CHAPTER V
THE GHOST SHIP
Cicely Hallowell sighed deeply as she pushed away the heap of papersbefore her and brushed back the hair from her aching forehead. She wasweary of her task and the room was growing dark and cold. She wasbeginning, moreover, to be uneasily conscious that the two men at thefar end of the long table had forgotten her presence behind the pileof great ledgers and were talking of things that she was not meant tohear.
Half an hour earlier her brother Alan had rushed in to see whether shewere not ready for their afternoon ride and had been disappointedlyimpatient when she shook her head.
"It is a glorious day, so cold and the roads so deep in snow. Thehorses are like wild things, and will give us a famous gallop up thevalley. Oh, do come, Cicely."
But no, she must stay in the big gloomy countinghouse, to finish theletters that she had promised to copy for her father, while Alan hadflung off, saying over his shoulder, as he departed to take his ridealone:
"It is very wrong to miss fun and adventure by toiling and moilinghere. Think how the sea will look and how the blasts will be blowingover our Windy Hill!"
The place seemed very cheerless and empty after he had gone. The longwindows gave little light on that gray winter afternoon, and the bigfireplace with its glowing logs was at the far end of the room. Therewere shadows already on the shelves of heavy ledgers lining the walls,and on the rows of ship's models all up and down the sides of the bigcountingroom. Those lines of dusty volumes held records that Alan wasforever reading, tales of wonderful voyages, of spices and gold dustand jewels brought home from the Orient, of famines in far landsbroken by the coming of American grain ships, of profits reckoned inducats and doubloons and Spanish pieces of eight. Cicely was fond ofdrawing and loved, far more than copying dull letters, to makesketches of those miniature vessels in the glass cases that stood forthe Hallowell ships that had scoured the oceans of the world. They hadbeen wrecked on coral reefs in hot, distant seas, they had lainbecalmed with priceless cargoes in pirate-infested waters, their crewswere as skillful with the long guns as they were at handling thesails, their captains were as at home in Shanghai or Calcutta as theywere in the streets of the little seaport town where they had beenborn. Cicely could remember when the big countingroom had beencrowded with clerks and had hummed like a beehive with the myriadactivities of the Hallowell trade. It was a dull and empty place now,and the fleet of Hallowell ships was scattered, some lying at anchor,some dismantled and sold, some fallen into the hands of the enemy. Forthis was the third year of that struggle with England that thehistories were to call the War of 1812.
Cicely, for all her thirteen years, looked very small, sitting thereat the end of the long table, in her "sprigged" high-waisted gown, herfeet in their strapped slippers perched on the rung of the high officestool. She had just taken up her pen to begin writing again when thevoices of the two men by the fire rose so suddenly that she droppedit, startled. Her father's tone fell almost immediately to strainedquiet, but Martin Hallowell, his partner, went on with angryinsistence. She knew him to be hot-headed and impetuous, but she hadnever heard such words from him before.
With a quick, eager motion that was the embodiment of impatient greed,Martin was running his finger down the columns of the ledger beforehim.
"There is no ship like a privateer, and no privateer like the_Huntress_," he was saying. "Send her on one more voyage and we shallbe rich men."
There was an ugly tremor in his voice, that quavered and broke inspite of his attempts to keep it calm.
"I do not care to be one of those who gathers riches from a war,"returned Reuben Hallowell, Cicely's father. There was something in thedry calm of his answer that seemed to stir Martin to uncontrollableanger.
"It is like you, Reuben Hallowell," he said, "to be willing to ruin myplans by your foolish scruples just when a real prize is within reach.But I vow you shall not do it. You shall be a wealthy man in spite ofyourself, and let me remind you that, two years ago, before we builtthe _Huntress_, you were a precious poor one."
The Hallowell partners were not brothers, but cousins, with Cicely'sfather much the older of the two. They had inherited the business fromtheir fathers, for such an ill-assorted pair would never have beenjoined together from choice. Many of their discussions ended in stormywords, but never before had Martin's dark face showed such white-hot,quivering rage as when he arose now, gathered up his papers, and wentaway to his own room, closing the door smartly behind him. Cicely gotup also and went down the long countingroom to where her father sat bythe fire.
