At ten minutes to twelve I was called, and at twelve I was dressed
and on deck, relieving the man who had called me. On the sealing
grounds, when hove to, a watch of only a single man is kept
through the night, each man holding the deck for an hour. It was
a dark night, though not a black one. The gale was breaking up,
and the clouds were thinning. There should have been a moon, and,
though invisible, in some way a dim, suffused radiance came from
it. I paced back and forth across the deck amidships. My mind
was filled with the event of the day and with the horrible tales
my shipmates had told, and yet I dare to say, here and now, that I
was not afraid. I was a healthy animal, and furthermore,
intellectually, I agreed with Swinburne that dead men rise up
never. The Bricklayer was dead, and that was the end of it. He
would rise up never–at least, never on the deck of the Sophie
Sutherland. Even then he was in the ocean depths miles to
windward of our leeward drift, and the likelihood was that he was
already portioned out in the maws of many sharks. Still, my mind
pondered on the tales of the ghosts of dead men I had heard, and I
speculated on the spirit world. My conclusion was that if the
spirits of the dead still roamed the world they carried the
goodness or the malignancy of the earth-life with them.
Therefore, granting the hypothesis (which I didn’t grant at all),
the ghost of the Bricklayer was bound to be as hateful and
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malignant as he in life had been. But there wasn’t any
Bricklayer’s ghost–that I insisted upon.
A few minutes, thinking thus, I paced up and down. Then, glancing
casually for’ard, along the port side, I leaped like a startled
deer and in a blind madness of terror rushed aft along the poop,
heading for the cabin. Gone was all my arrogance of youth and my
intellectual calm. I had seen a ghost. There, in the dim light,
where we had flung the dead man overboard, I had seen a faint and
wavering form. Six-feet in length it was, slender, and of
substance so attenuated that I had distinctly seen through it the
tracery of the fore-rigging.
As for me, I was as panic-stricken as a frightened horse. I, as
I, had ceased to exist. Through me were vibrating the fibre-
instincts of ten thousand generations of superstitious forebears
who had been afraid of the dark and the things of the dark. I was
not I. I was, in truth, those ten thousand forebears. I was the
race, the whole human race, in its superstitious infancy. Not
until part way down the cabin-companionway did my identity return
to me. I checked my flight and clung to the steep ladder,
suffocating, trembling, and dizzy. Never, before nor since, have
I had such a shock. I clung to the ladder and considered. I
could not doubt my senses. That I had seen something there was no
discussion. But what was it? Either a ghost or a joke. There
could be nothing else. If a ghost, the question was: would it
appear again? If it did not, and I aroused the ship’s officers, I
would make myself the laughing stock of all on board. And by the
same token, if it were a joke, my position would be still more
ridiculous. If I were to retain my hard-won place of equality, it
would never do to arouse any one until I ascertained the nature of
the thing.
I am a brave man. I dare to say so; for in fear and trembling I
crept up the companion-way and went back to the spot from which I
had first seen the thing. It had vanished. My bravery was
qualified, however. Though I could see nothing, I was afraid to
go for’ard to the spot where I had seen the thing. I resumed my
pacing up and down, and though I cast many an anxious glance
toward the dread spot, nothing manifested itself. As my
equanimity returned to me, I concluded that the whole affair had
been a trick of the imagination and that I had got what I deserved
for allowing my mind to dwell on such matters.
Once more my glances for’ard were casual, and not anxious; and
then, suddenly, I was a madman, rushing wildly aft. I had seen
the thing again, the long, wavering attenuated substance through
which could be seen the fore-rigging. This time I had reached
only the break of the poop when I checked myself. Again I
reasoned over the situation, and it was pride that counselled
strongest. I could not afford to make myself a laughing-stock.
This thing, whatever it was, I must face alone. I must work it
out myself. I looked back to the spot where we had tilted the
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Bricklayer. It was vacant. Nothing moved. And for a third time
I resumed my amid-ships pacing.
In the absence of the thing my fear died away and my intellectual
poise returned. Of course it was not a ghost. Dead men did not
rise up. It was a joke, a cruel joke. My mates of the
forecastle, by some unknown means, were frightening me. Twice
already must they have seen me run aft. My cheeks burned with
shame. In fancy I could hear the smothered chuckling and laughter
even then going on in the forecastle. I began to grow angry.
Jokes were all very well, but this was carrying the thing too far.
I was the youngest on board, only a youth, and they had no right
to play tricks on me of the order that I well knew in the past had
made raving maniacs of men and women. I grew angrier and angrier,
and resolved to show them that I was made of sterner stuff and at
the same time to wreak my resentment upon them. If the thing
appeared again, I made my mind up that I would go up to it–
furthermore, that I would go up to it knife in hand. When within
striking distance, I would strike. If a man, he would get the
knife-thrust he deserved. If a ghost, well, it wouldn’t hurt the
ghost any, while I would have learned that dead men did rise up.
Now I was very angry, and I was quite sure the thing was a trick;
but when the thing appeared a third time, in the same spot, long,
attenuated, and wavering, fear surged up in me and drove most of
my anger away. But I did not run. Nor did I take my eyes from
the thing. Both times before, it had vanished while I was running
away, so I had not seen the manner of its going. I drew my
sheath-knife from my belt and began my advance. Step by step,
nearer and nearer, the effort to control myself grew more severe.
The struggle was between my will, my identity, my very self, on
the one hand, and on the other, the ten thousand ancestors who
were twisted into the fibres of me and whose ghostly voices were
whispering of the dark and the fear of the dark that had been
theirs in the time when the world was dark and full of terror.
I advanced more slowly, and still the thing wavered and flitted
with strange eerie lurches. And then, right before my eyes, it
vanished. I saw it vanish. Neither to the right nor left did it
go, nor backward. Right there, while I gazed upon it, it faded
away, ceased to be. I didn’t die, but I swear, from what I
experienced in those few succeeding moments, that I know full well
that men can die of fright. I stood there, knife in hand, swaying
automatically to the roll of the ship, paralysed with fear. Had
the Bricklayer suddenly seized my throat with corporeal fingers
and proceeded to throttle me, it would have been no more than I
expected. Dead men did rise up, and that would be the most likely
thing the malignant Bricklayer would do.
But he didn’t seize my throat. Nothing happened. And, since
nature abhors a status, I could not remain there in the one place
forever paralysed. I turned and started aft. I did not run.
What was the use? What chance had I against the malevolent world
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44
of ghosts? Flight, with me, was the swiftness of my legs. The
pursuit, with a ghost, was the swiftness of thought. And there
were ghosts. I had seen one.
And so, stumbling slowly aft, I discovered the explanation of the
seeming. I saw the mizzen topmast lurching across a faint
radiance of cloud behind which was the moon. The idea leaped in
my brain. I extended the line between the cloudy radiance and the