Seven Frozen Sailors Part 10

It was the end of harvest-time; the weather was very sultry, and the night cloudy and overcast.

I thought, as I hurried home, we should soon have a heavy thunder-storm, and fancied the summer lightning was more vivid than usual.

Just as I reached my father's door, I was startled by the sudden flas.h.i.+ng of a fierce flame in the direction of the mansion of the new heir to the splendid estate he inherited from his uncle.

I doubted for a moment, but then was perfectly sartain the Hall was on fire.

I dashed off at the top of my speed, taking the nearest cut across the fields to the scene of the conflagrashun.

As I was pelting along, I heard the fire-bell sounding from the police barracks, but I got to the place before the sogers or peelers had a chance of reaching it.

A glance convinced me the ould place was doomed; the flames had burst through the lower windows, and were carried by the lattice-work, that reached high above the portico, to the upper story.

While I was looking at the blazing pile, a horseman galloped at full speed up the avenue. Just as he had almost reached the Hall door, and was reining in his horse to dismount, four or five dark figures appeared to spring suddenly out of the ground, and I heard the report of fire-arms--two distinct shots I could swear to. At the first, one of the party, who sought to intercept the mounted man, fell; at the second, the rider rolled from his saddle heavily to the ground, and then the other figures disappeared as suddenly as they had at first sprung up.

I was so thunderstruck, that for some few minutes I could not stir from the spot.

Seeing no sign of the approach of the military or police, curiosity, or some strong feeling, got the better of my prudence, and I hurried forward to the scene of slaughter, for such in my heart I felt it was-- in the case of at least of one of the fallen men. And there, with the lurid light of the burning building flas.h.i.+ng across his deathlike face, and the purple blood welling up from a wound in his chest through his cambric s.h.i.+rt-frill, lay, stretched in death, the newly appointed agent, and, close beside him, O'Rourke, still living, but drawing every breath with such difficulty that I felt certain his last hour had come.

I raised his head, and spoke to him. He knew my voice, and, by a superhuman effort, managed to support himself on his elbow, as he took a small purse from his breast-pocket; he placed it in my hand, and said, "Phil, darlin', I know you've the brave and thrue heart, though it's only a boy you are. Listen to my last words. Kape my secret, for my sake; never let on to man or mortial you saw me here. Give that purse to Mary--take her to her frinds in Amerikay--she'll never hear of _this_ there, and may larn in time to forget me. Tell her we shall meet in a better place; and hark! my eyes are growing dark, but I can hear well enough, there are futsteps--they are coming this way; run, for your life; if you are found here, you will die on the gallows, and that would break your poor old father and mother's hearts! Bless you, Phil, alanna! Remember my last words, and, as you hope for mercy, do my bidding!"

He drew a deep sigh, fell heavily from my arms, rolled over on his side, and there--with the dead agent's fixed and gla.s.sy eyes staring the frightful stare of death straight at him--lay cowld and still!

The sound of the futsteps came nearer and nearer. I started at my best speed for home. When I stepped into the house, the children had been put to bed, but the ould people were still talking by the dim light of the nearly burnt-out turf fire. I wished them good-night, plading fataigue, and reached my small room without their having an opportunity of noticing the state of alarm and agitation I was in.

The next day was an awful one for me. The violent death of the middleman was in every one's mouth; but it was some relief to find no mention was made of the finding the corpse of poor O'Rourke.

I concluded the footsteps we had both heard were those of some of his a.s.sociates, and that they had carried off and concealed his body.

I fulfilled O'Rourke's wishes to the best of my power; saw Mary Sheean safe on boord s.h.i.+p, put her in the care of a dacent, middle-aged countrywoman of her own--and as I was a.s.suring her, in O'Rourke's words, that he would soon join her, all I had to say was cut short by the arrival of a parcel of peelers on boord, and the rason of their coming was the a.s.sa.s.sination of the agent had been discovered. O'Rourke was missing, and so suspicion fell on him--and there was a reward of two hundred pounds offered for him. It was thought possible he might be on boord the _George Was.h.i.+ngton_, and they had come, with a full description of his person, to sarch the s.h.i.+p.

The pa.s.sengers--and it was a tadeous job--were all paraded--over three hundred in the steerage, let alone the cabin and the crew--every part of the s.h.i.+p was overhauled, but, as may naturally be supposed, no Miles O'Rourke was found.

I need scarcely tell yez, boys, what a relief that was to pretty Mary Sheean and myself.

When the police-officers had left the _George Was.h.i.+ngton_, she beckoned me to her, and whispered, "Thanks be to the Lord he was not on boord!

though I know he would never take any man's life; still, as he was out that night, it would have gone hard wid him. But, never fear, he'll come by the next s.h.i.+p; and so I'll wait and watch for him at New York.

There's his box--take care of it for him till we get there; and see, here's the kay--mind that, too; maybe I'd lose it."

I hadn't the heart to undecaive her, so I answered her as cheerfully as I could, put the kay in my pocket and the box in my locker, and went about my business, wid a mighty heavy heart entirely.

All went on smoothly enough--but about the tenth day after we sailed, a report got afloat that the s.h.i.+p was haunted.

