The Ghost Pirates Part 27

"Where, Sir?" asked the Second, eagerly. "I can't see him!"

"There! there!" replied the Skipper, pointing.

I leant out from the rigging, and looked up along his back, in the direction his finger indicated. At first, I could see nothing; then, slowly, you know, there grew upon my sight a dim figure crouching upon the bunt of the royal, and partly hidden by the mast. I stared, and gradually it came to me that there was a couple of them, and further out upon the yard, a hump that might have been anything, and was only visible indistinctly amid the flutter of the canvas.

"Stubbins!" the Skipper sung out. "Stubbins, come down out of that! Do you hear me?"

But no one came, and there was no answer.

"There's two--" I began; but he was shouting again:

"Come down out of that! Do you d.a.m.ned well hear me?"

Still there was no reply.

"I'm hanged if I can see him at all, Sir!" the Second Mate called out from his side of the mast.

"Can't see him!" said the Old Man, now thoroughly angry. "I'll soon let you see him!"

He bent down to me with the lantern.

"Catch hold, Jessop," he said, which I did.

Then he pulled the blue light from his pocket, and as he was doing so, I saw the Second peek round the back side of the mast at him. Evidently, in the uncertain light, he must have mistaken the Skipper's action; for, all at once, he shouted out in a frightened voice:

"Don't shoot, Sir! For G.o.d's sake, don't shoot!"

"Shoot be d.a.m.ned!" exclaimed the Old Man. "Watch!"

He pulled off the cap of the light.

"There's two of them, Sir," I called again to him.

"What!" he said in a loud voice, and at the same instant he rubbed the end of the light across the cap, and it burst into fire.

He held it up so that it lit the royal yard like day, and straightway, a couple of shapes dropped silently from the royal on to the t'gallant yard. At the same moment, the humped Something, midway out upon the yard, rose up. It ran in to the mast, and I lost sight of it.

"G.o.d!" I heard the Skipper gasp, and he fumbled in his side pocket.

I saw the two figures which had dropped on to the t'gallant, run swiftly along the yard--one to the starboard and the other to the port yard-arms.

On the other side of the mast, the Second Mate's pistol cracked out twice, sharply. Then, from over my head the Skipper fired twice, and then again; but with what effect, I could not tell. Abruptly, as he fired his last shot, I was aware of an indistinct Something, gliding down the starboard royal backstay. It was descending full upon Plummer, who, all unconscious of the thing, was staring towards the t'gallant yard.

"Look out above you, Plummer!" I almost shrieked.

"What? where?" he called, and grabbed at the stay, and waved his flare, excitedly.

Down on the upper topsail yard, Quoin's and Jaskett's voices rose simultaneously, and in the identical instant, their flares went out.

Then Plummer shouted, and his light went utterly. There were left only the two lanterns, and the blue-light held by the Skipper, and that, a few seconds afterwards, finished and died out.

The Skipper and the Second Mate were shouting to the men upon the yard, and I heard them answer, in shaky voices. Out on the crosstrees, I could see, by the light from my lantern, that Plummer was holding in a dazed fas.h.i.+on to the backstay.

"Are you all right, Plummer?" I called.

"Yes," he said, after a little pause; and then he swore.

"Come in off that yard, you men!" the Skipper was singing out. "Come in!

come in!"

Down on deck, I heard someone calling; but could not distinguish the words. Above me, pistol in hand, the Skipper was glancing about, uneasily.

"Hold up that light, Jessop," he said. "I can't see!"

Below us, the men got off the yard, into the rigging.

"Down on deck with you!" ordered the Old Man.

"As smartly as you can!"

"Come in off there, Plummer!" sung out the Second Mate. "Get down with the others!"

"Down with you, Jessop!" said the Skipper, speaking rapidly. "Down with you!"

I got over the crosstrees, and he followed. On the other side, the Second Mate was level with us. He had pa.s.sed his lantern to Plummer, and I caught the glint of his revolver in his right hand. In this fas.h.i.+on, we reached the top. The man who had been stationed there with the blue-lights, had gone. Afterwards, I found that he went down on deck as soon as they were finished. There was no sign of the man with the flare on the starboard craneline. He also, I learnt later, had slid down one of the backstays on to the deck, only a very short while before we reached the top. He swore that a great black shadow of a man had come suddenly upon him from aloft. When I heard that, I remembered the thing I had seen descending upon Plummer. Yet the man who had gone out upon the port craneline--the one who had bungled with the lighting of his flare--was still where we had left him; though his light was burning now but dimly.

"Come in out of that, _you!_" the Old Man sung out "Smartly now, and get down on deck!"

"i, i, Sir," the man replied, and started to make his way in.

The Skipper waited until he had got into the main rigging, and then he told me to get down out of the top. He was in the act of following, when, all at once, there rose a loud outcry on deck, and then came the sound of a man screaming.

"Get out of my way, Jessop!" the Skipper roared, and swung himself down alongside of me.

I heard the Second Mate shout something from the starboard rigging. Then we were all racing down as hard as we could go. I had caught a momentary glimpse of a man running from the doorway on the port side of the fo'cas'le. In less than half a minute we were upon the deck, and among a crowd of the men who were grouped round something. Yet, strangely enough, they were not looking at the thing among them; but away aft at something in the darkness.

"It's on the rail!" cried several voices.

"Overboard!" called somebody, in an excited voice. "It's jumped over the side!"

"Ther' wer'n't nothin'!" said a man in the crowd.

"Silence!" shouted the Old Man. "Where's the Mate? What's happened?"

"Here, Sir," called the First Mate, shakily, from near the centre of the group. "It's Jacobs, Sir. He--he--"

"What!" said the Skipper. "What!"

"He--he's--he's--dead I think!" said the First Mate, in jerks.