Foxholme Hall, and Other Tales

by William Henry Giles Kingston

“It was in the middle watch, and the captain had just joined me on deck, when one of the look-outs shouted, ‘Land on the starboard bow.’ The startling cry was echoed through the ship, and every man sprang on deck. We were clearly in dangerous proximity to the coast, and with the foreboding of mischief on the minds of all, many thought that our time had arrived. All eyes were directed anxiously towards the coast, which every instant was growing more distinct. The wheel was kept a few spokes more to starboard, but we could not venture to haul the ship more up lest she should broach to, and as no land appeared ahead, we hoped to be able, if it were Cape Horn we saw, to scrape round it; at all events a short time would decide our fate.

“The captain went into the cabin with me to consult the chart, and we had every reason to hope that the land we saw was the southernmost part of Cape Horn. When we returned on deck we had drawn awfully near the coast, but it was broad on our starboard beam.

”‘We shall be round the Cape in another half hour,’ exclaimed the captain in a cheerful tone, ‘and then, my lads, we shall be clear of the accursed witch and her devilish tricks.’

“I do not know what madness induced him to remind the people of the old hag; it showed what his own mind was running on, notwithstanding all his pretended indifference and disbelief. At all events he had better have let the subject alone; for at that instant, as if to refute his assertion, a roll of thunder, louder than was ever heard before, sounded in our ears, and in a blaze of forked lightning which flashed continually from the skies, the old woman herself was seen, increased into gigantic proportions, standing on a lofty rock at the very southernmost point of the Cape, exactly as she had appeared on the pier at Liverpool, and waving round in the air her long twisted staff, about which the most vivid flashes played in fiery circles. Her face full of malignant fury, lighted up as now, was of a livid hue, her garments and her grey looks streamed in the wind, and as she pointed towards the western ocean she seemed by her gestures to threaten us with further mishaps. Her lips moved and gibbered, but if she spoke, not a sound reached us.

“We had two of the guns mounted, and on beholding the terrific figure, Derick ordered one of them to be loaded and run out.

”‘I’ll see what impression a cannon ball can make on her,’ he exclaimed, in a voice of mingled excitement, rage, and horror. ‘Bring a lighted match here, one of you.’

“While the match was being brought, he stood eyeing the witch with a look of defiance. He seized the light eagerly from the hand of a seaman, and though, as you may suppose, in the tremendous way the ship was rolling and pitching, it was impossible to take an aim, he fired. The gun went off with an explosion louder than I ever heard before, and a flash far more vivid. The noise was answered by a shriek of mocking laughter, and the flash only served to show still more clearly the hideous figure of the witch, jeering at us and threatening us with her staff.

“Onward we rushed, and while the lightning lasted there she was seen as clearly, I tell you, as we had seen her at home. When the lightning ceased, the darkness of the night shut her out from our sight, but some even then affirmed that they saw the dim outline of her form against the northern sky.

“Not a man on board turned in again that night, you may be sure, but all the watch who should have been below shrunk together in knots uttering their forebodings to each other, and earnestly wishing for the return of day. The longest night must have an end, and so had this, and, as the morning broke, the wind settled down into a moderate gale, which sent as forward on our course at the rate of twelve knots an hour.

“The land was no longer in sight, the glorious sun came out bright and warm, and cheered our hearts, and we almost forgot the terrors of the night. I said that Mrs Derick had not witnessed the sight we had, but from her husband’s manner, when he went below, she discovered that there was something wrong, and she would not rest till he had told her. He, as usual, tried to laugh it off, and to declare that there was nothing in it, but I saw that she was not satisfied, and that the circumstance was preying sadly on her mind.