“I saw the sky for a second, if that’s what you mean; and I don’t at all like the look o’t; I’ve never see’d a sky quite like that avore—” answered Dyer.
“No, neither have I,” interrupted George; “and I like the look of it as little as yourself. I believe it means that a hurricane is brewing. But I was not referring to the sky. At the moment when that gleam of lightning came I fancied that I felt something sweep through the air just above my head, and—”
“Hush! hark! what be that?” interrupted Dyer in his turn, placing a restraining hand on George’s arm as he spoke, and in the silence that ensued there came to their ears from behind them a low, intermittent, grating sound, like—like what? Well, as much like some rough substance being slowly dragged over the poop rail, immediately behind them, as anything to which they could compare it.
“Who be you, and what be ’e doin’ there?” demanded Dyer, dashing across the deck. But he was just too late, for a moment before he reached the rail the sound ceased, and he found nothing. But the horrible odour—something between putrid fish and decaying seaweed—was stronger than ever.
“You, bo’s’un, haul up thicky lantern and bring un along here, quick,” yelled Dyer. “Whatever ’tis that’s raising this here smell, ’tis alongside the ship, and ’tis alive! And come up here, half a dozen o’ you men down there in the waist—and bring axes wi’ ye.”
The boatswain quickly hauled up his lantern, and, accompanied by some ten or a dozen of the bolder spirits among the crew—the latter having hastily armed themselves with axes and pikes from the racks—hurried up to the poop, and a few moments later George and Dyer were curiously examining with the aid of the lantern’s feeble light certain fresh excoriations on the poop rail which looked as though they might have been produced by a large and very coarse rasp forcibly drawn over it, while the men with pikes and axes crowded close up behind them, peering eagerly over their shoulders. They were still thus engaged when there suddenly flashed up over the rail a long slim, snake-like object, the precise nature of which it was impossible to determine in the intense darkness only faintly dissipated by the inefficient light of the lantern, and while all hands stood gaping dazedly at it the thing curled in over the rail, lightly touched the boatswain upon the chest, and instantly with a lightning-like movement coiled itself tightly about his body, encircling his arms and shoulders.
The man gave vent to a yell of dismay as he felt the coil of the horrible thing tighten round him, and the next instant screamed, in a voice hoarse and sharpened by terror:
“He’ve a-got me! He’ve a-got me and ’s dragging of me overside! Hold on to me, dear souls, and don’t let mun take me. Oh! I be goin’—he’m squeezin’ the very life out o’ me—save me, shipmates, save—”
Crunch! George had snatched an axe out of the hand of one of the paralysed seamen near him and, exerting all his strength, had brought it down upon the writhing, straining thing where it crossed the stout timber rail of the poop, with the result that the keen blade had completely severed the thing, and the boatswain, with some eight or nine feet of the creature still clinging to his body, and the three men who had seized him in response to his terrified cries, went reeling backward from the rail and fell together in a heap upon the deck, taking the lantern with them, which was smashed and extinguished by the fall. At the same moment a terrific commotion arose in the water alongside, George received a violent blow which swept him off his feet and flung him heavily to the deck, and two men shrieked out the startling news that the thing—whatever it was—had got them and was dragging them overside, while confusion reigned supreme, not only on the poop, where a general stampede ensued, but also down on the main deck, where men were hastily arming themselves in defence from—they knew not what. And the sickening odour which had first announced the presence of the creature arose with redoubled strength, pervading the ship from end to end.
For perhaps five or six minutes the confusion and panic aboard the Nonsuch was of a character to defy description; men rushed, yelling, hither and thither in the darkness, colliding with each other and screaming under the impression that the convulsive embrace of their shipmates was the encircling grip of the unknown monster, heavy blows resounded here and there upon the deck, as though a giant cable was threshing the planking, causing the ship to quiver from stem to stern, the two men actually caught in the coils of the creature were shrieking horribly as they clung with tenacious grip to the rail over which they were being inexorably dragged; and over all rose the voice of Dyer calling for more lanterns.