.""It's Cy Rider's fault," the three declared after a two-hours' talk. "Nobusiness giving us a schooner with a ghost aboard. Scoovy or no scoovy,island or no island, guano or no guano, we don't go to sea in thehaunted hooker called the Idaho Lass."No more they did. On board the schooner they had faced the supernaturalwith some kind of courage born of the occasion. Once on shore, and nomoney could hire, no power force them to go aboard a second time.The affair ended in a grand wrangle in Cy Rider's back office, and justtwenty-four hours later the bark Elftruda, Captain Jens Petersen,cleared from Portland, bound for "a cruise to South Pacific ports--inballast."* * * * *Two years after this I took Ally Bazan with me on a duck-shootingexcursion in the "Toolies" back of Sacramento, for he is a handy manabout a camp and can row a boat as softly as a drifting cloud.We went about in a cabin cat of some thirty feet over all, the rowboattowing astern. Sometimes we did not go ashore to camp, but slept aboard.On the second night of this expedient I woke in my blankets on the floorof the cabin to see the square of gray light that stood for the cabindoor darkened by--it gave me the same old start--a sheeted figure. Itwas going up the two steps to the deck. Beyond question it had been inthe cabin. I started up and followed it. I was too frightened not to--ifyou can see what I mean. By the time I had got the blankets off and hadthrust my head above the level of the cabin hatch the figure was alreadyin the bows, and, as a matter of course, hoisting the jib.I thought of calling Ally Bazan, who slept by me on the cabin floor, butit seemed to me at the time that if I did not keep that figure in sightit would elude me again, and, besides, if I went back in the cabin I wasafraid that I would bolt the door and remain under the bedclothes tillmorning. I was afraid to go on with the adventure, but I was much moreafraid to go back.So I crept forward over the deck of the sloop. The "ha'nt" had its backtoward me, fumbling with the ends of the jib halyards. I could hear thecreak of new ropes as it undid the knot, and the sound was certainlysubstantial and commonplace. I was so close by now that I could seeevery outline of the shape. It was precisely as it had appeared on thecrosstrees of the Idaho, only, seen without perspective, and broughtdown to the level of the eye, it lost its exaggerated height.It had been kneeling upon the deck. Now, at last, it rose and turnedabout, the end of the halyards in its hand. The light of the earliestdawn fell squarely on the face and form, and I saw, if you please, AllyBazan himself. His eyes were half shut, and through his open lips camethe sound of his deep and regular breathing.At breakfast the next morning I asked, "Ally Bazan, did you ever walk inyour sleep.""Aye," he answered, "years ago, when I was by wye o' being a lad, I usedallus to wrap the bloomin' sheets around me. An' crysy things I'd do thetimes. But the 'abit left me when I grew old enough to tyke me whiskystrite and have hair on me fyce."I did not "explain away" the ghost in the crosstrees either to AllyBazan or to the other two Black Crows. Furthermore, I do not now referto the Island of Paa in the hearing of the trio. The claims and title ofNorway to the island have long since been made good and conceded--evenby the State Department at Washington--and I understand that CaptainPetersen has made a very pretty fortune out of the affair.
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