‘Keep a sharp lookout forward there!’—‘Lifeboat’s crew, fall in aft!’ and we prepared to lower the port quarter-boat, which was told off as a ‘lifeboat’—that is, for any purposes of rescue, although the state of the sea was anything but favourable for boat-duty; but when we thought of that poor boat tossing about on the storm-vexed sea with its freight of shivering and half-drowned men, ay, and maybe a woman or two among them, and then remembered the frowning icebergs and the fearful dangers which they represented, no man hesitated, and had volunteers been called for to man the lifeboat, the whole ship’s company would have come forward. Well can I remember the almost choking feeling of thankfulness in my own heart when I thought of the wild joy of these poor outcasts at the prospect of so speedy a rescue, and anticipated the delight of welcoming them on the quarter-deck of so staunch and safe a ship. But all in a moment my anticipations and my sentiments of gratitude were scattered to the winds.
‘Keep her away, sir! keep her away!’ came a roar from the forecastle. ‘You’ll be right down upon her! A large full-rigged ship right ahead of us!’
Up went our helm, and the ship’s head paid off; and as we strained our eyes in the direction indicated, we could dimly make out, to our intense surprise and unspeakable wonder, the huge, shadowy, ghostly outline of an unusually large vessel. No signs of life appeared about her. The light which had first attracted our notice was now no longer to be seen. Her masts, yards, and sails were only just visible—not as a black hard shadow against the sky, but pale, spectral, as if mere vapour—barely to be discerned, yet leaving no room for doubt. There she sailed, a veritable phantom ship. All hands gazed at her in silence. The blue lights were allowed to burn out, and no fresh ones were lighted. The great guns ceased to thunder on the maindeck. The lifeboat’s crew muttered uneasily among themselves, as if dreading the possibility of being ordered to board so uncanny a craft; while the older hands once more shook their heads, and said ‘they knowed we ’adn’t seen the last of that poor feller as fell overboard.’
But there was nothing more for us to do. Who and what the mysterious stranger hanging on our port quarter was we could not possibly ascertain on such a night, in such a gale; and at length the order was given to ‘Wear ship;’ and we once more turned our back on the vessel which we had been so eagerly pursuing for more than an hour. As we did so, we could see that he too altered his course; his spectral yards, with their shadowy sails, swung round, and he disappeared without a sign in the darkness of the night.
‘Don’t tell me,’ said the boatswain, ‘as that there were a real ship. Didn’t that poor feller disappear suddently just before we sighted her? Answer me that! Well, then—did we ever know what become of him, eh?—No! Very well, then! That there phantom ship was to tell us as how he was drownded, that’s what that were, and nobody shan’t persuade me no other than that.—How do I explain them bright lights? Answer me this: Were them lights ornery lights, such as ship shows at night?—No; of course they weren’t. Corpse lights!—that’s my answer; and when I says corpse-lights, I means it.’
It may have been an honest merchantman, outward-bound, and too intent upon making a speedy voyage to ‘speak’ us, but, nevertheless, the boatswain’s opinion was pretty generally accepted as the correct solution of what was considered to be an ocean mystery.
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