The Black Ship

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Title:     The Black Ship
Author: Elizabeth Rundle Charles [More Titles by Charles]

They lived at the foot of the Pine Mountains, in the island of the King's Garden, the mother, with her little son and daughter. The boy's name was Hope, and the little girl's, May. The children loved each other dearly, and were never separated. They never had any quarrels, because Hope was the leader in all their expeditions and plays; and May firmly believed that everything which Hope planned and did, was better planned and better done than it would have been by any one else in the world--by which May meant the island. Hope, on his side, had always a tender consideration for little May in his schemes, such as kings should have for their subjects. May would never have dreamed of originating any scheme herself, or of questioning any which Hope planned. If you had taken away May from Hope, you would have taken away his kingdom, his army, his right hand; if you had taken away Hope from May, you would have robbed her of her leader, her king, her head, her sun. Bereaved of May, I think Hope would have been driven from his desolate home into the wide world; bereaved of Hope, I am sure May would never have left her home, but sat silent there until she pined away. But together, life was one holiday to them; work was a keener kind of play, and every day was too narrow for the happy occupations of which each hour was brimful. Their cottage was at the foot of the mountains, on the sea-shore. Indeed, every house and cottage in the island stood on the sea-shore, because the island was so long and narrow, that, from the top of the mountain-range which divided it, you could see the sea on both sides. If in any place the coast widened, little creeks ran in among the hills, and made the sea accessible from all points. The island consisted entirely of this one mountain-range; the higher peaks sometimes tipped with snow, with a strip of coast at their feet, sometimes narrowing to a little shingly beach, sometimes expanding to a fertile plain, where beautiful cities with fairy bell-towers and marble palaces gleamed like ivory carvings amidst the palms and thick green leaves.

But Hope and May knew nothing of the island beyond the little bay they lived in, and no one they had ever seen or heard of had scaled the mountain-range and looked on the other side; no one, either in the scattered fishermen's huts around them, or in the white town which perched like a sea-bird on the crags on the opposite side of the bay. Indeed, it was only from their mother's words that the children knew that their country was an island; and ever since they had heard this, the great subject of Hope's dreams, and the great object of his schemes, had been to scale the mountains and look on the other side. But this was quite a secret between Hope and May; the happy secret which formed the endless interest of their long talks and rambles, but which they could not speak of to their mother, because she was so tenderly timid about them, and because it was to be the great surprise which one day was to enchant her, when Hope was a man. He was to scale the mountains, penetrate to the wondrous land on the other side, and bring thence untold treasures and tales of marvels to May and his mother.

The children thought Hope would very soon be old enough to go; and they had a little cave in the rocks close to the sea where they treasured up dried fruits, and bits of iron to make tools of with which to chop away the tangled branches in the forests, and cut steps in the glaciers which Hope was to traverse. The lower hills the children knew well; and the ravine which wound up far among the hills they had nearly fixed on as the commencement of the journey.

So the days passed on with the children, rich in purposes and bright with happy work. For they were helpful to their mother. From their mountain expeditions they brought her fire-wood, and forest-honey, and eggs of wild-fowl, and various sweet wild-berries, and wholesome roots. They always noticed that their mother encouraged these mountain expeditions, and seemed much happier when they took that direction than when they kept by the sea.

Once Hope had said to her--

"Mother, how beautiful our country is! and I think it is so happy always to be in sight of the sea. How dull those lands must be you tell us of, which are so large that many people have to live out of hearing of the waves! I could not bear to live there; it must seem so narrow and close to be shut in on the land, with nothing beyond. But here we can never get out of sight of the sea. May and I always find, wherever we roam among the hills, we never lose the sea. When we wander far back from the shore, the beautiful blue waters seem to follow us as if they loved us; and in the inmost recesses of the mountains we always see beneath us some glimpse of bright water in the creeks which run up among the hills, or the rivers which come down to meet them. The sea seems to love every corner of our country, mother, and penetrate everywhere."

A cold shudder passed over the mother's frame, and tears gathered in her eyes.

"The sea is indeed everywhere, my children," she murmured; and then, with a burst of irresistible emotion, she clasped them to her heart, and added bitterly, "Happy the country which that sea cannot approach!"

May and Hope wondered greatly at her words; but there was something in her manner which awed them into silence. For some time after that, they often speculated together as to what her words could mean, and a vague terror seemed to murmur in the ripple of the waves. But gradually the impression wore off in the happy forgetfulness of childhood, and their old schemes were resumed with the same zest as before.

