The Ghost Ship

The Ghost Ship
by John Conran Hutcheson
CHAPTER ONE.
THE STAR OF THE NORTH.
The sun sank below the horizon that evening in a blaze of ruby and
gold.
It flooded the whole ocean to the westward, right up to the very zenith,
with a wealth of opalescent light that transformed sea and sky alike into
a living glory, so grand and glorious was the glowing harmony of
kaleidoscopic colouring which lit up the arc of heaven and the wide
waste of water beneath, stretching out and afar beyond ken. Aye, and a
colouring, too, that changed its hue each instant with marvellous
rapidity, tint alternating with tint, and tone melting into tone in endless
succession and variety!
Throughout the day the weather had looked more than threatening.
From an early hour of the morning the wind had been constantly
veering and shifting, showing a strong inclination to back; and now the
sea was getting up and the white horses of Neptune had already begun
to gambol over the crests of the swelling billows, which heaved up and
down as they rolled onward with a heavy moaning sound, like one long,
deep-drawn sigh!
It looked as if the old monarch below, angered by the teasing of the
frolicsome zephyrs, was gradually working himself up into a passion,
which would vent itself, most probably, ere long in a much more telling
fashion than by this melancholy moan, so different to the sea-god's
usual voice of thunder!
Yes, it looked threatening enough in all conscience!

A brisk breeze had been blowing from the nor'-east before breakfast,
but this had subsequently shifted to the nor'ard at noon, veering back
again, first to the nor'-east and then to due east in the afternoon. The
wind freshened as the hours wore on, being now accompanied towards
sunset by frequent sharp gusts, a sign betokening plainly enough to a
seaman's eye that something stiffer was brewing up for us by-and-by.
Glancing over the side, I noticed that our brave vessel, the Star of the
North, was becoming very uneasy.
She was running under her jib and foresail, with fore-topsail and fore-
topgallantsail, being only square rigged forwards, like most ocean
steamers; but, in order to save coals and ease the engines, the skipper
had set the fore and main trysails with gaff-topsails and staysails as
well, piling on every rag he could spread.
With this press of canvas topping her unaccustomed hull, the poor old
barquey heeled over more and more as the violent gusts caught her
broadside-on at intervals, rolling, too, a bit on the wind fetching round
aft; while, her stern lifting as some bigger roller than usual passed
under her keel, the screw would whiz round aimlessly in mid air, from
missing its grip of the water, "racing," as sailors say in their lingo, with
a harsh grating jar that set my teeth on edge, and seemed to vibrate
through my very spinal marrow as I stood for a moment on the line of
deck immediately over the revolving shaft.
At the same time also that the afterpart of the vessel rose up on the
breast of one billowy mountain, her forefoot in turn would come down
with a resonant "thwack" into the valley intervening between this roller
and the next, the buoyant old barquey dipping her bows under and
giving the star-crowned maiden with golden ringlets, that did duty for
her figurehead, an impromptu shower bath as she parted the indignant
waves with her glistening black hull, sending them off on either hand
with a contemptuous "swish" on their trying in mad desperation to leap
on board, first to port and then to starboard, as the ship listed in her roll.
It was, however, but a vain task for these mad myrmidons of Neptune
to attempt, strive as recklessly as they might in their wrath, for the good

ship spurned them with her forefoot and the star-crowned maiden
bowed mockingly to them from her perch above the bobstay, laughing
in her glee as she rode over them triumphantly and sailed along onward;
and so the baffled roysterers were forced to fall back discomforted from
their rash onslaught, swirling away in circling eddies aft, where, anon,
the cruel propeller tossed and tore them anew with its pitiless
blades--ever whirling round with painful iteration to the music of their
monotonous refrain, "Thump-thump, Thump-thump," and ever
churning up the already seething sea into a mass of boiling, brawling,
bubbling foam that spread out astern of us in a broad shimmering wake
in the shape of a lady's fan, stretching backward on our track as far as
the eye could see and flashing out sparks of fire as it glittered away into
the dim distance, like an ever-widening belt of diamonds fringed with
pearls.
The SS Star of