Australian Hauntings: A Second Anthology of Australian Colonial Supernatural Fiction by James Doig

lunch with us. During the course of the meal we got him to tell us what he knew regarding the legend of the lamp, which, after all, didn’t amount to very much.
    “One trip,” said he, “the Carlisle had a real bad crowd. But amongst them was a half-witted sort of chap that old Brown had picked up to act as ‘Jimmy Ducks’ and slush about generally just for his tucker. Well, one night he neglected to trim the fok’sle lamp, and a couple or perhaps more of the brutes—regular packet-rats they were—kicked and pounded him, so that he presently died. They got scared then; and, giving out that he was ill, they kept the body for three or four days in one of the bunks. Then they hove it overboard, and swore the poor wretch had committed suicide. Well, that very night the lamp went out. Nor, despite all attempts—and, between ourselves, I don’t think they made many—could ever a lamp be got to burn in that fok’sle again. I remember one of the crew telling me that a single experience of the cold and stench combined when the apparition appeared was quite enough for any average man. Indeed, crowd after crowd either ran away or went to gaol sooner than sail in her; and what with delays and court work, the vessel used to eat her freights. So they laid her up for sale. But, until your owners bought her, no one would look at such a losing concern as a haunted ship. Why, it’s over five years now since she first took up her quarters in ‘Rotten-row.’”
    “Well,” said Captain Hebden as we rose from table to go aboard the barque, “surely the curse is run out by this time, and the spectre laid. I suppose, Jackson, you never put any faith in such a cock and bull story, anyhow?”
    But the ancient mariner scratched his baldpate doubtfully as he replied.
    “Well, I don’t know, captain. I’ve seen some curious things at sea in my time. However, you’ll be able to give me your opinion on the matter when we meet again. And I hope you won’t come up the river, as I’ve seen the barque do afore now, with a spare main’sl rigged across a lower stu’nsl-boom over the after-hatch to serve instead of a fok’sle.”
    “Not much danger!” laughed Captain Hebden gaily. “If I can’t follow my profession without being molested by nasty, freezing, evil-smelling ghosts—why, I may as well give it up. No, Jackson, I’ve got too many barnacles on my hide to be scared by anything in that line.”
    “So old Hellfire thought,” retorted the other with a boding shake of the head; “but they say it killed him.”
    But the captain only laughed again, and, bidding the shipping-mastergoodbye, we made for the docks. We found the Cumberland (the first fight of her for both of us) a sound, wholesome looking barque, strongly built after the fashion of twenty years back; square in the stern, and bluff in the bows; no double raids, donkey engines, patent capstans, or other modern fallals about her; but still a homely, comfortable seeming kind of creature of a ship, such as builders don’t turn out of hand in those days of iron, steam, and steel. The stevedores were stowing the last of the cargo in the square of the hatchways. The riggers had the sails bent and furled, gear rove, stays and back stays well set up, and everything aloft ataunto; and with her shining white lower masts, brightly scraped upper spars towering to gilt-trucked royal poles, and the big spread of her square yards she looked, to the eye, coming down, took in her great beam, massive bulwarks, and shining brass work, a notable contrast to the sharp-nosed, gim-crack iron clippers that surrounded her. A tub the moderns might sneeringly call her; but, very certainly, she was the sort of tub whose decks you might walk in slippers whilst their lee-scuppers were breast high with green seas. On her main deck she carried an enormous longboat, fit child of such a buxom mother, and intended to cruise around the islands amongst the planters for rum, molasses, and sugar with