"I heard what you and Cousin Martin were saying," she told himhesitatingly, "I am afraid you did not remember that I was there. Butit does not matter, for I did not understand what Cousin Martin was soangry about."
"There is no reason why you should not understand," her fatherreplied, rather slowly and wearily, she thought, "although sometimesI am not certain that I understand these troubled times myself. Acrossthe seas the Emperor Napoleon, a long-nosed, short-bodied man ofinfinite genius for setting the world by the ears, has been warringwith England for the last ten years and more. He and the British, withtheir blockades and embargoes and Orders in Council have long beenstriving to ruin each other, yet have achieved their greatest successin ruining a peaceable old gentleman in America who relies on hisships to bring him a livelihood. To oppress neutral shipping leads inthe end to war, although I vow that often Congress must have felt thatit should toss up a penny to determine whether the declaration shouldbe against France or England. Some stubborn British minister, however,decided to countenance the stealing of sailors from our ships to fillup the scanty crews of their own navy, and a stubborn British nationfelt that it must back him, so in the end the war was with England."
"And have we not won many glorious victories?" asked Cicely.
"Ay, there have been victories; out of her fleet of seven hundred andthirty sail, England has lost a handful to us and we have shown howsmall our navy is and how great is its spirit. There have beenpassages of arms on land, also, of which we do not love to talk. Andwe have sent out our privateer vessels, armed ships that prey uponEngland's commerce, yet do not belong to our navy. They have donegreat things, have cut deep into England's overseas trade, and havebrought home many a valuable prize to fill the pockets of theirowners. Such a vessel is our _Huntress_, built at your Cousin Martin'sinstigation and launched at the moment when our fortunes were at theirlowest ebb. Since we had not sufficient funds to equip her, nearlyevery one in this town put money into her, from John Harwood theminister down to Jack Marvin who digs our garden. It was a patrioticventure and a risky one, but she has brought home great profits inprize money and our own share has reestablished the firm of Hallowell.Your Cousin Martin says that one more voyage will bring us not onlyprofit, but real wealth. But I say," he struck his hand suddenly uponthe table, "I say that there shall not be another."
"Why?" The question was startled from Cicely by his sudden vehemence,yet it was not from him that she was to receive the answer. The dooropened to admit Martin Hallowell, who had come back, apparently, for alast word.
"You say," he began at once, "that the _Huntress_ needs refitting andcannot be made seaworthy in less than a month?"
His partner nodded.
"I say that she shall sail in a week," declared Martin.
"And I say no," cried Reuben Hallowell.
"You say, too, that the war is nearly over, that the Peace Commissionis sitting at Ghent, and that rumors are coming home that they arenear to an agreement. That is your excuse for wishing to keep ourprivateers at home. You are a foolish and an overscrupulous man,Reuben Hallowell, for I say that such a reason makes all the morehaste for her to be gone. We should reap what profit we can whilethere is yet time." He leaned forward, his dark, eager face close totheirs, all caution forgotten in the intensity of his purpose. "Onceat sea the _Huntress_ is beyond reach of tidings or orders. If sheshould take her last and richest prizes a little after peace has beende
clared, who will ever know it?"
He was silent and stood staring at them with unwavering, defiant eyes.Cicely could hear her sharply drawn breath as she waited for herfather to answer.
"We are partners no longer, Martin Hallowell," he said. "We were notborn to work together and it is clear that we have come to the partingof the ways. To-morrow we will make division of our holdings, for Itell you plainly that I will have no more to do with you and yourdishonest schemes."
"It shall be as you say," Martin agreed, quick to press home anadvantage. "And since it was I who urged the building and launching ofthe _Huntress_, it is only proper that she should fall to my share.She shall sail this day week, as I have told you. And you, my dearcousin, for your effort to stop her, shall soon be a most regretfulman."
He went out, this time closing the door very gently behind him. Theechoes of his vague threat seemed to hang in the great room long afterhe was gone.
"What--what can he do?" questioned Cicely.
Her father, with a visible effort, answered cheerfully, "An angry manloves to threaten, but we have naught to fear from him. And now," hegathered the big ledger under his arm, "I must work for a little inthe countingroom and then we will go home."
