 | The spectre steamer, and other tales |  |
THE SPECTRE STEAMER,
OR, HUGH NORTHUP'S OATH.
A Tale of the Mississippi.
It was in the spring of 1839, that I left
New Orleans, in the splendid steamer
Saint Louis, for Saint Louis. The morning
was clear and brilliant, and the atmosphere
of that agreeable elasticity which inspires
the dullest with good spirits. We backed
out slowly and majestically from our birth at
the pier, and, gaining the mid-river, began
to ascend the stream with rapid but stately
motion. I stood upon the `hurricane-deck,'
with fifty other passengers, admiring the
view of the city as we ran swifty past it.
Street after street terminating in a straight
line in the cypress swamp, appeared and disappeared,
and turret, spire, and terrace receded
rapidly in the distance. The half league
of shipping lying `three deep' against the
pier, and waiting for their freight of cotton,
presented a grand and imposing spectacle.
They were Americans and of all European
nations, principally English and French;
and as every ship wore her flag half-mast in
honor of a captain of one of them who had
died the day previous, their appearance was
at once solemn (from association) and brilliant.
Who that has ever visited New Or
leans in the winter season, can forget the
fine effect of this wide-stretching crescent of
shipping that enfolds the city at either extremity
like wings?
At length we left behind us the shipping
and the huge cotton-presses lining the river
shore abreast of it. The Capitol-like dome
of Saint Charles, the dark tower of the Cathedral,
and the lofty roofs of hotels, sunk
rapidly from the eye, or were lost in the
smoke that overhung the city; and on either
shore the eye was relieved by the agreeable
substitute of sugar-fields, woodlands, and
pretty villas. We shortly passed the picturesque
village of Carrolton, with its handsome
racing buildings and fine `course,' and
the remainder of the day, sailed between
noble sugar-plantations, extending a league
inland from the river. The eye never wearied
gazing on the pleasant residences of the
planters, with their steep dark roof, light
verandahs and vine-clad galleries, and upon
the orangeries, gardens and groves of old
trees, that thickly adorned the river banks
for full thirty leagues above the city. The
whole shore was, indeed, a continuous village
horsemen, private equipages, visiting from
plantation to plantation, foot-travellers, lads
and maidens, negroes and negresses! As
we ran along close to the bank, it was like
driving through a village street; we could
converse with the pedestrian on shore, peep
upon the tea-table party in the open hall,
and keep company with the bonnetless ladies,
taking an airing, driving in their rapid
barouches, on the levee.
At length night came on, and the horizon
on every side was illumined with vast flames
rising from pyramids of dried sugar-cane,
which the slaves take pleasure in kindling
at night. From the upper-deck the sight
was grand, and as the darkness deepened
and the fires increased in number and size,
it became truly sublime. Before us, half an
hour after sunset, the whole horizon seemed
in a blaze, and the red glare glowed and
flushed the sky to the zenith. It seemed as
if Tartarus was ahead, and that we were
rushing into its fiery caverns! and, with the
streaming sparks pouring from our black
chimneys, the roar of the escape-pipes, and
the thunder of the dashing paddles, the
`infernal' idea was, on reflection, by no
means diminished in its force. The night
was still, and the flames rose in vast columnar
height, o'ertopped by clouds of murky
smoke,that rolled sluggishly onward,eclipsing
half the stars. The river, reflecting on its
breast so many fires, seemed itself a lurid
lake. I had never before, nor have I since,
beheld so singular and wonderful a spectacle!
We remained on deck till near morning,
deeply interested in the extraordinary
scene. For the distance of one hundred
miles, which we run in the night, the fires
blazed on either shore till morning! We
seemed to be sailing along in a sort of majestic
triumph, our way illumined by bonfires!
Conceive a river a mile in breadth,
lighted for a hundred, nay, two hundred and
fifty miles, as it proved to be, by columns of
flame half a mile from each other, on either
bank of the river. Such was our first night
on the Mississippi!
