other’s realness, or the quality of realness in the earth, which was real to the other. It’s so difficult to explain. Don’t you understand?”
“Yes,” he said. “Go on!”
“Well, if we were in what I might call a healthy atmosphere, they would be quite beyond our power to see or feel, or anything. And the same with them; but the more we’re like this, the more real and actual they could grow to us. See? That is, the more we should become able to appreciate their form of materialness. That’s all. I can’t make it any clearer.”
“Then, after all, you really think they’re ghosts, or something of that sort?” Tammy said.
“I suppose it does come to that,” I answered. “I mean that, anyway, I don’t think they’re our ideas of flesh and blood. But, of course, it’s silly to say much; and, after all, you must remember that I may be all wrong.”
“I think you ought to tell the Second Mate all this,” he said. “If it’s really as you say, the ship ought to be put into the nearest port, and jolly well burnt.”
“The Second Mate couldn’t do anything,” I replied. “Even if he believed it all; which we’re not certain he would.”
“Perhaps not,” Tammy answered. “But if you could get him to believe it, he might explain the whole business to the Skipper, and then something might be done. It’s not safe as it is.”
“He’d only get jeered at again,” I said, rather hopelessly.
“No,” said Tammy. “Not after what’s happened tonight.”
“Perhaps not,” I replied, doubtfully. And just then the Second Mate came back on to the poop, and Tammy cleared away from the wheel-box, leaving me with a worrying feeling that I ought to do something.
VII
The Coming of the Mist, and that which it Ushered
We buried Williams at midday. Poor beggar! It had been so sudden. All day the men were awed and gloomy, and there was a lot of talk about there being a Jonah aboard. If they’d only known what Tammy and I, and perhaps the Second Mate, knew!
And then the next thing came — the mist. I cannot remember now, whether it was on the day we buried Williams that we first saw it, or the day after.
When first I noticed it, like everybody else aboard, I took it to be some form of haze, due to the heat of the sun; for it was broad daylight when the thing came.
The wind had died away to a light breeze, and I was working at the main rigging, along with Plummer, putting on seizings.
“Looks as if ’twere middlin’ ’ot,” he remarked.
“Yes,” I said; and, for the time, took no further notice.
Presently he spoke again:
“It’s gettin’ quite ’azy!” and his tone showed he was surprised.
I glanced up, quickly. At first, I could see nothing. Then, I saw what he meant. The air had a wavy, strange, unnatural appearance; something like the heated air over the top of an engine’s funnel, that you can often see when no smoke is coming out.
“Must be the heat,” I said. “Though I don’t remember ever seeing anything just like it before.”
“Nor me,” Plummer agreed.
It could not have been a minute later when I looked up again, and was astonished to find that the whole ship was surrounded by a thinnish haze that quite hid the horizon.
“By Jove! Plummer,” I said. “How queer!”
“Yes,” he said, looking round. “I never seen anythin’ like it before — not in these parts.”
“Heat wouldn’t do that!” I said.
“N— no,” he said, doubtfully.
We went on with our work again — occasionally exchanging an odd word or two. Presently, after a little time of silence, I bent forward and asked him to pass me up the spike. He stooped and picked it up from the deck, where it had tumbled. As he held it out to me, I saw the stolid expression on his face, change suddenly to a look of complete surprise. He opened his mouth.
“By gum!” he said. “It’s gone.”
I turned quickly, and looked. And so it had — the whole sea showing clear and bright, right away to the horizon.
I stared at Plummer, and he stared at me.
“Well, I’m blowed!” he exclaimed.
I do not think I made any reply; for I had a sudden, queer feeling that the thing was not right. And then, in a minute, I called myself an ass; but I could not really shake off the feeling. I had another good look at the sea. I had a vague idea that something was different. The sea looked brighter, somehow, and the air clearer, I thought, and I missed something; but not much, you know. And it was not until a couple of days later, that I knew that it was several vessels on the horizon, which had been quite in sight before the mist, and now were gone.
During the rest of the watch, and indeed all day, there was no further sign of anything unusual. Only, when the evening came (in the second dog-watch it was) I saw the mist rise faintly — the setting sun shining through it, dim and unreal.
I knew then, as a certainty, that it was not caused by heat.
And that was the beginning of it.
The next day, I kept a pretty close watch, during all my time on deck; but the atmosphere remained clear. Yet, I heard from one of the chaps in the Mate’s watch, that it had been hazy during part of the time he was at the wheel.
“Comin’ an’ goin’, like,” he described it to me, when I questioned him about it. He thought it might be heat.
But though I knew otherwise, I did not contradict him. At that time, no one, not even Plummer, seemed to think very much of the matter. And when I mentioned it to Tammy, and asked him whether he’d noticed it, he only remarked that it must have been heat, or else the sun drawing up water. I let it stay at that; for there was nothing to be gained by suggesting that the thing had more to it.
Then, on the following day, something happened that set me wondering more than ever, and showed me how right I had been in feeling the mist to be something unnatural. It was in this way.
Five bells, in the eight to twelve morning watch, had gone. I was at the wheel. The sky was perfectly clear — not a cloud to be seen, even on the horizon. It was hot, standing at the wheel; for there was scarcely any wind, and I was feeling drowsy. The Second Mate was down on the maindeck with the men, seeing about some job he wanted done; so that I was on the poop alone.
Presently, with the heat, and the sun beating right down on to me, I grew thirsty; and, for want of something better, I pulled out a bit of plug I had on me, and bit off a chew; though, as a rule, it is not a habit of mine. After a little, naturally enough, I glanced round for the spittoon; but discovered that it was not there. Probably it had been taken forrard when the decks were washed, to give it a scrub. So, as there was no one on the poop, I left the wheel, and stepped aft to the taffrail. It was thus that I came to see something altogether unthought of — a full-rigged ship, close-hauled on the port tack, a few hundred yards on our starboard quarter. Her sails were scarcely filled by the light breeze, and flapped as she lifted to the swell of the sea. She appeared to have very little way through the water, certainly not more than a knot an hour. Away aft, hanging from the gaff-end, was a string of flags. Evidently, she was signalling to us. All this, I saw in a flash, and I just stood and stared, astonished. I was astonished because I had not seen her earlier. In that light breeze, I knew that she must have been in sight for at least a couple of hours. Yet I could think of nothing rational to satisfy my wonder.