Cicely, left alone, went back to fetch her letters and stopped for amoment at one of the long windows to look down upon the harbor wherethe _Huntress_ dipped and swayed at anchor, a stately, beautiful thingthat seemed to quiver with life as she rocked in the choppy seas, hershimmering reflection, beginning to be colored by the sunset, rockingand dancing with her.
"Oh, I must draw it," cried Cicely, catching up a sheet of freshpaper. "If only the light holds and the ship does not swing round withthe tide!"
The minutes passed while she worked eagerly, but finally was forced tolay down her pencil, unable to see more in the dusk. The door flewopen and some one came in with the impulsive rush that belonged onlyto her brother Alan.
"What, Cicely, still here and trying to draw in the dark? Let me seewhat you have done," he exclaimed. He lit a candle and examined thepaper. "I vow, that is good. Oh, Cicely, that _Huntress_ is awonderful ship!"
For some reason there was a cold clutch at Cicely's heart.
"Yes?" she answered faintly.
"I have just had such a talk with Cousin Martin," the boy went onexcitedly. "I did not quite understand the way of it, but he said thathe and my father were to divide, and that the _Huntress_ was to be hisown, entire. He wants me to go with her on her next voyage. He saysthe war is not nearly done and that there will be many months offighting and prize-taking still. He thinks a great fellow of sixteenlike me should have been a ship's officer long ago, and I think so,too. What a good fellow Cousin Martin is!"
Alan admired his elder cousin greatly, Cicely well knew, and he had,indeed, a touch of the same excitable, headstrong nature. She couldwell understand how Martin Hallowell had dazzled the boy with tales ofwhat he would see and do. Had there been such a plan in her cousin'smind when he first uttered his threat against her father? Or had itonly flashed upon him as he met Alan running up the stairs, eager,vigorous, and ready for any adventure?
"It is all arranged," declared Alan, "except just to tell my father."
"No, no," she cried wildly, but he did not even listen.
"I will go in and speak to him now," he said. She could not even cryout as the door closed behind him.
Alan had his father's stern and steady pride, but there weredifferences of temperament that led to frequent clashes of willbetween them. Reuben Hallowell loved both his motherless children, buthe understood his son less well than his daughter. What would be theresult of that interview, Cicely wondered, sitting quaking beside thecandle that burned so lonely in the gloom. Would her father know howto be firm and patient, how to undo the harm that Martin Hallowell hadwrought? It seemed, as she sat there, shivering, that she could notendure the suspense.
She had not long to wait. The door banged open and Alan stood for amoment on the threshold.
"My father forbids my sailing on the _Huntress_. I have told him Ishould go in spite of him," he said.
He walked away along the corridor and down the stone steps, his feetquicker and lighter than Martin Hallowell's but his footstepssounding, in some vague, terrible way, like his cousin's as he strodeout and down the stairs.
Her father came in a moment later.
"You should have been at home long since this, my child," was all hesaid, and they went out together, without further talk of the matter,into the sharp air of the snowy night.
At the corner of the steep, narrow street, Cicely caught sight ofMartin Hallowell talking to a man whom she recognized as an oldseaman who had sailed for years upon the Hallowell ships. SomethingMartin had said must have angered the sailor, for he was talkingloudly, regardless of who might hear.
"No," the old man was saying, "there's not every one in the world willdo your bidding, though you may think so. You can defy the old one andtalk over the young one to go your way, but there's one man will notsail on any ship of yours and that's Ben Barton. I'll starve ashorefirst."
Cicely's quick ear caught his words as she and her father passed by onthe other side of the snow-muffled street. It did not seem that ReubenHallowell had heard.
One day passed, two, three, four days, and Cicely's one thought wasthat the _Huntress_ was to sail in seven. Workmen were swarming allover her like bees, hammering, calking, and painting, yet it was plainthat they could not do in a week what needed a month to finish. Alanwas at the wharf all day, holding frequent conferences with hiscousin. Reuben Hallowell went to and fro among the townspeople, urgingthem to say that the ship in which they were part owners must abide athome. But either because they were less sure of peace than he, orbecause their eyes were blinded by past good fortune and hopes offuture gain, they would not listen. Between father and son no wordswere passed, since each was waiting for the other's stubborn pride togive way.