The next day we ascended between shores
less highly cultivated and far less picturesque.
We had exchanged the wide sugar
fields and the noble villas of the planters for
cotton plantations and their ruder habitations.
Baton Rouge, with its French-loooking edifices,
its old church and handsome barracks,
with its beautiful suburban lawns and green
esplanade, wooed and won our passing admiration.
As the sun set, its last rays gilded the
summit of the bold promontory on which
Natchez is situated, and its effulgence was
reflected back to us from its towers and
domes and thousand windows. The next
morning, we beheld the sun rise over the
romantic city of Vicksburg, which is certainly
one of the most imposing towns in the
valley of the west, beheld from water. On
leaving this place, we began to enter the
wild and vast region of that portion of the
great valley, watered by the Mississippi,
upon which the hand of cultivation has been
but little bestowed. For hundreds of miles
this noble stream winds its majestic and tortuous
way through an almost unbroken wilderness,
save here and there, where an
adventurous woodman has planted his hut,
and at long intervals on some favorite site
some new settlement. It was on the fourth
day after our departure from New Orleans,
that our huge steamer entered the wildest
portions of this dark and inhospitable region.
The gigantic forests stood silent and vast on
either shore, as they had stood for centuries.
Evening approached and we entered a narrow
shute, but little broader than to give
room for the passage of the steamer, so that
the shadows cast from either bank met mid-way
in the channel, and while twilight was
yet in the sky, enveloped our course in the
deepest gloom. Thus we went on, now
winding our way between an island and the
main, now stemming the broad current of
the full river, now hugging the shore to take
advantage of the eddy. I had gone below
at ten o'clock to retire; but feeling wakeful
I took up `Hoffman's Winter in the
West,' and read until the steward simultaneously
twelve o'clock, sir,' and extinguished the
cabin lamp. I then went to the deck to
breathe a little fresh air before going to my
state-room. On gaining the hurricane deck
I was struck with the brilliancy and beauty
of the night. The stars really sparkled and
danced in the deep heavens, and the dark,
still bosom of the river was as thick and
dazzling with them as were the skies. How
silent and dark reposed the walls of forests
of cypresses on either hand! How black
their shadows that seemed to descend below
the very foundations of the river! We were,
at the moment, in the very centre of the
stream, crossing over from one point to
another to enter the `cut off,' across the
peninsula of `Horse-Shoe Bend,' the mouth
of which was indicated by a break in the
shadows in the water ahead of us, rather
than visible in the shore itself, which was
dark and impervious to the eye. I walked
forward as we neared it, to the pilot's house,
within which he stood at the wheel. He
was a fine old weather-beaten man, about
fifty-four or five years of age, with just gray
enough sprinkled amid his black locks to
bear testimony to the long service he had
seen. Loitering by his wheel of nights, I
had gradually formed an acquaintance with
him, and found he possessed a noble frankness
of manner, good common sense, though
uneducated, and much general intelligence,
united singularly enough, to a strong bias
towards superstition. He had been a boatman
on the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, before,
said he, `sich varmint as steamers was
thought on.' His name was Paul Fink, and
he was cousin to the celebrated Mike Fink,
whom the lamented Morgan Neville has immortalized
in one of the happiest American
tales ever written.
I now approached him as he stood alone
at his wheel, his head enveloped in a fox-skin
cap, and his person wrapped in a white
shaggy pea-jacket (for we were now in a latitude
many degrees higher than New Orleans),
where four days before we had worn
straw hats and summer garments. Forward
of the wheel-house, twenty feet from us on
the part of the deck above the boilers, sat
one of the passengers smoking a German
pipe—a very extraordinary looking man—
dark, silent, and mysterious, who had attracted
much curious notice on board, both
from the passengers and crew, otherwise we
were alone on the vast and silent deck.
`A fine night, pilot,' I observed, in an indifferent
tone, as I wrapped my cloak closer
about me and leaned against the window of
the wheel-house.
