THE SPECTRE SHIP
One morning, going on three o'clock, while all were dreaming quietly under their winding-sheet of fog, they heard something like a clamour of voices--voices whose tones seemed strange and unfamiliar. Those on deck looked at each other questioningly.
"Who's that talking?"
Nobody. Nobody had said anything. For that matter, the sounds had seemed to come from the outer void. Then the man who had charge of the fog-horn, but had been neglecting his duty since overnight, rushed for it, and inflating his lungs to their utmost, sounded with all his might the long bellow of alarm. It was enough to make a man of iron start, in such a silence.
As if a spectre had been evoked by that thrilling, though deep-toned roar, a huge unforeseen gray form suddenly arose very loftily and towered threateningly right beside them; masts, spars, rigging, all like a ship that had taken sudden shape in the air instantly, just as a single beam of electric light evokes phantasmagoria on the screen of a magic lantern.
Men appeared, almost close enough to touch them, leaning over the bulwarks, staring at them with eyes distended in the awakening of surprise and dread.
The /Marie's/ men rushed for oars, spars, boat-hooks, anything they could lay their hands on for fenders, and held them out to shove off that grisly thing and its impending visitors. Lo! these others, terrified also, put out large beams to repel them likewise.
But there came only a very faint creaking in the topmasts, as both standing gears momentarily entangled became disentangled without the least damage; the shock, very gentle in such a calm had been almost wholly deadened; indeed, it was so feeble that it really seemed as if the other ship had no substance, that it was a mere pulp, almost without weight.
When the fright was over, the men began to laugh; they had recognised each other.
"/La Marie/, ahoy! how are ye, lads?"
"Halloa! Gaos, Laumec, Guermeur!"
The spectre ship was the /Reine-Berthe/, also of Paimpol, and so the sailors were from neighbouring villages; that thick, tall fellow with the huge, black beard, showing his teeth when he laughed, was Kerjegou, one of the Ploudaniel boys, the others were from Plounes or Plounerin.
"Why didn't you blow your fog-horn, and be blowed to you, you herd of savages?" challenged Larvoer of the /Reine-Berthe/.
"If it comes to that, why didn't you blow yours, you crew of pirates--you rank mess of toad-fish?"
"Oh, no! with us, d'ye see, the sea-law differs. /We're forbidden to make any noise!/"He made this reply with the air of giving a dark hint, and a queer smile, which afterward came back to the memory of the men of the /Marie/, and caused them a great deal of thinking. Then, as if he thought he had said too much, he concluded with a joke:
"Our fog-horn, d'ye see, was burst by this rogue here a-blowing too hard into it." He pointed to a sailor with a face like a Triton, a man all bull-neck and chest, extravagantly broad-shouldered, low-set upon his legs, with something unspeakably grotesque and unpleasant in the deformity of strength.
While they were looking at each other, waiting for breeze or undercurrent to move one vessel faster than the other and separate them, a general palaver began. Leaning over the side, but holding each other off at a respectable distance with their long wooden props, like besieged pikemen repelling an assault, they began to chat about home, the last letters received, and sweethearts and wives.