On the fifth day Cicely had gone out to ride, on a clear, snowyafternoon, with the white world shining before her and with thehighway iron-hard under the horses' feet. She missed Alan sorely, forthis was their favorite road, up the valley to the west of the town,as far as the round bare hill with the single oak tree that they likedto call theirs. The servant with her had dropped behind, and she wasjust turning her horse into the bypath leading to the hill when shesaw a sturdy figure coming down the slope. The brown face, tattooedhands, and the small bundle of possessions done up in a bluehandkerchief could only be a sailor's, a sailor who proved to be BenBarton.
"I'm going to the next seaport to find another berth, since I'verefused to sail on the _Huntress_," he explained in answer to herquestions. "Mr. Martin has had to get a new skipper and a new crew,for none of the old hands would sail when they heard it was againstyour father's wishes. There was a bark came in from Delaware to belaid up for repairs, with mostly Swedes aboard, and they have mannedthe _Huntress_ from her. The ship is to sail on Friday at midnight,with the turning tide, but she goes without Ben Barton."
He dropped his voice and came nearer.
"I will tell you this--though I should not," he said. "There's someone to join at the last minute, who will get into a boat waiting atthe wharf in the dark, some one you love, miss, who ought to bestopping ashore with the rest of us. You should find some way to keephim back."
"Oh, if I only could!" she cried.
"There's only you can do it," he answered. "Hallowell blood can onlybe ruled by Hallowell blood, as we say on Hallowell ships. Well, I'llbe going on again. I had climbed the path, there, to take one morelook at the harbor, where you can see it between the hills. Maybe yourfather will find a place for me when his vessels go to sea for tradeagain, and I'll never forget him nor you, Miss Cicely. Do you rememberhow you and your brother once hid under the wharf, and called out fromthat echoing place as though you were lost souls out of the sea? Therewas one honest old sailorman that nearly lost his wits for terror,since we seafaring folk have no love for ghosts. Mark my wo
rds, therewill no good come to the _Huntress_ from setting sail of a Friday. Forthat alone I would stay ashore though there's other things to hold me,too."
He strode away down the snowy road, leaving Cicely, smiling at firstat the recollection of that game that had so frightened him when sheand her brother had played at ghosts, then grave in a moment when shethought how soon that brother was to be gone. On Friday, the day afterto-morrow, he would sail unless she could stop him. But how couldshe?
The next day she made the desperate effort of appealing to her father,but quite in vain. Reuben Hallowell would not believe either that the_Huntress_ would sail or that his son would go with her.
"And if Alan wishes to cut himself off from his own people forever,let him," he said finally, unable to endure the thought that any oneshould dare to defy his will. Friday came, the shadows of Friday nightstole through the big house, yet nothing had been done.
Cicely sat by the fire in her chintz-hung bedroom, leaning backagainst the flowered cushion of the big armchair, gazing into theflames. In the next room she could hear vague sounds of Alan'spreparations, feet going to and fro, a door opening and closing, apair of heavy boots dropped upon the floor. The night was darkoutside, with a blustering wind and occasional flurries of snow thatstruck sharply against the window.
It was ten o'clock. The sounds had ceased as though Alan had finishedmaking ready and was waiting, perhaps sitting silent in the dark,perhaps lying down for an hour or two of sleep before the fateful hourof the high tide. Cicely heard her father, below, barring the door,putting out the candles, making ready for a night that would surelybring him no sleep. Presently he passed her door, glanced inside, andcame in to stand for a minute beside her fire. How worn he had grownto look just within the space of this last week! He said scarcely aword; it was as though his unhappiness merely craved company andshrank from the knowledge of what the night might bring.
At last he said, "You should be in bed. Good night, my dear."
As he went out he turned to look back at her with a glance of haggard,helpless misery. It was as though he said:
"My pride has bound and stifled me. I cannot speak a word to stop him,but won't you, can't you, persuade him, somehow, not to go?"
Very carefully and without a sound, Cicely rose and went to hercloset, to take down her warm fur cloak. She had realized, in themoment of seeing her father's pleading look, that she had a plan, onethat had been in her mind ever since the day that she had talked withBen Barton. What she had really lacked was courage to put it intoexecution. Yet now, as she drew the cloak about her and pulled downher hood, her hands did not even tremble, nor did her determinationfalter. The house was absolutely still as she stole noiselessly downthe stairs and slipped out of the door.