He made no reply at first, but fixing his
eye steadily upon the boat's course as she
approached the mouth of the `Horse Shoe
cut off,' gave the wheel two or three rapid
revolutions and shot into its narrow inlet
with that skilful and unerring certainty for
which the pilots of the Mississippi are so remarkable.
We now seemed sailing, so dark
and gloomy was this passage, through a
forest cavern, with only a narrow opening to
the stars overhead. The long, pendant
branches of the willows and cypresses,
swept our decks, and the deep roar of our
escape-pipes penetrated the lofty avenues of
the eternal forest, and echoing and re-echoing,
filled the wood with a continuous resounding
thunder. Onward we went, our
only guide through the gloomy passage the
stars twinkling between the trees, that, towering
from either bank, nearly met their tops
midway the channel.
`Yes, sir, a pretty night,' responded the
pilot, after we had fairly entered the `shute,
and casting a glance at the stars, he rolled
his quid in his cheek, expectorated the superfluous
juice, and gave his wheel a half
turn to starboard.
`It surprises me,' I said, after a moment's
silence, wishing to draw Paul into conversation,
`that you can steer with such accuracy
amid this deep darkness. The water and
the forests are equally black to my eye—it
is impossible for me to distinguish the bank
and waterline of either side of the channel.'
`It's all come o' practice,' he said, carelessly,
`and then there's somethin', too, in
the boat's being used to the channel. Why
between Orleans as well as I do. She'd
make the trip alone, if she only know'd how
to keep her steam up herself! Her old
nose is just as familiar with the mouth of
every `shute,' as you are with the way to
your own mouth! I could go to sleep here
at my wheel, if 'twant for the discredit o'
the thing, if the cap'n should come up and
catch an old pilot at it, and she'd run herself!
But, talking o' steamboats running
themselves,' said Paul, ceasing his professional
praise of his steamer, lowering his
voice and speaking in an awed under tone;
`there's a boat on this river, sir, that has
been runnin' alone this last twelve-month,
and has never yet got to her port.'
`Ah, what is the story about her, Paul?'
I inquired, seeing my superstitious friend
was in the humor of talking.
`I'd tell it to you, especially as we are off
agen Horse Shoe Bend, if—' and here Paul
cast a suspicious and uneasy look towards
the silent passenger, who, at that instant,
rose from his seat and wrapping himself in
his long, black cloak, began to pace the
deck athwart ships; `I'd tell it you, sir, if
that old hunks was out o' the way. There's
somethin' about that varmint I don't much
like! He's on deck always all my watch,
and the other pilot swears he is all his'n.
Now a man what sits up all night and no
watch to stand, is queer! I give such critters
a wide berth as I would an ugly snag.
Do you like the varmint's looks, stranger?'
And all this was spoken in a low tone close
to my ear, as I leaned in the window of the
pilot-house.
`I don't see any thing very suspicious in
his loving the deck in these fine nights,' I
said, laughing; `you always find me here,
Paul, during the most of your trick at the
wheel.'
`That's true, and glad I am to have you
on deck in my watch; but there's a mighty
difference, I tell ye, stranger, between a
man that comes and talks like a Christian
man with the pilot while the boat is running
steady and he can listen to him, and one
who never opens his crackers to man or
beast, but goes stalking about the decks like
a shadow in black, or sittin' in the cap'n's
chair there, smoking a pipe as if his insides
was a furnace. No, no,' continued Paul,
bringing his wheel to half a dozen spokes,
and eying the passenger suspiciously; `I
tell you there is no good in him, and you'll
see before the trip is through.' Here the
old pilot shook his head ominously, renewed
his quid, and brought the boat to a point and
a half, which he had let her fall off while
talking.
I watched a few seconds, unconsciously,
the movements of the mysterious passenger,
againt whom Paul had taken up so strong a
prejudice, as he slowly paced the deck a
few feet forward of the wheel-house, the fire
in the bowl of his pipe glowing at every
whiff and lighting up his thin, swarthy visage.
