Johnny Ludlow, Second Series

by Mrs. Henry Wood

“But look here, Ferrar,” I interrupted, the recollection striking me. “How came you and Mr. Dan to sail together? You were on a small home-coasting barque: he went in an Indiaman.”

“I was in the barque first of all, Master Johnny, and took a voyage to Spain and back. But our owners, hearing a good report of me, that I was likely to make a smart and steady sailor, put me on their big ship, the Bangalore. In a day or two Mr. Dan Sanker came on board.”

“And how is he getting on? Does he——”

“If you please, Master Johnny, I’d like to tell what I’ve got to tell about him to the Squire,” he interrupted. “It is for that, sir, I have come all the way over here.”

So I called the Squire in. The following was the condensed substance of Ferrar’s narrative. What with his way of telling it, and what with the Squire’s interruptions, it was rather long.

“Mr. Dan joined the Bangalore the day we sailed, sir. When he saw me as one of the sailors he started back as if I shocked him. But in a week or two, when he had got round from his sea-sickness, he grew friendly, and sometimes talked a bit. I used to bring up Master King’s death, and say how sorry I was for it—for you see, sir, I couldn’t bear that he should think it true that I had had a hand in it. But he seemed to hate the subject; he’d walk away if I began it, and at last he said he couldn’t stand the talking about King; so I let it be. Our voyage was a long one, for the ship went about from port to port. Mr. Dan——”

“What sort of a sailor did he make?” interrupted the Squire.

“Well, sir, he was a good smart sailor at his work, but he got to be looked upon as rather a queer kind of young man. He couldn’t bear to keep his night watches—it was too lonely, he said; and several times he fell into trouble for calling up the hands when there was nothing to call them up for. At Hong Kong he had a fever, and they shaved his head; but he got well again. One evening, after we had left Hong Kong and were on our way to San Francisco, I was on deck—almost dark it was—when Mr. Dan comes down the rigging all in a heap, just as if a wild-cat was after him. ‘There’s King up there,’ he says to me: and Mr. Conroy, do what he would, couldn’t get him up again. After that he went about the ship peeping and peering, always fancying King was hiding somewhere and going to pounce out upon him. The captain said his fever was coming back: Mr. Dan said it was not fever, it was King. I told him one day what I thought—that Master King had been flung down; that it was not an accident—I felt as sure of it as though I had seen it done; and what I said seemed to put him up, sir. Who did I fancy had done it, or would do it? he asked me all in anger: and I said I did not know who, but if ever I got back to Worcester I’d leave not a stone unturned to find out. Well, sir, he got worse: worse in his fancies, and worse as to sickness. He was seeing King always at night, and he had dysentery and ague, and grew so weak that he could hardly stand. One of the cabin-boys took sick and died on board. The night he lay below, dead, Mr. Dan burst into the saloon saying it was King who was below, and that he’d never be got out of the ship again. Mr. Conroy—he was the chief mate, sir—humoured him, telling him not to fear, that if it was King he would be buried deep in the sea on the morrow: but Mr. Dan said he’d not stop in the sea, any more than he had stopped in his grave in St. Peter’s churchyard at home; he’d be back in the ship again.”

“Dan Sanker must have been mad,” observed the Squire.

“Yes, sir, I think he was; leastways not right. In a day or two he had to be fastened down in his berth with brain-fever, and Mr. Conroy said that as he had known me in the past days I had better be the one to sit with him, for he couldn’t be left. I was quite taken aback to hear what he said in his mutterings, and hoped it wasn’t true.”