Varney the Vampire. James Malcolm Rymer

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      "I'm part of the cargo," he said, with an indescribable leer.

      "Part of the cargo be d——d!" said the captain, in sudden rage, for he thought the stranger was coming his jokes too strong. "I know you are not in the bills of lading."

      "I'm contraband," replied the stranger; "and my uncle's the great chain of Tartary."

      The captain stared, as well he might, and did not speak for some minutes; all the while the stranger kept kicking his heels against the water-casks and squinting up at the skies; it made us feel very queer.

      "Well, I must confess you are not in the regular way of trading."

      "Oh, no," said the stranger; "I am contraband—entirely contraband."

      "And how did you come on board?"

      At this question the stranger again looked curiously up at the skies, and continued to do so for more than a minute; he then turned his gaze upon the captain.

      "No, no," said the captain; "eloquent dumb show won't do with me; you didn't come, like Mother Shipton, upon a birch broom. How did you come on board my vessel?"

      "I walked on board," said the stranger.

      "You walked on board; and where did you conceal yourself?"

      "Below."

      "Very good; and why didn't you stay below altogether?"

      "Because I wanted fresh air. I'm in a delicate state of health, you see; it doesn't do to stay in a confined place too long."

      "Confound the binnacle!" said the captain; it was his usual oath when anything bothered him, and he could not make it out. "Confound the binnacle!—what a delicate-looking animal you are. I wish you had stayed where you were; your delicacy would have been all the same to me. Delicate, indeed!"

      "Yes, very," said the stranger, coolly.

      There was something so comic in the assertion of his delicateness of health, that we should all have laughed; but we were somewhat scared, and had not the inclination.

      "How have you lived since you came on board?" inquired the captain.

      "Very indifferently."

      "But how? What have you eaten? and what have you drank?"

      "Nothing, I assure you. All I did while was below was—"

      "What?"

      "Why, I sucked my thumbs like a polar bear in its winter quarters."

      And as he spoke the stranger put his two thumbs into his mouth, and extraordinary thumbs they were, too, for each would have filled an ordinary man's mouth.

      "These," said the stranger, pulling them out, and gazing at them wistfully, and with a deep sigh he continued—

      "These were thumbs at one time; but they are nothing now to what they were."

      "Confound the binnacle!" muttered the captain to himself, and then he added, aloud—

      "It's cheap living, however; but where are you going to, and why did you come aboard?"

      "I wanted a cheap cruise, and I am going there and back."

      "Why, that's where we are going," said the captain.

      "Then we are brothers," exclaimed the stranger, hopping off the water-cask like a kangaroo, and bounding towards the captain, holding out his hand as though he would have shaken hands with him.

      "No, no," said the captain; "I can't do it."

      "Can't do it!" exclaimed the stranger, angrily. "What do you mean?"

      "That I can't have anything to do with contraband articles; I am a fair trader, and do all above board. I haven't a chaplain on board, or he should offer up prayers for your preservation, and the recovery of your health, which seems so delicate."

      "That be—"

      The stranger didn't finish the sentence; he merely screwed his mouth up into an incomprehensible shape, and puffed out a lot of breath, with some force, and which sounded very much like a whistle: but, oh, what thick breath he had, it was as much like smoke as anything I ever saw, and so my shipmate said.

      "I say, captain," said the stranger, as he saw him pacing the deck.

      "Well."

      "Just send me up some beef and biscuit, and some coffee royal—be sure it's royal, do you hear, because I'm partial to brandy, it's the only good thing there is on earth."

      I shall not easily forget the captain's look as he turned towards the stranger, and gave his huge shoulders a shrug, as much as to say—

      "Well, I can't help it now; he's here, and I can't throw him overboard."

      The coffee, beef, and biscuit were sent him, and the stranger seemed to eat them with great gout, and drank the coffee with much relish, and returned the things, saying,

      "Your captain is an excellent cook; give him my compliments."

      I thought the captain would think that was but a left-handed compliment, and look more angry than pleased, but no notice was taken of it.

      It was strange, but this man had impressed upon all in the vessel some singular notion of his being more than he should be—more than a mere mortal, and not one endeavoured to interfere with him; the captain was a stout and dare-devil a fellow as you would well met with, yet he seemed tacitly to acknowledge more than he would say, for he never after took any further notice of the stranger nor he of him.

      They had barely any conversation, simply a civil word when they first met, and so forth; but there was little or no conversation of any kind between them.

      The stranger slept upon deck, and lived upon deck entirely; he never once went below after we saw him, and his own account of being below so long.

      This was very well, but the night-watch did not enjoy his society, and would have willingly dispensed with it at that hour so particularly lonely and dejected upon the broad ocean, and perhaps a thousand miles away from the nearest point of land.

      At this dread and lonely hour, when no sound reaches the ear and disturbs the wrapt stillness of the night, save the whistling of the wind through the cordage, or an occasional dash of water against the vessel's side, the thoughts of the sailor are fixed on far distant objects—his own native land and the friends and loved ones he has left behind him.

      He then thinks of the wilderness before, behind, and around him; of the immense body of water, almost in places bottomless; gazing upon such a scene, and with thoughts as strange and indefinite as the very boundless expanse before him, it is no wonder if he should become superstitious; the time and place would, indeed unbidden, conjure up thoughts and feelings of a fearful character and intensity.

      The stranger at such times would occupy his favourite seat on the water cask, and looking up at the sky and then СКАЧАТЬ