I could see in him, however, no more
than a tall, thin, bilious looking gentleman,
either Portuguese or an Italian, with dignified
yet taciturn manners, one who loved the
company of his pipe better than the companionship
of his species. So turning from him
I asked Paul to explain to me what he
meant by his wandering steamer, that had
never reached her port.
`Well, I'll tell it you, and there was never
a better place to tell it than here in the
Horse-Shoe Bend, which God grant we were
well out of.'
`Is it a dangerous place?' I asked, struck
by Paul's earnest manner.
`For one league above and one league
below, I never go through it without the
prayers my mother taught me, on my tongue.
God help me! did you hear that?'
`What!' I exclaimed, starting.
`That steamer ahead! Do you hear her
blow?' he cried, in such real alarm, that I
could not help sympathizing in it. After
listening a moment, I could hear nothing
but our own boat. He seemed also in a
moment after to be convinced that he was
mistaken, and was inclined to attribute the
supposed noise of a coming boat to his
fancy.
`By heaven, I could have sworn it!' he
said, taking a relieved breath.
`Why should a boat coming down alarm
you, Paul?' I inquired.
`Did you ever hear of an earthly steamer
coming down a shute, stranger?' he asked,
with something like slight contempt. `Don't
every Christian boat in descending the river,
take the broad open stream to have the full
advantage of the current? You don't know
every thing, stranger, yet!'
I acknowledged my ignorance of a great
many things, and begged him to relate what
he knew about the lost steamer. Paul gave
a preliminary turn to the wheel, discharged
half a gill of distilled tobacco into the huge
spittoon at his feet, and casting a suspicious
glance after the mysterious passenger, who
had walked aft, and was now indistinctly
seen a hundred feet distant from us, standing
over the stern of the boat, gazing down into
the boiling wake—he thus began—
`You must know, stranger, Saint Louis
has the finest steamers that run on the Mississippi
river! She takes a pride, as she
ought, in makin' 'em larger, handsomer,
and faster than those of any other city.
Louisville and Cincinnati has more of 'em but
none can come up to the Saint Louis craft for
prettiness from stem to stern, and real racehorse
speed. This here very identical animal
we are now walking at ten knots through
this `shute,' is a specimen! Well, you see,
the merchants vied with each other who
should make the shortest trip between Saint
Louis and Orleans. This very Saint Louis,
you are now on board, I saw built and
launched, and a prettier varmint never swam
than she was when she had got her engines
and boilers aboard, and started from the
pier on the first trip to Orleans, with sixty
thousand dollars in freight! Was'nt she a
beauty? I was the first man that took her
wheel and stuck her nose down stream! She
steered like a duck! and she had scarcely
shaken off the smell of the nigger-tracks on
her decks in Saint Louis, before she was
along side of the levee in Orleans! Three
days and twenty-one hours running eleven
hundred miles! See her walk up stream
now. Is'nt she a picture, stranger?'
I here assented to the truth of his panegyric
upon his favorite boat, and Paul having
brought the boat to from a yaw she had unkindly
taken as he was warmly speaking in
commendation of her, he thus continued—
`Well, you see, the trip we made was a
brag! Not a captain in Saint Louis could
hold up his head after we got back in five
days against stream! There was living there
then, one Captain Hugh Northup, who had
always hated our captain, the two having
commanded rival steamers. It was said he
had been engaged in no honest livelihood
before he came to St. Louis, where he
brought a great box of gold and silver with
him and another of jewels. But somehow
he grew in favor and invested money in
steamboats, one of which he went captain of
himself, and it was while running this boat
he fell out with our captain for always beating
him in his trips. So, you see, when he
heard of our brag trip he swore like a pirate
that he would beat it or be blown to the
devil. Well, he sells out all his shares in
other boats, gets together all his money and
turns too to build with it a steamer that shall
beat every boat on the river. Well, stranger,
he was a year at work on her, and a
power of money he laid out on her, and a
pretty thing she was as ever two eyes looked
upon. She was just the size and tonnage
of this here boat, the Saint Louis—but her
model! wasn't it a beauty to look at? Our
captain could never see it as she lay upon
the stocks, without swearing and spitting
out his quid Many a good quid o' old Virginny
did that new boat make the cap'n lose.
