“‘Did it say,” said I, “‘Jim, your mother wants you’?”
“‘Ay, sir,” he answered, with a bit of a shudder, “as plain as you yourself say it. It seemed to come off the foretopgallant-yard, where I fancied I see something dark a-moving; but I was too frightened to take particular notice.”
‘Well, it was not long after this, about eleven o’clock in the morning, that, the captain being on deck, the cook steps out of the galley, comes walking along the poop, and going up to the skipper, touches his cap, and stands looking at him.
“‘What d’ye want?” said the captain, eyeing him as if he took him to be mad.
“‘Didn’t you call, sir?” says the cook.
‘“Call!” cries the skipper. “Certainly not.”
‘The man looked stupid with surprise, and, muttering something to himself, went forward. Ten minutes after he came up again to the skipper, and says, “Yes, sir!” as a man might who answers to a call. The skipper began to swear at him, and called him a lunatic, and so on; but the man, finding he was wrong again, grew white, and swore that if he was on his deathbed he’d maintain that the captain had called him twice.
The skipper, who was a rather nervous man, turned to me, and said, “What do you make of this, Mr Green? I can’t doubt the cook’s word. Who’s calling him in my voice?”
“‘Oh, it’s some illusion, sir,” said I, feeling puzzled for all that.
‘But the cook, with the tears actually standing in his eyes, declared it was no illusion; he’d know the captain’s voice if it was nine miles off. And he then walked in a dazed way towards the forecastle, singing out that whether the voice he had heard belonged to a ghost or a Christian man, it might go on calling “Cook!” for the next twenty years without his taking further notice of it. This thing coming so soon after the call to Jim that had so greatly alarmed the two ordinary seamen, made a great impression on the crew; and I never regret anything more than that my position should have prevented me from getting into their confidence, and learning their thoughts, for there is no doubt I should have stowed away memories enough to serve me for many a hearty laugh in after years.
‘A few days rolled by without anything particular happening. One night it came to my turn to have the first watch. It was a quiet night, with wind enough to keep the sails still whilst the old ship went drowsily rolling along her course to the African port. Suddenly I heard a commotion forward, and, fearing that some accident had happened, I called out to know what the matter was. A voice answered, “Ghost or no ghost, there’s somebody a-talking in the forehold; come and listen, sir.” The silence that followed suggested a good deal of alarm. I sang out as I approached the men, “Perhaps there's a stowaway below.”
‘“It’s no living voice,” was the reply; “it sounds as if it comes from a skelington.”
‘I found a crowd of men standing in awed postures near the hatch, and the most frightened of all looked to me to be the ordinary seaman Dick, who had backed away on the other side of the hatch, and stood looking on, leaning with his hands on his knees, and staring as if he was fascinated. I waited a couple or three minutes, which, in a business of this kind, seems a long time, and hearing nothing, I was going to ridicule the men for their nervousness, when a hollow voice under the hatch said distinctly, “It’s a terrible thing to be a ghost and not be able to get out.” I was greatly startled, and ran aft to tell the captain, who agreed with me that there must be a stowaway in the hold, and that he had gone mad. We both went forward and the hatch was lifted, and we looked on top of the coal; and I was then about to ask some of the men to join me in a search in the forepeak, for upon my word I had no taste single-handed for a job of that kind at such a moment, when the voice said, “There’s no use looking, you’ll never find me. I’m not to be seen.”
“‘Confound me!” cried the skipper, polishing his forehead with a pocket-handkerchief, “if ever I heard of such a thing. I’ll tell you what it is,” he shouted, looking into the hatch, “dead men can’t talk, and so, as you’re bound to be alive, you’d better come up out of that, and smartly too - d’ye hear? - or you’ll find this the worst attempt at skylarking that was ever made.”
‘There was a short silence, and you’d see all hands straining their ears, for there was light enough for that, given out by a lantern one of the men held.
“‘You couldn’t catch me because you couldn’t see me,” said the voice in a die-away tone, and this time it came from the direction of the main hatch, as though it had flitted aft.
‘“Well,” says the captain, “may I be jiggered!” and without another word he walked away on to the poop.
‘I told the men to clap the hatches on again, and they did this in double-quick time, evidently afraid that the ghost might pop up out of the hold if they didn’t mind their eye.
‘All this made us very superstitious, from the captain down to the boys. We talked it over in the cabin, and the mate was incredulous, and disposed to ridicule me.
‘“Any way,” said he, “it’s strange that his voice is only heard in your watch. It’s never favoured me with any remarks. The creaking and groaning of an old wooden ship is often like spoken words, and what you’ve been hearing may be nothing but a deception of the ear.”
“‘A deception in your eye!” cried the skipper. “The timbers of an old wooden ship may strain and creak in the Dutch language, but hang me if they ever talked good sensible English. However, Pm not going to worry. For my part,” said he, with a nervous glance around him, “I don’t believe in ghosts; whatever it is that’s talking in the hold may go on jawing, so long as he sticks to that, and don’t frighten the men with an ugly mug, nor come upon us for a man’s allowance.”
‘“If it’s anybody’s ghost,” said I, “it must be the Italian’s, the chap that was starved in the forepeak.”
‘“I doubt that,” said the skipper. “I didn’t detect anything foreign in what he said. To my ear it sounded more like Whitechapel than Italiano.”
‘Well, for another week we heard little more of the ghost. It’s true that one middle watch a chap I had sent aloft to loose the main-royal had hardly stepped out of the lower rigging, after lingering in the crosstrees to overhaul his clewlines, when he comes rushing up to me and cries out, “I’ve been hailed from aloft, sir! a voice has just sung out, ‘Tommy, jump aloft again that I may have a good look at you!”’
“‘Who’s up, there?” I asked him, staring into the gloom where the mast and yards went towering.
‘“There’s no one up there, sir: I’ll swear it. I was bound to see him had any one been there,” he answered, evidently very much frightened.
‘It occurred to me that some one of the crew might be lying hid in the top, and that if I could catch him I might find out who the ghost was. So I jumped into the rigging and trotted aloft, keeping my eye on the lee rigging, to make sure that no one descended by it. I gained the top, but nobody was there. I mounted to the crosstrees, but the deuce a sign of any one could I see. I came down, feeling both foolish and scared; for you see I had heard the voice myself in the hold, there was no question that there was a voice, belonging to nobody knew what, knocking about the ship, and consequently it was now impossible to help believing a man when he said he heard it.
‘However, it was necessary to keep the men in heart, and this was not to be done by captain and mates appearing scared; so I reasoned a bit with the man, told him that there were no such things as ghosts, that a voice was bound to come from a live person, because a spectre couldn’t possibly have lungs, those organs being of a perishable nature, and then sent him forward, but no easier in his mind, I suspect, than I was. Anyhow I was glad when eight bells were struck and it was my turn to go below. But, as I have said, nothing much came of this - at least, nothing that reached my ears. But not many nights following the ship lay becalmed - there wasn’t a breath of air, and the sea lay smooth as polished jet. This time I had the middle watch again. I was walking quietly up and down the poop, on the look-out for a deeper shadow upon the sea to indicate the approach of wind, when a man came up the ladder and said, “There’s someone a-talking to the ship under the bows.”