The tension increased. All felt that something was about to happen. No man so much as whispered now, or stirred hand or foot; I could hear the beating of my heart. And while we thus stood, the apparition came.
“Hist! Hist! Merciful God!”
It was a shrouded human figure whose stature reached the clouds; and it arose and stood forth upon the shore of the island. The flowing garments of the figure were white like snow, and glistening.
For a moment, it stood motionless; then, as it should seem, a covering fell from the head of it, revealing a visage that sometimes, even now, returns to me in sleep, and is a terror of the midnight, so that I start from that nightmare shaking and gasping, a scream upon my lips!
The eyes of the figure were fixed upon us. We stood like men turned to stone.
There was a little ship’s boy there, and his reason was not of strength to bear it; so that he gave a shriek at that prodigy, and went stark raving mad. And on that, my brother collected himself.
He looked upon the poor crazy lad, and then away again at the horrid thing to starboard; and he rapped out an oath that was one of the pleasantest sounds I ever heard. Then, swinging round upon the horror-struck mariners, “To quarters!” roared he. “To quarters, Wallis! Give it a broadside, the devil’s thing! Smite it in its devil’s face! Give it iron—iron, by thunder!”
And immediately, like men loosed from enchantment, they sprang to life. They stamped upon the deck; they shouted curses and defiance, shaking their clenched fists to the island and the apparition there; and, when the gunners went in a frenzy of haste to their stations, the rest followed them, helping and exhorting them in the work.
Soon all was in readiness, the gunners standing to their pieces, the muzzles of twenty cannon trained upon the Thing, which continued to stand motionless.
And now the command was given. The ship leaped and leaped again as the broadside blazed along, and volume upon volume of cannon-smoke hid all.