Well, stranger, this new boat was launched,
and when she had got all her fixins aboard
and lay along side the levee, she, a leetle bit, cut out in shine the Saint Louis, I tell ye.
All her cabin works was mahogany and
bird's eye, touched off with gilding. Her
furniture was rich enough for the President's
house, and her carpets alone cost twenty-four
hundred dollars! Her engine and boilers
were the best that could be made in
to see her, and Captain Northup gave a ball
to a thousand people in her cabins. Well,
he got her ready for her voyage; nothing
was lackin' to make her complete—not even
a silver tooth-pick for the steward! The
day she was to sail, Captain Northup invited
all the masters of the steamers in
port and some of the big merchants to
a sort of a dinner-breakfast at eleven
o'clock, in the forenoon. Every body
went that was invited, because they knew
the champaign would be spilled a few. And
want it? I reckon it would take three school-masters
to count the empty bottles! When
the last bottle was brought on, and every
toast drunk under the sun, Captain Northup
got up on his feet, and with his champaign
glass in his hand, said, in a loud tone so as
to be heard by all—
“`Now, gentlemen, I'll give you a sentiment—
The Lucifer!” (for so he had named
his boat) and her crew!'
`The Lucifer and her crew,' repeated fifty
voices, and the toast was drank standing.
`Thank you, gentlemen,' said Captain
Northup, with a flushed cheek; `now listen
to me. There have been boasts of brag
trips between Saint Louis and Orleans!
Such boasters shall be for ever silenced by
the Lucifer. I am her captain, and I've
got the devil for my chief-engineer. I sail
this day for New Orleans, and if she is one
hour over three days on her trip, I'll up
steam and drive her to the devil! I here
swear that, slow trip or quick trip, I will take
but one meal between the two ports!'
`This mad oath was received by the excited
table with uproarous applause, to
which every man gave coup, by dashing his
empty glass upon the board. Hugh Northup
looked round with triumph.
`The company broke up, and that afternoon
the Lucifer left Saint Louis, in the
sight of ten thousand spectators. I saw her
from this very deck, for we lay there as she
got under headway. In ten minutes she
was out of sight, beyond the southernmost
bend of the river! Never did I see a steamer
walk out as she did! You'd have thought
seventy devils were flying off with her down
stream! Not a soul in Saint Louis but belived
Hugh Northup would beat every other
boat that ever floated!'
Here the `reach,' opened a little, and
Paul suspended his narration to bring the
boat's stem more sharply to current, and as
he did so, he looked around and listened
with apprehensive expectation of hearing or
seeing something unpleasant.
`Hark! by my soul that was the blow of a
boat!' he suddenly cried, grasping his wheel
with a firmer hold.
`I hear it,' I said, after a moment's listening,
`but it is a great distance off. Probably
a steamer in Horse-Shoe Bend, going
down.'
`No—the Bend is off to the south-east of
us, five miles across, and this comes from the
north and west—dead ahead! Do you hear
it? It is coming nearer,' he cried, with a
voice husky with emotion and terror, if a
stout old pilot like Paul Fink could feel terror.
True enough, I could hear, as if about two
miles ahead of us, through the forests, the
deep regular blowing of a large class steamer.
I listened, after witnessing Paul's emotion,
not without singular sensations as each
booming note succeeding a louder and louder,
reached my ear.
`Why should this coming boat alarm you,
Paul?' I asked, on observing by the light of
the wheel-house lantern that his face was
rigid and pale, and that his lip muttered broken
sentences of the Lord's prayer.
