“Was it hard to make up your mind to stay ashore?” asked Billy. He was watching the bank of clouds that had spread across the western sky and praying the Captain would keep on talking. The sun had begun to dip into the mass of heavy grey, and was sending up long shafts of red-gold light.
“It wasn’t so bad the day the doctor told me that I could never go out of port again,” Captain Saulsby said; “the hard life had done for me and the sharp sea winds had bitten so deep into my bones that I knew, long before he said so, that my usefulness was done. No, the end really came a year before when I found, all of a sudden, that the sailor I thought I was, the Ned Saulsby who could face any hardship, do any duty without faltering and without tiring, that he was gone as completely as though he had died.
“It was on the schooner Mary Jameson, bound out of Portland with lumber and coal. We had had fearful weather for three days out, blowing so hard that there was no peace or rest for any one. We were all dog-tired and could have slept where we stood, but the wind was still up and it wasn’t easy going yet. It was my watch and I was dropping with sleepiness and weariness, but so I had been many times before and it was part of being a good sailor to be able to keep awake. I stood peering and peering into the dark, my eyes trying to go shut, but my whole will set to keep them open. All of a sudden, as I stood there looking, I saw a full-rigged ship dead ahead of us, every sail spread out to the wind, her bow-wave slanting sharp out on each side from her cut-water, her wake showing clear in a white line of foam. She was so near I could see the men moving on her decks, could see her open hatchways and the flag flying from her main truck. We were right in line to ram her amidships; it seemed we couldn’t miss her except by a miracle. I roared to the man at the wheel, ‘Port your helm, port your helm, put her hard over,’ and the schooner came about with a rush that almost capsized her. The captain ran up on deck, the men turned out of their bunks and came swarming up from below, all wanting to know what the matter was. I told them about the ship and turned to point her out—but she wasn’t there! The clouds parted just then and the moon came out, just to show that the sea was empty for miles on every side, and that old Ned Saulsby had been sleeping on watch. Of course if I had thought two seconds I would have known that never a ship on earth would have all sail set in such a wind as that, but I had not stopped to think.”
“Why,” gasped Billy, “it must have been the Flying Dutchman.”
“Why,” gasped Billy, “it must have been the Flying Dutchman.”
“Some of the men whispered around that it might have been just that ship, but the captain knew better and so did I. It was only a dream and I had been asleep when I had no business to be, and if I had done it once I would do it again. If I had been young it would have been different, when lads aren’t used to standing watch such a thing may happen and we know they’ll learn better, but when an old sailor does it he can be sure of just one thing: his days at sea are near their end. I left the Mary Jameson at the next port, before the captain could turn me off. I knocked about for nearly a year, trying one berth and then another, falling lower and lower, and knowing I was failing in my duty whatever I tried to do. So at last I came limping into the harbour of Appledore Island and I knew, when I stepped ashore, that I would never set sail again.”
Captain Saulsby finished his story and shifted warily in his place. He glanced over his shoulder at the rising bank of clouds, but betrayed no surprise.
“I knew by the feel of the wind that some such thing was coming,” he said calmly. “If somebody’s going to pick us up in time they’ll have to hurry a bit.”
He made one or two efforts to talk further, but the pauses between his sentences became longer and longer. Billy suddenly realized that each had been trying to keep the other interested so that the ominous bank of clouds might go as long as possible unnoticed. He observed that the old sailor seemed very weary, that more than once his hands slipped from their hold and had to take a fresh grip. He tried to whistle to keep up the spirits of both of them, but the tune sounded high and queer and cracked, and he gave it up. At last Captain Saulsby broke silence suddenly.