The Ghost of a Live Man - W Bob Holland

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Ghost of a Live Man by W. Bob Holland.
We were in the South Atlantic Ocean, in the latitude
of the island of Fernando Noroona about forty degrees twelve
minutes south, on board the bark H. G. Johnson, homeward
bound from Australia. I was the only passenger, and we

(00:21):
had safely rounded Cape Horn with a barometer at twenty
eight degrees eighteen minutes, and yet had somehow miraculously escaped
an extremely heavy gale, had had light northerly and easterly
winds till we reached twenty degrees, and thence the southeast

(00:42):
trades were sending us fast on our way to the equator.
I sat on deck, smoking my pipe, with a glorious
full moon shedding its bright pathway across the blue waters,
and chatting with the first mate, a man some fifty
eight years of age, who had followed the sea since
he was a boy. For twenty years or more. He

(01:04):
had been mate or captain, and many and varied were
the experiences he could relate. A thorough sailor and skillful navigator.
He was as honest as the day is long, had
a heart as big as an Ox, and was an
all around good fellow and genial companion. Some of his
yarns might be taken cum grano salis, yet he always

(01:26):
positively assured me that he was telling me the truth.
An account of a voyage that he made in a
whaler from the Southern Ocean to New Bedford seemed to
me worthy to be repeated. He had rounded Cape Warns
six times, and the Cape of Good Hope twenty six times,
besides making many trips across the Western Ocean and the

(01:48):
South American ports. I give his account as near as
possible in his own words. It was in seventy one
that I commanded the whaler Mary Jane. We had been
out from home over three years, and had on board
a full cargo of whale oil, besides two thousand pounds
of whale bone, which was then worth five dollars per pound.

(02:12):
I also had been fortunate enough to find in a
dead whale which we came across, a large quantity of ambergris.
And our hearts were all very light as we began
our homeward voyage, and our thoughts all tended to the
hearty welcome which we should receive from wives and sweethearts.
When we reached our journey's end, many a night, as

(02:35):
I lay in my berth, I had thought with great
pleasure of the amount of money that would be coming
to me from the proceeds of our voyage. When we
arrived in New Bedford, I calculated that I had made
twelve thousand dollars as my share of the proceeds of
the whale bone and oil, to say nothing of the ambergris,

(02:56):
which I well knew would bring at least twenty thousand dollars,
and one half of which belonged to me. You can
therefore imagine that I was well pleased with myself as
we went bounding along through the southeast trades. We crossed
the equator in longitude thirty six, and soon after took
strong northeast trades, and all was going as well as

(03:18):
I could wish. We had put the ship in perfect order,
painted her inside and out, and you would never have
recognized her as the old whaling ship that had for
three years been plying the Southern Ocean for whales. Never
shall I forget an old bull whale that we tackled
about two degrees to the south of Cape Horn. But

(03:40):
that is another story, which I will give you another time.
We had just lost the Northeast trades and were entering
the Gulf Stream. I sat in my cabin with my
chart on the table before me rolled up. I had
just picked our location on it, and was thinking that
in a week more I should be at home, surrounded
by those near and dear to me, and relating to

(04:02):
them the story of my great good fortune. It was
always my custom to work up my latitude and longitude
about four o'clock in the afternoon, and then after supper,
pick off her position on the chart, have a smoke,
and perhaps just before retiring, a nip of grog, and

(04:22):
then at eight thirty o'clock, as regular as a clock,
I would turn in. I am a great smoker, and
this day I had been smoking all the afternoon, besides
having had two or three nips. We had a dog
on board, whom we called Bosun, who had been out
with us all the voyage, and who was afraid of nothing.

(04:45):
He had endeared himself to every man on board. And
when Bosun took water. Something very serious was in the wind.
This night, as I sat in the cabin, I heard
a most dismal house from bo'sun and called out to
the mate to know what was the matter with the dog.

(05:06):
He replied that he reckoned. Some of the men had
been teasing him, and the occurrence soon passed from my mind.
Suddenly I saw some one coming down the after companion
way into the cabin. I supposed at first it was
the mate, and wondered that he had not first spoken
to me. But then I noticed that he wore clothes

(05:29):
I had never seen on the mate, And as he
advanced into the cabin, I saw his face. It was
the face of a man I had never seen in
my life. He was thin and pale and haggard, and
as he advanced he looked about the cabin and at
the rolled up chart on the table, there seemed to
be an appeal in his eyes. And then there swept

(05:51):
over his face a look of intense disappointment, and before
I could move or speak, he had vanished from my sight.
Now I am a very practical man, and I at
once straightened myself in my chair and said to myself, well,
old man, you have smoked one too many pipes to day,

(06:13):
or else you have had one drink too much, for
you have been asleep in your chair and seen a ghost.
I was quite satisfied that I had had a dream,
especially as I called to the mate and asked him
if he had seen any one come below. He said no,
that he had not left the deck for the last hour,

