The end is approaching, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, third owner and captain of the ill-starred Gretchen B., formerly known as the Dutch Avenger, will shortly find a watery grave in sixty-eight fathoms of the Atlantic, ninety miles west of the rock of Gibraltar.
The Gretchen B. is sinking, and the pirate ghost is at last a victor, though I have given him a pretty fight these many days. Had it not been for my own stupidity in employing a foreign crew, all might yet be well, and I am impelled in my last moments, for we are sure to go to the bottom within two hours, to write out this story merely in the hope that it may some day reach my fellow-men, tell them of my horrible fate, and possibly warn them against my errors. If I had stuck to my own countrymen, if I had employed Hans Stickenfurst and good old Diedrich Foutzenhickle and their like for my officers and crew, instead of the idiot Pat Sullivan and his twin, Barney O'Brien, and others of that ilk, I should now be nearing port that I shall never reach, instead of sinking, slowly sinking, into the mysterious depths of the great ocean.
I have locked myself within my cabin so as to be free from interruption, and it is highly probable that, having tightly closed my port and calked up the door-cracks and key-hole, I shall be able to gain an extra hour for the writing of this tale even after the Gretchen B. has disappeared beneath the waves, to be hid forevermore from the eyes of man. When the tale is finished I shall place it within my trusty water-bottle, open the port, thrust it forth into the sea, and trust to Heaven that it may rise to the surface and ultimately make some port where it may be read and published, I devoutly hope, by some house of standing.
And now, as every story should begin at the beginning, let me go back to the time when I first took charge of the Gretchen B. It was five years agone, on the 7th day of May, 1635, that the Gretchen B. was purchased by her present owners, and I, Rudolf Hammerpestle, of Bingen, appointed her commander. It was with a light heart, a full crew, and sixty barrels of Schnitzelhammerstein claret that I set out from Bingen on the 27th day of May, 1635, for London, where the claret was to be sold to the public as medicinal port—its nutty flavor, its bouquet, and other properties favoring the illusion. All went well with us until we reached the sea, when one night, after our second day on the ocean, feeling faint from the effects of the sun, for I had had a hard day of it, I tapped one of the barrels of my cargo for a taste of the claret. Understand, I was not in any sense taking away from the full measure which was due to the purchaser in London, for I intended to replace what I had taken with water—so slight in quantity, too, as not to affect the flavor appreciably. Imagine my consternation to find the liquid turned sour and thin—so thin that under no circumstances could it ever pass muster as medicinal port. I was horrified. Ours had always been an honorable firm. What was to be done? My employers' reputation was at stake. If that claret had ever been delivered at London as port they were ruined. I determined to run the Gretchen B. to Naples, and there dispose of my cargo as Chianti, to which, with the infusion of a little whale-oil for appearance' sake, it could be made to bear a remarkable resemblance.
This done, I retired to my cabin to reflect. What could it have been that had wrought such a change, for on leaving Bingen the wine was sweet and good? I locked my door so as to be undisturbed, for I cannot think when there are others about; but hardly had I seated myself at my table when, upon the honor of a sea-captain, a ruffianly person, noiseless as a cat, walked through the massive oaken barrier I had but just fastened to!
"Who—what are you?" I cried, aghast, the spectral quality of the apparition being at once manifest.
"Oh!" he retorted. "It seems to me it's more to the point for me to ask that question. You are the interloper."
"It is my cabin," I said, indignantly.
"Oh, is it?" he sneered. "Since when?"
"Since the seventh day of May," I replied. "I am the commander of this craft."