`It is the Lucifer, Captain Hugh Northup,'
he said, hoarsely, `from the day she left Saint
Louis, she has never been heard of, in an
honest and Christian way, and it is the seventh
day of this month, a twelvemonth, since she
sailed. Lord have mercy on the souls of
those who sailed with that captain!'
`She has been heard of then?' I asked,
with much interest, as the regular blow of
the still distant boat fell on our ears.
`She has been seen and passed by more
than one boat since then—but ne'er a pilot
it.'
`Where and how was she seen?' I inquired
with wonder.
`Here! in the neighborhood of Horse-Shoe-Bend,
and only in the middle watch!
It is said she is always seen coming down
with a full head of steam on, with a skeleton
figure at the wheel, who hails in an unearthly
voice, and implores to be told the way to
New-Orleans, saying in a most pitiable tone,
that he has got lost among the shutes, and
that it seems to him instead of going toward
his port, that he is going round and round in
a sort of Horse-Shoe-Bend, and for ever sailing
in a circle. This, it is said, he utters
with mingled groans and curses, enough to
chill mortal blood; and when he can get no
reply, he begs mournfully for something to
eat, saying he has eaten but one meal for
many, many a long month. There is nobody
else to be seen on board, but a tall, black
looking man, who acts as engineer.'
`This is a strange story, Paul,' I said,
amused, yet seriously impressed by his superstition.
`If 'tis strange, 'tis true, sir,' answered
Paul, with solemnity. `God in mercy keep
me from meeting the Lucifer with her skeleton
captain and infernal engineer this night.
I shall be glad when I'm well out o' the
Horse-Shoe.'
`But no boat could pass us in this narrow
channel, Paul, not even the Lucifer, if she
should be coming down.'
Paul shook his head and sighed, while his
lips audibly pronounced a short prayer.
`I don't hear the blow of the boat now,
Paul,' said I, listening; `it must have been
some boat passing by in the main bend of the
Horse-Shoe.'
`The wind has changed,' he said. The
pilot then bent his head forward to listen, but
the roar of our own escape-pipes prevented
his hearing, and he pulled the little bell for
the engineer to stop the boat. The signal
was immediately obeyed, and for an instant
we remained motionless and silent, save a
low, suppressed respiration from the steam
pipes. The regular blow of a steamer, but a
short distance above us, was now distinctly
heard. A few moments suspense convinced
us that it was descending the `shute' which
we were ascending. Paul looked at me as
much as to say, `Do you hear the Lucifer
now?' and breathed hard and heavily. I was
silent from an indefinable awe. The sound
was heard also by the mate and his watch on
the forecastle below us. He sprung up the
ladder and leaped from the fly-wheel upon the
hurricane deck.
`Mr. Fink, I do believe there is a boat
ahead, in the `shute,” he cried, hastening
to the wheel-house, and addressing the pilot.
`I know it,' said Paul gravely, `and we
shall all know it before long. It's Hugh
Northup's boat.'
`Then the devil will have his pick out of
our crew before the week's out,' said the
mate, with a reckless manner to which sudden
fear gave a kind of desperation. `I
shouldn't care myself,' he added after a moment's
silence, `if it were not for Anna and
my little boy at home.' He then folded
his arms and leaned moodily against the
wheel-house, with his head fallen upon his
breast.
The descending steamer, of whatever
character she might be, was now rapidly approaching
us through the darkness of the
forest-walled passage. Her blow echoed
through the glades of the wood sharp and
clear, and the dash of her paddles in the water
could be plainly distinguished. Paul stood
firmly at his wheel and kept the boat closely
hugging the starboard shore, to give the
stranger a birth, though there seemed to be
only room for us alone in the confind and
tortuous channel. He was pale as death, his
lips set, and his eyes fixed upon the point
where he expected to behold the boat appear.
Louder and louder resounded the deep roar
of her escape-pipes, and the dashing of the
water, as her paddles strongly beat it. Suddenly
through the gloom and intervening
trees, her furnace-fires gleamed along the
water! Above her prow was set her blood-red
signal lantern, and on her stern a blue
character.
