Strange Story

There’s a strange story they’ve been telling . . . say there’s a ship in port . . . looking for men. Oh, that’s not the strange thing, no. No, that sort of thing always is it is. This ship, though, none’ve seen her captain. Just a name, floating about as a whisper is all he is. I’ve a mind to disbelieve, for I know that name. The old captain of my youth, he was, and nay, I find I don’t believe he’s come to port. Though it looks like his ship, I’ll not deny, and I says he came long ago, same way, when I was young, looking for men. Aye, it’s not the captain. For ill, for good, I’ll not be the judge; most of the first, but some of the latter as well; we sailed. I signed up. I went out to sea. Aye, the captain was good to his word, that he was. He was, you see, and only was. I only can know the captain. My captain never again will come to port, you see, and if he has, if he’s taking on men, well they’s the most cursed of men to go. My captain sails forever now, and the men who go with him . . . I can’t say . . . not for sure. If the captain’s come back to port, there’s a wicked power in it. What devils he found below the sea, what forces could have raised his hull from that dank purgatory . . . I say if he has returned, I don’t know . . . there’s a devil behind it, and only a whispered name behind the job. I went to see the ship there docked. Aye, I can’t deny it looks like the ship I knew. And there, the first mate, he beckoned me. My youth was back again, for I, it was but a trick of my eyes, I knew the man. He was the spitting image . . . Nay, it was a dream, a foul dream, beguiling me to come aboard. The contract, I remember that contract I signed before the first officer long ago, and he as good as that man’s son. There’s a strange story they’ve been telling, though they don’t know it’s strange. A job, yes a job, and an old name. But I know that name better than any living man. It looks like the ship, and he looks like the first officer, and it’s the same name, the same job as before. We never finished it, nay, never did. I signed the contract long ago. I signed it in my youth.