The Ghost Ship | Page 7

distinctly, but also right down on to her deck!"
"Nonsense, boy; you'd better go below!" said the first mate brusquely,
while Spokeshave sniggered and whispered something to the
lamp-trimmer and man at the wheel that made them both laugh out
right. "There's something wrong with you to-night, Haldane, for you
seem quite off your chump, so you'd better go below and sleep it off.
There's no ship near us, I tell you! What you imagined to be a sailing
vessel is that dark cloud there, coming up from the leeward, which is
fast shutting out the horizon from view. It's a sea fog, such as are
frequently met with hereabouts below the Banks, as we are now!"
It was true enough about the cloud, or mist, or fog, or whatever it was;
for, as Mr Fosset spoke, the darkness closed in around us like a wall
and the ship that I swear I had seen the moment before vanished, sky
and sea and everything else disappearing also at the same instant,
leaving us, as it were, isolated in space, the veil of vapour being
impenetrable!
CHAPTER FOUR.
A CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY.

Just then Captain Applegarth appeared on the scene.
He had gone down by the companion-way into the saloon below, after
Mr Fosset had left the poop, to look at the barometer in his cabin, and
now came along the upper deck and on to the bridge amidships,
startling us with his sudden presence.
The skipper had a sharp eye, which was so trained by observation in all
sorts of weather that he could see in the dark, like a cat, almost as well
as he could by daylight.
Looking round and scanning our faces as well as he could in the
prevailing gloom, he soon perceived that something was wrong.
"Huh!" he exclaimed. "What's the row about?"
"There's no row, sir," explained the first mate in an off-hand tone of
bravado, which he tried to give a jocular ring to, but could not very
successfully. "This youngster Haldane here swears he saw a full-rigged
ship on our lee quarter awhile ago, flying a signal of distress; but
neither Mr Spokeshave, who was on the watch, nor myself, could make
her out where Haldane said he saw her."
"Indeed?"
"No, sir," continued Mr Fosset; "nor could the helmsman or old
Greazer here, who came up with the binnacle lamp at the time. Not one
of us could see this wonderful ship of Haldane's, though it was pretty
clear all round then, and we all looked in the direction to which he
pointed."
"That's strange," said Captain Applegarth, "very strange."
"Quite so, sir, just what we all think, sir," chimed in Master
Spokeshave, putting in his oar. "Not a soul here on the bridge, sir,
observed anything of any ship of any sort, leastways one flying a signal
of distress, such as Dick Haldane said he saw."

"Humph!" ejaculated the skipper, as if turning the matter over in his
mind for the moment; and then addressing me point blank he asked me
outright, "Do you really believe you saw this ship, Haldane?"
"Yes, sir," I answered as directly as he had questioned me; "I'll swear I
did."
"No, I don't want you to do that; I'll take your word for it without any
swearing, Haldane," said the skipper to this, speaking to me quietly and
as kindly as if he had been my father. "But listen to me, my boy. I do
not doubt your good faith for a moment, mind that. Still, are you sure
that what you believe you saw might not have been some optical
illusion proceeding from the effects of the afterglow at sunset? It was
very bright and vivid, you know, and the reflection of a passing cloud
above the horizon or its shadow just before the sun dipped might have
caused that very appearance which you took to be a ship under sail. I
have myself been often mistaken in the same way under similar
atmospheric surroundings and that is why I put it to you like this, to
learn whether you are quite certain you might not be mistaken?"
"Quite so," shoved in Spokeshave again in his parrot fashion; "quite so,
sir."
"I didn't ask your opinion," growled the skipper, shutting him up in a
twinkling; and then, turning to me again, he looked at me inquiringly.
"Well, Haldane, have you thought it out?"
"Yes, captain, I have," I replied firmly, though respectfully, the ill-
timed interference of the objectionable Mr Spokeshave having made
me as obstinate as Mr Fosset. "It was no optical illusion or imagination
on my part, sir, or anything of that sort, I assure you, sir. I am telling
you the truth, sir, and no lie. I saw that ship, sir, to