`It is the Lucifer, Mr. Fink. God help
us!' groaned the mate.
`Amen!' responded Paul, with emotion,
whirling his wheel like lightning to bring the
head of his boat as close shoreward as possible,
for the strange steamer was bearing
directly down the middle of the `shute,' under
a full head of steam.
`She will sink us as true as heaven!' cried
Paul, putting his helm hard down, 'til he almost
forced the boat in among the trees.
`Never fear,' said a voice close beside us,
`for the Lucifer can find water where other
boats would ground.'
We turned with suspicion to where the
words came from, and beheld the passenger
in the black cloak. He immediately passed
on to the forward part of the hurricane deck,
and stood there, calmly surveying the alarming
approach of the other steamer. Down
she came upon us with fearful speed. She
was but twice her length off and when I expected
that the next breath we should come
together with fearful collision, to our surprise
and wonder, we beheld her turn from her
straight course directly into the forests.
The huge trees bent low with their tops of
thick foliage before her path, and seemed to
form a sea of green billows, lighted up by
her furnace, over which she rode proudly
and majestically. Making a graceful sweep
athwart our bow, we heard her bell ring to
stop her engines, and our engineer in his terror,
stopped his also. A thin, ghastly figure,
attenuated to a skeleton, now sprung out of
her wheel-house, with a trumpet in his hand,
while a fearful looking being leaving the engine
came upon the guard, and laughed
mockingly as the other hailed us, in a shrill,
horrible voice—
`What steamer is that?'
No one answered on board, though the
whole of our crew of boatswain and firemen,
with the captain and numerous passengers,
now crowded our decks, gazing with horror
and suspicion upon the hellish steamer, as
she rode on the billowy trees of the forest.
`For the love of—'
`Ha ha, ha!' laughed the infernal engineer,
and we could not hear whether the
wicked and miserable being said `God,' or
not, but he continued in a most piteous tone—
`Tell me the route to New Orleans! I
have been sailing, 'till my crew have died
one by one—my mates have died, my pilots
grew mad and drowned themselves, my engineer
is dead—'
`Ha, ha, ha!' laughed the fearful being
beneath him on the deck, `ha, ha, ha! you
lie, Hugh Northup!'
The poor wretch moaned and groaned
enough to melt a stone; and walking aft as
his boat drifted away on its green sea, he
cried—
`Oh, then, for the love of—'
`Ha, ha, ha!' laughed his infernal engineer,
and we could not hear his adjuration,
but we could hear him continue—
`Give me some food, some food, some
food! I perish with hunger. I have eaten
but one meal for more than a year! Oh,
give me food, if you will not show me the
way to New-Orleans, that I may eat again!'
Not a word was spoken on board our boat
—but a deep groan was emitted from every
bosom. The poor wretch then clasped his
hands, and seemed lost in hopeless despair,
such as no mortal man could look upon without
fear. At length he cried, imploringly—
`Send me then, I beg of you, good christians,
a pilot for I am too ill to steer my
own vessel longer—perhaps he would bring
me to Orleans.'
There was a dead silence for an instant,
when the passenger, whom Paul had taken
such a prejudice against, answered from the
hurricane deck—
`Ay, ay, send your boat!'
The poor, miserable captain, at the sound of
his voice, uttered a piercing shriek, and falling
on his knees, he wrung his hands piteously,
as if a fearful fate, more dreadful far
than that he still endured, awaited him.
The infernal engineer immediately sprung
into the boat, and sculled towards our steamer.
It was dry and leaky, and threatened
also old and tumbling to pieces; her chimneys
were red with rust; her guards broken;
her wheel-houses torn, and the paddles
on the wheels half gone, and her whole appearance
that of premature decay and neglect—a
splendid wreck!
We watched in silent expectation the approach
of the yawl. It came along side, and
the passenger in the black cloak sprung into
it. The next moment he stood beside Captain
Hugh Northup, on the deck of the
Lucifer.