For a girl who had almost never been allowed upon the street alone,the wintry night should have been full of terrors, but to Cicely theymeant nothing. As she ran down the steep High Street with the galeblustering behind her, she saw things that she had never believedexisted--a burly waterman quarreling with his wife behind a dirtylighted window, the open door of a tavern showing a candle-lit roomwith a crowd of shouting sailors drinking within, a furtive blackshadow that skulked into an alleyway and remained there, silent andhidden, as she passed.
She reached the wharves at last, where the wind was stronger and wherethe waves slapped and dashed against the barnacled piles, throwingtheir spray against the windows of the locked warehouses. Even now shedid not hesitate. She ran, a gray, flitting form, across the openspace at the head of the wharf and disappeared.
There was a wait of a few minutes, then came the dip of oars throughthe dark and the sound of men's voices talking above the high wind.Martin Hallowell was coming ashore in the boat that was to carry Alanaway. Beyond them, the lights of the _Huntress_ showed where she wasgetting up sail. Martin made the landing with some difficulty, climbedthe ladder to the wharf, and stood bracing himself against the heavywind.
"We are a little early," he said. "Hold fast there with the boat hook.He will be here in a----"
His voice was drowned by a strange sound, an unearthly wailing thatseemed to rise from the water beneath, but which filled the air untilthere was no saying from what direction it came. It lifted anddropped, hung sobbing and echoing above the water, then died away.
"Holy St. Anthony help us!" cried the nearest sailor. "It is the soulof some poor drowned creature caught among the weeds."
"Give way," roared the man at the rudder, and with one accord the oarsdropped into the water.
"Stop, wait! It--it is nothing, you fools," cried Martin Hallowell,but his own voice quavered with terror, and carried little reassuranceto the frightened men.
The boat hung doubtfully a ship's length from the pier, the oarsdipping to hold it into the wind, the men hesitating, ashamed of theirterror yet fearing to come closer. Again the cry broke forth,resounding again and again, mingling in terrible, ghostly fashion withthe splashing and gurgling of the water. The boat shot away into thedark, just as Alan came running down the wharf, shouting to them tocome back. The sailors, however, bent to their oars, unheeding; thelantern in the stern dipped and jerked as they rowed away, and thelight finally went out of sight as the boat drew alongside the_Huntress_. It was just possible to make out the big ship as sheweighed anchor and, rolling and plunging, moved slowly out into thetideway.
"She's gone--without me!" cried Alan. "Oh, they might have come back,the cowards!"
"Did you hear that--that terrible sound?" asked Martin Hallowell. In asecond's pause between the breaking of two waves, it was possible tohear his teeth chatter.
"Terrible!" cried Alan in disgust. "That was only my sister Cicely,hiding under the wharf. It was a game we once played to frighten BenBarton. Come out," he ordered sternly, kneeling down and thrusting anarm into the dark space to help her.
Out Cicely came, wet and shivering, with her hair streaked with mudand her hands scratched and cut by the sharp barnacles. Her faceshowed white in the dark as she looked up appealingly at her brother,but he turned from her without a sign. Before she could follow him,Martin Hallowell had seized her by the arm.
"You?" he cried. "You?"
He shook her until she was dizzy, until the dark, windy world spunbefore her eyes, he cried out at her with a terrible voice and withwords that she only half understood. All the rage stored up within himduring his bitter struggle to get his ship under way, all the baffledhopes of his small-spirited revenge, all the shame for his recentterror broke forth into blind fury against the girl who had stood inhis way.
"I will teach you," he shouted, grasping her arm tighter until shewinced with pain, "I will show you that you can't----"
His words were cut short by a stinging blow across the mouth fromwhich he staggered back, dropping Cicely's arm and staring in gapingastonishment at his assailant.
"That is my sister," said Alan, very stiff and quiet and suddenly verylike his father. "Whatever she has done you are not to touch her. Shehas ruined my chance of sailing with the _Huntress_, but at least shehas shown me what--what you are, Martin Hallowell."
With his arm about Cicely, Alan went down the pier, while Martin,confounded and silenced, stood staring after them. The two saidnothing as they climbed the High Street, although much must have beenpassing in the boy's mind. As he pushed open their own door and cameinto the dusky hallway he spoke for the first time.