(06:35):
and the man at the wheel directly in front of
the door was sure no one had entered the cabin.
So I convinced myself that I had had a very
vivid dream, though I could not help thinking of the
matter all through the next day. At eight o'clock the
next evening, I sat in the same place, with my

(06:57):
work just finished and the chart lying rolled up on
the table before me, when suddenly the dog's dismal howl
rang through the ship, and looking up, I saw those
same legs coming down the after companion. My hair fairly
stood on end. And yet to day, surely I was

(07:17):
wide awake. I had only smoked one pipe all day
and had not touched a drop of liquor. The same
wan emaciated figure walked into the cabin, glanced inquiringly and
appealingly at me, and again there spread over his face
that look of utter disappointment, as if he had sought

(07:41):
something and failed to find it. And again he disappeared.
I rushed on deck to the mate and told him
all I had seen during the last two nights. But
he made light of it and assured me I had
been asleep or smoking too much. He did not like
to suggest that I had been thinking. Still, I could

(08:02):
see that the thought that came into his mind was
the old man has seen him again. I gave up
trying to convince him, but requested that the next night,
from eight to eight thirty, he should sit with me
in the cabin. How the next day passed I cannot tell.

(08:22):
I only know that my thoughts never left that ghostly visitant,
and somehow I felt that the evening would reveal something
to me and the spell be broken. I made up
my mind I would speak to the thing, whatever it was,
and I felt a sort of security in the presence
of the Mate, who was a daring fellow and feared

(08:43):
neither man nor the devil. Neither rum nor tobacco passed
my lips. During the next day, and eight o'clock found
the Mate and I sitting in the cabin, and this
time the chart lay open on the table beside us.
Just as eight bells struck the dog's premonitory wails sounded,

(09:05):
and looking out, we both saw the figure descending the
cabin stairs. We both seemed frozen to our seats, and
the strange weirdness of the whole proceeding cast the same
spell over the mate and me alike, and we were
both unable to move or speak. Slowly, the figure proceeded

(09:26):
into the cabin and glanced around without a word, but
with the same expectant look on his face. His form
was even more wasted, his cheeks sunken, and his eyes
seemed almost out of sight, so deeply were they set
in their sockets. As his eye fell on the open chart,

(09:47):
a look of supreme joy fairly irradiated his features, and
advancing to the table, he placed one long, bony finger
on the chart, held it for a moment, and then
again did disappeared from our sight. For five minutes after
he had left us, we sat speechless. Then I managed

(10:08):
to say, what do you think of that, mister Morris?
My god, sir, I don't know. It's beyond me. Then
my eyes fell on the open chart, and there where
the finger had been was a tiny spot of blood,
exactly on the point of longitude sixty three degrees west

(10:31):
and latitude thirty seven degrees north. We were then only
about fifty miles distant from that position, and immediately there
came to me the determination to steer the ship there.
So I laid her course accordingly, and posted a lookout
in the crow's nest. At five o'clock in the morning,

(10:53):
just as the east began to grow gray, the lookout
called out boat on the lee Bow, and as we
came up to it, we found four men in it,
three dead and one with just a remnant of life
left in him. We sewed the three bodies in canvas
and buried them in the ocean, and then gave all

(11:17):
our attention to restoring life to the poor, emaciated frame,
which I then recognized was the very man who, for
three successive nights had visited me in my cabin. By
judicious and careful nursing, life gradually came back to him,

(11:38):
and in four days time he was able to sit
up and talk with me in the cabin. It seems
he commanded the ship promise, and she had taken fire
and been destroyed, and all hands had to take to
the boats. Ten were in the boats at first, but
their food had given out, and one by one he

(12:00):
had seen them die, and one by one he had
cast the bodies overboard. Finally, he lost consciousness and knew
not whether his three remaining companions were dead or alive.
Then he said he seemed in a dream to see
a ship and tried to go to her for help,

(12:23):
But just as he would be going on board of her,
something would seem to keep him back. Three times in
his dreams he tried to visit the ship, and the
last time there seemed to come to him a certain satisfaction,
and he felt that he had succeeded in his object.

(12:44):
Turning to my table, he said, let me take your chart.
I'll show you just where we were. Stop, said, I
don't take that chart. It is an old one and
all marked over. Mark your position on this new one.
He took my pencil and knife and carefully sharpened his pencil. Then,

(13:07):
taking my dividers, he measured his latitude and longitude, and
placed a pencil dot at a point on the clean chart.
As he lifted his hand, he said, oh, excuse me, captain,
I cut my finger in sharpening the pencil and have
left a drop of blood on the chart. Never mind,

(13:30):
said I leave it there. And then I produced the
old chart, and there, in an exactly corresponding place, was
the drop of blood left by my ghostly visitor. Then,
looking steadily into my face, the mate solemnly added, I

(13:52):
can't explain this, sir. Perhaps you can, but I can
tell you on my honor. It is God's own truth
that I have told you, and of the ghost of
a live man.