The Horror Megapack_ 25 Classic and Modern Horror Stories ( PDFDrive )

the head—the waist was now entirely submerged; then once more he was
absorbed in his dream, its voices, and its shape in the mist, which had again
taken the form of a pyramid before his eyeballs.
“Of course,” a voice seemed to be complaining anew, and still through that
confused dinning in Abel Keeling’s ears, “we can’t turn a four-inch on it.… And,
of course, Ward, I don’t believe in ’em. D’you hear, Ward? I don’t believe in
’em, I say.… Shall we call down to old A. B.? This might interest His Scientific
Skippership.…”
“Oh, lower a boat and pull out to it—into it—over it—through it—”
“Look at our chaps crowded on the barbette yonder. They’ve seen it. Better not
give an order you know won’t be obeyed.…”
Abel Keeling, cramped against the antique belfry, had begun to find his dream
interesting. For, though he did not know her build, that mirage was the shape of
a ship. No doubt it was projected from his brooding on ships of half an hour
before; and that was odd.… But perhaps, after all, it was not very odd. He knew
that she did not really exist; only the appearance of her existed; but things had to
exist like that before they really existed. Before the Mary of the Tower had
existed she had been a shape in some man’s imagination; before that, some
dreamer had dreamed the form of a ship with oars; and before that, far away in
the dawn and infancy of the world, some seer had seen in a vision the raft before
man had ventured to push out over the water on his two planks. And since this
shape that rode before Abel Keeling’s eyes was a shape in his, Abel Keeling’s
dream, he, Abel Keeling, was the master of it. His own brooding brain had
contrived her, and she was launched upon the illimitable ocean of his own mind.
…
“And I will not unmindful be
Of this, My covenant, passed
Twixt Me and you and every flesh
Whiles that the world should last,”
sang Bligh, rapt.…
But as a dreamer, even in his dream, will scratch upon the wall by his couch
some key or word to put him in mind of his vision on the morrow when it has
left him, so Abel Keeling found himself seeking some sign to be a proof to those
to whom no vision is vouchsafed. Even Bligh sought that—could not be silent in
his bliss, but lay on the deck there, uttering great passionate Amens and praising
his Maker, as he said, upon an harp and an instrument of ten strings. So with