One evening, however, as they were busied with their treasures in the cave, the tide surprised them; and when they set out to return home they found the rocky point which separated them from their cottage surrounded with deep water. The sides of the cliff in the little cove where their cave lay were sheer precipices of smooth rock, too steep to climb, so that the children had to wait some hours before they could creep round the point. Eagerly they watched the declining sun and the retreating tide, until when the waves became only ankle-deep they bounded through them, and in a few minutes were at the cottage door. It was not yet dark, and the children were dancing into the cottage full of spirits at their adventure, when they were startled at the appearance of their mother. She was leaning, stony and motionless, with fixed eyes and clasped hands, against the door-post, and for a moment the sight of her darlings did not seem to rouse her. Then springing up with a cry of joy, she strained them to her heart, covered them with kisses, laughed a wild laugh, broken with convulsive sobs, and at last fell fainting on the floor.

The children knelt beside her, and gradually she revived, and fell into a sleep. But every now and then she started as if with some terrible dream, and murmured in her sleep, "The ship--the Black Ship: not now, not yet: take me, not them; or take us all--take us all!"

The terrified children could not sleep; and all the next day they clung close to their mother, and scarcely spoke a word. In the evening, however, she rallied, and tried to speak cheerfully, and account for her alarm.

"You were late, darlings, and I knew you were by the sea--the terrible sea."

But the children could not be comforted. They felt the weight of some vague apprehension; they could not be tempted to leave their mother; they crept noiselessly about, watching her movements, until at last one night they whispered together, and resolved to take courage and ask their mother what made her dread the sea; and then they consulted long as to the best way of introducing the forbidden subject.

The next evening, as they sat together by the fireside, Hope began, and forgetting all the speeches they had prepared, fixed his large eyes on his mother's and said abruptly, "Mother, what is there terrible in the sea?"

She paused a moment, her face grew deadly pale, and her lips trembled.

"Children, why should you wish to know? You will learn too soon, without my telling you."

"O mother, tell us," said May. "We can bear anything from you. Do not let any one else tell us."

A sudden thought seemed to flash across her, and she said, "Children, you are right."

Then folding one arm around Hope as he stood by her, and taking May on her knee, she said, "It is not the sea I dread; it is the Black Ship. That is the terrible secret; and it is, indeed, better you should learn it from my lips than learn it by losing me, and no one be left to tell you how. My children," she continued, making a great effort to speak calmly, "this is the one sorrow of our country. From time to time a Black Ship, without sails or oars, glides silently to our shores, and anchors there. A dark, Veiled Figure lands from it, and seizes any one of our people whom it chooses, without violence, without a sound, but with irresistible power, and quietly leads the victim away to the Ship, which immediately glides away again from our coasts as swiftly and noiselessly as it came; but no one ever sees those who are thus borne away any more."

"Whence does the Ship come, mother?" asked Hope, after a long silence, "and whither does it go?"

"No one knows, my child. That is the terrible thing about it. There is no sound nor voice. The agonized cries of those who are thus bereaved avail not to bring one word of reply from those lips, or to raise one fold of that dark veil. If we only knew, we could bear it."

"Have you ever seen it, mother?" asked Hope, determined bravely to plunge to the bottom of the terrible mystery, while May could only cling round her mother's neck and cry.

"I have seen it twice," she replied, speaking low and rapidly. "We did not always live here. Your father was rich, and a man of rank, and, loving us most dearly, he resolved to do all in his power to keep the terrible Form away. For this end he built that castle you have often seen above the white tower. It is far above the sea; the rocks are perpendicular; it is built of solid stone; the doors were of oak, studded with iron; the windows barred with iron. No one was ever to be permitted to cross the moat without being strictly scrutinized. The gates were always to be closed. When it was finished he made a feast; and after it, when the guests had left, and every bolt was drawn, we stood at the window of the room where you slept, and looked down triumphantly on the sea. A little sister of yours was sleeping in my arms. Suddenly, close beneath us, in the bay at our feet, we saw moored the Black Ship! Our eyes seemed fascinated to it, and we could not speak. We saw the Veiled Figure descend the side, and slowly scale the precipice beneath us, as if it had been a road made for it to tread. It walked over the water of the castle moat, which did not seem to wet its feet. There was no plunge or splash in the waves, no sound of footsteps on the rock; yet, in a moment, it stood on the balcony outside our window, and we could not stir. It passed through the iron bars. It laid its hand on my sleeping babe. Your father's strong arm was around us both, but before we could utter a cry, our darling had glided like a shadow from our embrace. The bright face of our baby was hidden from us under the folds of that impenetrable veil. We watched the terrible Form noiselessly descend the steep, re-enter the Ship, and not until the Black Ship was already gliding swiftly out of sight could we overcome the terrible fascination. Then my cries of agony awoke the household,--boats were manned in pursuit; but in vain, in vain--we felt it was in vain. We never saw the babe again." She spoke with the languor of a sorrow which had been overwhelmed by greater sorrows still.