At first, the captain only laughed at such an absurd rumour; but finding the men believed it, and went unwillingly about their duty after dark, unless in couples, he set to work to find out who had been the first person to circulate the story.

After a deal of dodging and prevarication, it was traced to black Sam, the n.i.g.g.e.r cook.

The skipper called the ould darky up to the quarter-deck, and then, in the hearing of the cabin-pa.s.sengers and most of the crew, the cook stated, afther we had been at say for a few days, that one night, as he was dozing in the caboose, he was startled by the appearance of a tall figure, with a face as pallid as death, noiselessly entering through the half-open door. The ghost--for such Sam was willing to swear it was, to use his own words, "on a stack of bibles as high as the main topmast"-- had on a blood-stained shroud. It slowly approached the terror-stricken cook, who, fearing it intended to do him some bodily harrum, sprang from his bunk, and yell'd loudly for a.s.sistance. At the first sound of Sam's voice, the lamp wint out of itself, and the ghost vanished.

Several sailors bore testimony to hearing the cook screaming for help-- to the fearful state of fright he was in; and, as they could see no trace of the apparition Sam so minutely described, confirmed his report as to the sudden disappearance of the supernatural intruder.

This was the origin of the report; but, some days after, at least half a dozen seamen declared they had seen the self-same spectre gliding about the deck soon after midnight; and among them the boatswain, as brave a fellow as ever brandished a rope's-end, declared that, upon waking suddenly one night, he saw the ghost sated on his locker, either imitating the action of a person ating voraciously, or making a series of such horribly ugly grimaces as would have done honour to Vanity Fair itself.

The whole affair was considered a good joke by the skipper and cabin-pa.s.sengers; but those in the steerage and the s.h.i.+p's crew placed implicit confidence in the cook's narrative, corroborated and supported as it was by the sailors and the boatswain.

For my part, I had no faith in any worse sperrits than those than that come out of a bottle, or, maybe, a hogshead, and I lost no chance of trotting out the friends of the ghost.

But my turn had to come--and come it did, with a vingeance.

One night, boy-like, I had been braggin' mightily loud about my courage.

Ould Sam offered to bet his three days' grog against mine I daren't slape in the caboose he had deserted since he saw the sperrit that same night.

The wager was made, and I turned in, thinking what a laugh I should have against the ould darky when I handed him back his complement of rum.

I'll do the ould nagur the justice to say, whin I accepted the wager, he offered to let me off; and, when he found I was determined to stick to it, he warned me, with a sigh that sounded like a groan, I had much better not; but anyway, happen what might, he hoped I would hould him harmless, and forgive him for my misfortune, if any should overtake me.

Wid a smile, bedad! I promised to do so, and, when the time came, turned into the bunk, and was soon fast aslape.

How long this lasted, I don't know; but I was suddenly awoke by feeling a cowld, clammy hand pa.s.sing over my face, and whin I opened my pay-pers, judge of my dread whin I saw the lank spectre I had been making a joke of standing by my side. Bedad! if Saint Patrick's Cathedral was stuck in my throat, I couldn't have felt more nearly choked. The crature, whatever it was, seemed as tall as the manemast, and as thin as a rasher of wind.

Every hair on my head sprang up, and my eyes seemed starting out of their sockets to meet those of the ghost, which were as big as saucers, and were fixed on mine with a look that seemed to go through and through them, and come out at the back of my head.

I tried to cry out, but I couldn't; but if my tongue couldn't chatter, my teeth could. If the big skeleton's bones had been put in an empty cask, and well shuck up by a couple of strong min, they couldn't have made a bigger noise than my jaws did.

I tried my hardest to remimber and reha.r.s.e a prayer; but sorrow the taste of one would come into my head. Shure, everything dacent was frightened clane out of it. The only good thing I could call to mind was what my mother taught me to say before males. I thought that was better than nothing, so I whispered out, while I was s.h.i.+vering with the fear that was upon me, "For what I am going to recave, may the Lord make me truly thankful!"

Whin I had done, the ghost's jaws moved, and, in a voice so hoa.r.s.e and hollow, that it might have come from the bottom of a churchyard vault, half-moaned, half-groaned, "It's grace you're saying, you imperint young blaggard!"

"It is," says I, trimbling all over. "That is, if it's not displasing to your honour's lords.h.i.+p."

"That depinds," says he, "upon what you are going to give me to ate after it."

"Ate!" says I. "Why, thin, be good to us! can you ate?"

"Thry me," says he, "and you'll see whether I can or not; and make haste, for my time's short! I must go down agin almost immadiately, and it isn't the bit or sup I've had for near onto five days; and by rason of that, although I was a strong man once, it's nearly gone I am!"

"Gone where?" I asked.

"To my grave," says he.

"Bad cess to them, whoever they were, that ought to have done it, and didn't! Haven't they buried you yet?" I inquired.

"What would they bury me for?" says he.

"It's customary with corpses where I come from," I answered.

"I come from the same place," says he. "They are bad enough there, in all conscience--more particularly, by the same token, the middlemen, t.i.the-proctors, and excis.e.m.e.n; but they didn't bury live min in my time," says he.

"But they did dead ones," says I.