`How do you, captain,' he said, in a voice
which we all distinctly heard; `you look ill,
methinks. Well, you have been twelve
months making your voyage, instead of `three
days.' Slow sailing, captain, for a `brag
trip.' Well, it can't be helped. You know
the alternative of your failing?'
The poor captain remembered his oath,
and covered his face with his withered hands.
`As you may be more fortunate in finding
the way to the infernal regions, than you
have been in finding that to New Orleans, I
have come to pilot you.—Ho! sir engineer,
up steam and drive to h—!'
Immediately the forecastle was thronged
with a demon crew, who began to `fire-up'
with appalling activity. The boilers and
chimneys grew red hot with the intense
fires, on which, with hellish cries, they never
ceased piling wood. The engine was set in
motion—our black cloaked passenger took
the wheel, which at his touch, became a
wheel of fire, and the accursed steamer got
once more under full headway. The poor,
miserable captain the while, paced his decks
with looks of despair and speechless horror.
Away flew the doomed boat, illumined from
her red hot chimneys and enveloped in a veil
of lurid light. We gazed in silent terror.
Onward and downward went the doomed vessel.
The forest yawned—the earth opened,
and she entered a vast inclining cavern on a
river of molten fire. Downward and onward
she descended beneath the forests—beneath
the water, and gradually disappeared in darkness
and gloom from our horrified gaze. As
she sunk from our sight a scream that made
the blood curdle in our veins, mingled with
demoniac laughter, reached our appalled and
shrinking ears. Then all was still, and darkness
and gloom took the place of the late
fearful spectacle. The forests stood around
us as before, in stern and silent mystery; the
water wore its former placid look, reflecting
the stars from its bosom, and all nature was as
before.
For a few minutes not a word or sound
escaped the breathless crowd upon our decks.
Paul was the first to recover his presence of
mind, and pulled the bell for the boat to proceed.
I was gazing upon his face at the
moment he did so, and saw that it wore a
look of melancholy resignation—such as a
condemned man shows when at last he has
resigned himself to his fate.
In a short time, the throng, more or less
affected by the terrible spectacle it had just
witnessed, silently dispersed. I was left
alone with Paul and the mate, who had all
the while, from the first, remained immovable,
moodily leaning against the wheel-house.
We had by this time cleared the `shute,'
and were running at large in the open river,
with the broad, bright skies open all around
us.
`Well, Paul,' I said, by way of an interjection,
as an assent to the truth of all he
had related to me in reference to `Lucifer.'
`Seeing is believing,' he said, in the deep
tone of subdued emotion. `Sir, I am a dead
man!'
`Oh, no, Paul,' I said, laughing, to cheer
him in his gloomy forebodings.
`Sir, I shall not live a week.'
`Why do you think so?' I inquired,
touched with his serious manner. He made
me no answer; and after addressing one or
two more remarks to him, and receiving no
further reply, I was about to leave the wheel-house
and descend to the cabin, when the
mate caught my hand as I was passing by
him.
`Pardon me, sir; but if you will be so
good as to give these little things to my wife
her—' Here his voice choked with emotion.
`Tell her I died blessing and praying
for her.'
He grasped my hand warmly, pressed it
hard, and then clasping his hands above his
head, leaped into the deep river. A boat
was lowered, but the doomed mate was never
seen more!
When the steamer reached Saint Louis,
the body of her pilot, Paul Fink, was borne
on shore upon the shoulders of four men!
Reader, this story is no dream, like many
of this marvellous and supernatural kind,
which, when you get to the end, the writer
very coolly tells you that he dreamed it all!
It is a true and veracious story, all but the
incredible part of it, which we will not insist
too strongly on forcing upon the belief of the
skeptical.
`There are more things in Heaven and
Earth,' dear reader, `than are dreamed of
in philosophy.'
| The spectre steamer, and other tales | |