"But our father?" asked Hope.

"He left the castle the next day," she answered. "We never returned to it. He said the strong walls only mocked our helplessness; and since then the castle has been empty. Birds build their nests in our chambers, wild beasts make their lair in our gardens, the iron bars rust on the open doors; and if the Veiled Figure enter again, it will find no prey."

"But where did you go?"

"We came here. Your father said he would dare the foe, and, since no fortification could keep it out, meet it on its own ground. So he built this cottage close to the sea, and here we have lived ever since. I was content to remain here because I thought we might avoid seeing any one, and keep the terrible secret from you.

"And here," she continued with the calmness of despair, "one morning we saw the Black Ship moored, and your father went to meet it. I wept and clung to him, to keep him back, but he said, 'It shall speak to me.'

"The Dark Form came up, a black shadow across the sunny beach. Your father encountered it boldly, and said, 'Where is my child?'

"There was no sound in reply. For a moment there seemed to be a struggle. I rushed towards them, but the terrible touch was on your father's hand. There seemed no violence, no chain was on his arm--only that paralyzing touch. He went from me silent and helpless as the babe.

"'Whither, whither?' I cried; 'only tell me where!'

"He looked back once, but he spoke to me no more. I rushed madly into the sea, but the Ship was gone in a minute; and your voices, your baby voices, called me back, and I came."

"Is there no help, mother?" said Hope at last. "Has no one ever tried? If I were but a man! Oh, surely some help could be found?"

"So thousands have thought, tried, and asked in vain. Fleets have scoured the seas, but none ever came on the Black Ship's track."

Hope was silenced, and the little family sat up together that night. They did not dare to separate, even to their beds; yet before long the children were asleep.

Sleep revived the brother and sister; and by the evening Hope's ardent heart had found another point to rest on.

"Mother," he said, "if we could only find out whence the Black Ship comes, we might be comforted. Perhaps it comes from a happy place. Can no one even guess?"

"There are some who profess to know something of it," she replied; "but your father never believed them."

"Who are they?" asked Hope.

"The amulet-makers. There is a band of men in the White Town who profess to know something of the country from which the Black Ship comes, and who sends it. But they talk very mysteriously, in learned words; and I do not understand them. Your father said it was all a deception; because some of them profess to make amulets or charms which keep the Veiled Form away; and your little sister had one round her neck when she was taken from us. You have each one, but I cannot trust it; and I never could find out that the amulet-makers had anything but guesses as to where the Ship came from; and your father said we could guess as well as they. There is one thing," she added with a faint smile, "which gives me more comfort than anything they ever said. When our baby was taken away from my arms--when she felt that terrible touch--she did not seem to be at all afraid. She looked up in my face, and then at the Veiled Form, and stretched out her baby arms from me to it and smiled. At first, I hated to think of that. It seemed as if some cruel charm was on her to win even her heart from me; but often in the night, in my dreams, that smile has come back to me, like a promise; and I have awaked, comforted--I hardly know why."

"Perhaps they are in a happy place, mother," said little May.

And Hope said, "Mother, I am going to question the amulet-makers in the White Town." And his mother suffered him to go.

In two days, Hope came back. But his step was spiritless and slow, and his face very sad.

"Mother," he said, "I think my father was right. I am afraid no one knows anything about the country from which the Black Ship comes. At first the amulet-makers promised to tell me a great deal. Some of them told me they believed it was a great king, an enemy of our race, who sent the Ship; but that if we kept certain rules, and put on a certain dress they would sell us, or give them certain treasures to throw into the sea when the Ship appeared, they would watch for us, and make the powers beyond the sea favourable to us. But when I came to the question--how they knew this to be true, or if they had ever had any message from beyond the sea, or seen any one who came thence, they grew silent, and sometimes angry, and told me I was a presumptuous child. There was one old man, however, who was kind to me; and he came and spoke to me alone, and said, 'My child, be happy to-day!--to be good is to be happy. What is beyond to-day, or beyond the sea, no one knows, or ever can know. Go back to your mother, and live as before.' So I came," concluded Hope. "But it can never, never be with us again as before we knew."

