Kitabı oku: «The Call of Cthulhu / Зов Ктулху», sayfa 12

The Morrison Co.’s freighterVigilant ⁷⁶, bound from Valparaiso ⁷⁷, arrived this morning at its wharf in Darling Harbour ⁷⁸, having in tow the battled and disabled but heavily armed steam yachtAlertof Dunedin, N.Z ⁷⁹., which was sighted April 12th in S. Latitude ⁸⁰ 34°21’, W. Longitude ⁸¹ 152°17’, with one living and one dead man aboard.

TheVigilant left Valparaiso March 25th, and on April 2nd was driven considerably south of its course by exceptionally heavy storms and monster waves. On April 12th the derelict was sighted. One survivor in a half-delirious condition and one man who had evidently been dead for more than a week were found. The living man was holding a horrible stone idol of unknown origin, about foot in height. Its nature is unknown, the authorities at Sydney University, the Royal Society, and the Museum in College Street say. The survivor says he found it in the cabin of the yacht, in a small carved shrine.

This man told an exceedingly strange story of piracy and slaughter. He isGustaf Johansen ⁸², a Norwegian, from the two-masted schoonerEmmaof Auckland ⁸³, which sailed for Callao ⁸⁴ February 20th with a complement of eleven men. The Emma, he says, was delayed and thrown widely south of her course by the great storm of March 1st, and on March 22nd, in S. Latitude 49°51’ W. Longitude 128°34’, encountered the Alert, manned by a queer and evil-looking crew of Kanakas and half-castes ⁸⁵. They ordered to turn back, Capt. Collins ⁸⁶ refused; and the strange crew began to fire savagely and without warning. Though the schooner began to sink from shots beneath the water-line, the Emma’s men managed to heave alongside their enemy and board it. They were forced to kill them all.

Three of theEmma’s men, including Capt. Collins and First Mate Green ⁸⁷, were killed; and the remaining eight under Second Mate Johansen ⁸⁸ proceeded to navigate the captured yacht. The next day, it appears, they raised and landed on a small island, although none knew about it in that part of the ocean. Six of the men somehow died ashore; Johansen says very little about this part of his story. Later, it seems, he and one companion boarded the yacht and tried to manage it, but were driven by the storm of April 2nd. From that time till his rescue on the 12th the man remembers little, and he does not even recall when William Briden ⁸⁹, his companion, died. There was no apparent cause for Briden’s death, and it happened probably due to excitement or exposure. The Alert was well known as an island trader ⁹⁰, and bore an evil reputation. It was owned by a curious group of half-castes whose frequent meetings and night trips to the woods attracted curiosity. It started in great haste just after the storm and earth tremors of March 1st. Our Auckland correspondent gives the Emma and her crew an excellent reputation, and Johansen is described as a sober and worthy man. The admiralty will make Johansen speak more freely than he has done hitherto.