"Can you wait here by the fire a minute, Cicely? I am going up firstto--to tell my father what a fool I have been."
* * * * *
The weeks of winter passed, news came that peace had been signed onChristmas Eve, one after another the ships of war came stragglinghome. Some had taken prizes, all had been harried by the winterstorms--and none brought news of the _Huntress_. One Carolina vesselthat put in for repairs told of picking up a crew adrift in boats andof setting them aboard a ship bound for Chesapeake Bay and the coastof Delaware.
"They were most of them Swedes," the sail
ors told Alan, "and they werenot very willing to talk of the ship they had lost, but it might havebeen the _Huntress_."
Reuben Hallowell was straining all his resources to send his idleships to sea and to reestablish the trade of peace. Yet when he urgedhis fellow townsmen to strive to gain the commerce America had lost,lest it be gone forever, they still hung back.
"We must know first where we stand," they said. "There is hope stillthat we have not lost the _Huntress_ and that she will come to portwith fortune for us all."
A stormy February passed and there came at last a gusty day of March.It was a Sunday, with the air clean after a shower, and with all thetownspeople moving down the High Street from their churches at thehour of noon. There had been a tempest of wind and rain, but it hadcleared leaving the waters still gray but with the sky turning toblue. Cicely was among the first, walking with her father and brother,and had stopped, as they came to their own door, to glance down at theharbor laid out in a circle of moving blue water below them.
"Oh, look, look!" she cried suddenly.
A ship was sailing slowly up the bay, a stately ship that dipped alittle and rose again as she came, but held her course steady for thewharves. Her sails shone white in the fitful sun, the lines of herhull showed dark against the gray water, the tracery of her riggingand even the colors of her flag were distinct against the sky, andyet--she did not seem like any ship they had ever seen before. Cicelyhaving drawn that vessel, line for line, masts, hull, ropes, andspars, knew that this was the _Huntress_, yet what was so strangeabout her? Why was she so steady in those changing gusts of wind, whatwas there that made her sails so shining and transparent, like thetexture of a cloud?
The girl was aware that, among the crowd that had gathered to watchthe strange vision, Martin Hallowell was pushing to the front, gazingwith all his eyes. Ben Barton, too, who had come back the week before,to ask for a place on Reuben Hallowell's ships, was pressing close toAlan's elbow.
"The wind's dead off shore and here she comes straight in," she heardthe old sailor mutter. "Not even the _Huntress_ could sail like that.And yet it is the _Huntress_ right enough."
The vessel came nearer and nearer, then of a sudden stopped, quivered,as though struck by a violent adverse wind. Her main topsail blew outsuddenly and went streaming forth in the gale, a jib split to ribbonsbefore their eyes, and spar after spar was carried away. She careened,as though before a hurricane, her foremast came down with a soundlesssmother of sail and wreckage. Further and further she tilted, and thensuddenly she had vanished and there was nothing left but the Marchsunshine and the tossing, empty bay.
The crowd stood breathless, waiting for some one to speak. It wasonly Ben Barton who was able to find his voice.
"I've heard of such things before," he said. "The wise skippers allsay it is a mirage, but the wiser sailormen say it is a message fromanother world. She's gone, our _Huntress_ is, and there's no windunder heaven will ever blow her home again."
Martin Hallowell had swung on his heel and was walking away down thestreet facing the fact, finally, that his venture was at an end. Atall man with dangling watch seals edged up to Cicely's father.
"I am satisfied at last, Reuben Hallowell, that our ship is lost," hesaid. "We did wrong to wait for war to make our fortunes, and it ishigh time that we went back to the lesser risks and the smaller gainsof peace. Will you let me join in lading your next vessel? You are theonly man among us who has known when a war ends and peace begins."
"I'm thinking there will be some tall ships sailing out of this portsoon," said Ben Barton, speaking low to Cicily and Alan. "It will beon a better craft than the _Huntress_ even that your brother will beofficer before long. What seas we'll cruise, he and I, and whattreasures we'll bring back to you, Miss Cicely. I'd go with the son ofReuben Hallowell to the ends of the earth--if only he never asks me toput to sea of a Friday!"