From that time the boy seemed to cease to be a child, or to take interest in any childish schemes. He was gentle and tender as his father would have been to his mother and to May, and seemed to take it on himself to watch over and protect them. He never left them out of sight; until, one day, as they came, in their ramble in search of shell-fish, on their old cave, and looked once more at their little stores, so joyously hoarded there, May suddenly exclaimed, "What if they should know on the other side of the mountains!"

The thought flashed on Hope like a breath of new life; and from that day his old schemes were resumed, but with an intensity and a purpose which could not be quenched. He would scale the mountains, to see if any tidings from beyond the sea had reached the land across the mountains!

His mother's consent was gained; and in a few days, spent in eager preparations, Hope was to start.

But before those days were ended, one evening a white-haired old man knocked at the cottage door. He was nearly exhausted with travel, his clothes were torn, and his feet bleeding.

They led him to the fire, bathed his feet, and set food before him. But before he would touch anything, the old man said,--

"I have tidings for you--glad tidings."

"Do you come from across the mountains?" exclaimed Hope, starting to his feet.

The old man bowed in assent.

"I come from across the mountains, and I bring you glad tidings from beyond the sea."

"Glad tidings!" they all exclaimed.

"Glad tidings, if you will obey them," he replied;--"if not, the saddest you ever heard. It is not an enemy who sends the Black Ship, but a Friend."

Not a question, scarcely a breath interrupted him and he continued, in brief, broken sentences,--

"It is our King. Our island belongs to Him. He gave it to us. But, long ago, our people rebelled against Him. They were seduced by a wicked prince, His deadly enemy, and, alas! ours. They sent the King a defiance; they defaced His statues, which were a type of all beauty; they broke His laws, which are the unfolding of all goodness. He sent ambassadors to reclaim them; He, who could have crushed the revolt, and destroyed our nation with one of His armies in a day, descended from His dignity, and stooped to entreat our deluded people to return to their allegiance. But they treated His condescension as weakness. They defied His ambassadors, and maltreated them, and drove them from the island. He had warned them against the usurper, and told them the consequences of revolting; and too surely they have been fulfilled. The Black Ship is the penalty inflicted by our offended Monarch; but those who return to His allegiance need not dread it."

"Some, then, have submitted to the King?" asked Hope.

"Every ambassador He sent has persuaded some to recognize the King."

"Why not all?" asked Hope. "If the King is good, and is our King, and will receive us, why not all return?"

"The usurper seduces them still," replied the old man. "Many hate the King's good laws; many take pride in what they call their independence; most will not listen, or will not believe. They mock the King's messengers, and declare that they are impostors, that their messages are a delusion; and some even persist in declaring that there is no King, and no country beyond the sea."

"But the Black Ship is not a delusion!" said Hope; "it must come from some land. What proof have these ambassadors given? Have they ever been in the land beyond the sea?"

"They gave many proofs; but I bring you better news than this. A few years since, the King's Son came Himself. Many of us have seen and spoken with Him. He stayed many days. He spoke words of such power, and in tones of such tenderness, as none who heard can ever forget. We could trace in His features the lineaments of the statues we had defaced. Some of the worst rebels among us were melted to repentance, and fell at His feet, and besought His pardon. I was one. He gave us not only His pardon, but His friendship. But His enemies prevailed. Especially the amulet-makers organized a conspiracy against Him; they feared for their trade, and secretly prepared to drive Him from the island. He had come alone, for He came not to compel, but to win. And He came for another purpose, which, until He was gone, we could not comprehend. The conspirators triumphed. One day they came in force and seized Him. Alas! a base panic seized us who loved Him, and we fled. They bound Him with thongs, they treated Him with the most barbarous cruelty and the basest indignity, and drove Him to the sea. We thought a fleet and an army would have appeared to avenge His insulted majesty and proclaim Him King with power, or bear Him in pomp away; but to our surprise and dismay nothing came for Him but the Black Ship, and the Dark Form bore Him from us, as if He had been a rebel like one of us. He had told us something of the probability of this before it happened, but we could not comprehend what He meant. Never were days of such sorrow as those which passed over us after His being taken from us. His enemies were in full triumph; they mocked our Prince's claims, they insulted us, they threatened us; but all they could say or do was nothing in comparison with the anguish in our hearts. For what could we think? He whom we had loved and trusted was gone, borne off in triumph by the very foe He came to deliver us from. We hid ourselves in caves and lonely places by the sea, and recalled to one another His precious words, and gazed out over the sea with a vague yearning, which was scarcely hope, and yet kept us lingering on the shore.

"On the third morning, in the gray light of early dawn, one of us saw Him on the shore; one who had owed Him everything, and loved Him most devotedly. She called us to come. One by one we gathered round Him. Some of us could scarcely believe our senses for joy. But it was Himself; the solid certainty of that unutterable joy grew stronger. And then He told us wonders: how He suffered all this for us; had borne this indignity and captivity in obedience to His Father's will, to set us free; had gone in the Black Ship itself to the heart of the Enemy's country, and alone trodden those terrible regions of lawless wickedness to which he seeks to drag his deluded victims, and alone vanquished him there. He stayed with us some days, and talked with us familiarly, as of old; but how glorious His commonest words were, how overpowering His forgiving looks, how inspiring His firm and tender tones, I can never tell. He could not remain with us then. He said we must be His messengers, and win back His rebels to allegiance; we must learn to be brave, to speak and suffer for Him, and to act as men; and He promised to come again one day with fleets and armies, and all the pomp of His Father's kingdom. But, meantime, He said the Black Ship should never more be a terror to any of us who loved Him; for He Himself would come in it each time. He would be veiled, so that none could see Him but the one He came for: but surely as the Black Ship came, instead of the Dark Form, He would come Himself for every one of us, and bear us home to His Father's house to abide with Him, and with Him hereafter to return."

There was a breathless silence, broken only by the mother's sobs.

She clasped her hands, and murmured,--

"Then it was He! It was surely He Himself who came and took my babe. No wonder my darling smiled, and was willing to go."

The mother and the children that very evening received from the stranger the medal which was worn by all those who returned to their allegiance. It was a Black Ship, surrounded with rays of glory, and behind it the towers of a city.

Never were a happier company than the four who gathered round the cottage table that evening. They were too happy, and had too much to ask, to sleep; and far into the night the questions and answers continued, every reply of the old man's only revealing some fresh endearing excellence in the King and the King's Son, until they longed for the Black Ship to come and fetch them home.

"If only," said little May, "it would fetch us all at once!"

"That the King will do when He comes with His armies in the day of His triumph. Till then, my child, this is the one only sorrow connected with the Black Ship, for those who love the King. We go one by one, and blessed as it is for the one who goes, it must be sad sometimes for those who are left."

"Why do not those who go to Him ask Him to come quickly?" asked Hope.

"They do," replied the old man. "'Come quickly' is the entreaty of all who love Him here and beyond the sea; but His time is best. And, meantime, have we forgotten the multitudes who are still deceived by the usurper, to whom the Black Ship is still a horrible end of all things, and the Veiled Form the King of Terrors?"

Hope rose and stood before the old man.

"Mother," he said, "it is for this we must live. Think of the desolate hearts in the homes around us. Think of the thousands who know not our blessed secret in the White Town."

The old man rose and laid his hand on Hope's head.

"My King!" he said, "when wilt Thou come for me? Is not my work done? Will not this youthful voice speak for Thee here as my quivering tones no longer can? Wilt Thou not come? I have many dear ones with Thee; but when Thou wilt is best."

Then he persuaded them all to lie down to rest, and he himself composed himself quietly to sleep.

But in the night a wondrous light filled the room; a wondrous light and fragrance. The mother woke, and the children, and they saw the old man standing, gazing towards the door, which was open. There stood a Veiled Form, dark to the mother's eyes as the dreaded form she knew too well; yet its presence filled the room with the light as of a rosy dawn, and the fragrance as of spring flowers. The old man's hair was silvery, and his form tottering as ever; but in his face there was the beauty of youth, and in his eyes the rapture of joy.

"Farewell, my friends," he said; "your day of joy will come like this of mine.--Thou art come for me at last; Thou Thyself! I see Thy face, I hear Thy voice: I come; it is Thou."

A hand was laid tenderly on his hand, and they walked away together into the night. But as the mother and children looked after him from the door, they saw the Black Ship; only at its prow was a star; and as it passed away, the mother, and Hope, and May thought it left a track of light upon the sea.

The three had henceforth enough to live and suffer for. To the lonely fishermen's huts went May and her mother, into the White Town went Hope; and everywhere they bore their tidings of joy. They had much to suffer, and many mocked; and against them also the amulet-makers combined, and would not listen. But some did listen, and believe, and love; and to such, as to the mother, and Hope, and May, the Black Ship, instead of a phantom of terror, became a messenger of surpassing joy.

[The end]
Elizabeth Rundle Charles's short story: Black Ship

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