Ghost Stories (10 page)

Frank shuddered. “A phantom on a phantom ship. It's crazy.”

At that moment a terrific clap of thunder sounded overhead. The ship began to pitch and toss. Shouting could be heard on deck.

Then Langton appeared below. “We are in a storm!” the first mate shouted. “We need every hand on deck!” He unlocked the door and gave the Hardys their orders. “Put on your foul-weather gear and get up top!”

He raced off, and Frank and Joe ran to the sleeping quarters. They donned their oilskins, sou'westers, and rubber boots, then went upstairs.

The sky was black and angry. Rain fell in torrents. A twisting wind created mountainous waves, causing the
Samoa Queen
to bob like a cork in a rushing river. Waves broke over the bow and sloshed across the deck.

Captain Parker cupped his hands around his mouth and bawled orders into the raging storm. Some of the men responded by furling the sails so they wouldn't catch the wind, while others battened down the hatches to prevent water from spilling in. Several crew members fought their way along the rails hand over hand to get from the bow of the ship to the stern.

Langton came up from inspecting the hold. “We have sprung a leak!” he shouted.

“Take Frank and Joe Hardy and plug it,” Parker yelled back.

The boys went with the first mate. In the hold, they saw a split timber, allowing water to seep in from outside. A couple of inches had already collected on the floor.

“Frank Hardy, get the pump from the locker and pump the water into that barrel in the corner,” Langton commanded. “Joe Hardy, help me plug the leak!”

He produced a box of tools and a flat board that he held in place over the leak. Joe took a hammer from the box and began driving nails into the board. He worked rapidly and expertly, hitting the nails on the head with every swing of the hammer.

When he finished, the board held the two sides of the split timber together, and the water stopped coming into the hold.

“Good!” Langton complimented Joe.

Meanwhile, Frank had removed the pump from the hold locker. It was a small, hand-operated machine, a model so old he had never seen one like it except in the Bayport Museum. He brought out a length of hose and attached one end to the pump. Then he placed the opposite end over the rim of the barrel and moved the arm of the pump up and down.

Water began to run through the hose and splash into the barrel, which was soon filled up. Frank switched to a second barrel, and it also brimmed with water by the time the floor was dry.

“Good enough,” Langton admitted. “Now, make yourselves useful on top.”

When the Hardys regained the deck, the night was still black but the storm was moving away. The rain had stopped, the wind was decreasing, and the waves were subsiding.

“We were lucky,” Captain Parker told the crew. “We only caught the edge of the storm. Now, take your gear below. We have to get the
Samoa Queen
shipshape again.”

When the Hardys returned from stowing their oilskins, members of the crew were already repairing the damage caused by the storm. One sailor was sitting on a yardarm halfway up the mainmast, trying to tie one end of a loose sail into place.

Captain Parker looked at Frank. “Frank Hardy, climb up the opposite end of the yardarm and help him. Lash the other end of the sail to the yardarm.”

Frank clambered up the narrow ladder attached to the mast. Reaching the yardarm, he moved out onto it. He looked at the sailor across from him. It was Corkin!

“Do your job right,” Corkin gibed at Frank. “Take your end of the sail and fasten it, and be quick!”

Frank did not reply. His end of the sail was flapping in the wind. To get hold of it, he had to stand up on the yardarm and reach out with one hand. His fingers had barely closed around the cloth when Corkin tugged hard.

Pulled off balance, Frank fell from the yardarm. Watching, Joe gasped as his brother began to plunge toward the deck!

But Frank managed to grab the yardarm at the last moment. He hung there as the mast rolled with
the ship. Straining with his last ounce of strength, he got a foot over the yardarm and hoisted himself back up on it.

“You did that deliberately!” he accused Corkin.

The sailor grinned evilly. “You do not know how to work on the yardarm,” he said. “That is all.”

“I'll show you!” Frank challenged him. “I'll get the sail lashed before you do.”

Both Hardys had shipped out as hands on a Coast Guard training ship, so Frank knew how to handle a sail. He seized the end whipping in the wind, ran a leather thong through its metal eye, curled the thong through a hook on the yardarm, and tied a sailor's knot to hold it firmly in place.

His chore finished, he edged over to the ladder. Corkin, looking discomfited, was still working on his end of the sail when Frank descended the ladder to the deck.

“Well done, Frank Hardy,” said Langton, who had seen everything. “Corkin pulled the sail at the wrong time. But you have steady nerves and quick hands. I think you will make a whaler after all.”

Grinning, Frank walked over to Joe and whispered, “Looks like your plan is working. At least we've got the first mate on our side. I hope he tells Captain Parker we're too useful to be dropped into the ocean!”

“I hope so, too,” Joe said in an undertone. “But we're still in a terrible situation. We're—”

Captain Parker interrupted them by shouting, “Joe Hardy, come here!”

Joe hurried over to him.

“Climb up in the crow's nest,” the captain directed. “We are off Tahiti, and I want to know how close to land we are. I do not fancy piling my ship on a reef. Look sharp. If the
Samoa Queen
hits the coral, she will shiver her timbers!”

“Yes, sir!” Joe replied. He hurried to the foot of the mainmast, took hold of the ladder, and began to climb past the yardarms and the sails to the top of the mast. He slipped into the basket that was attached to it as a vantage point from which the lookout could survey the area around the whaler.

Because it was night, Joe could not see far. He strained his eyes to penetrate the murky darkness as the crow's nest swung in a wide arc above open water on one side of the ship, then over the deck to the other side. The wind blowing in his face made his eyes sting.

Why even ask
how
we can be near Tahiti, across the Pacific, he reflected. It's no stranger than anything else that's happened tonight.

“Ahoy up there!” Captain Parker shouted. “What do you see from the crow's nest?”

“Nothing but water on every side!” Joe called down. “Visibility is bad.”

“It is good enough for you to see Tahiti!” the captain yelled. “And you had better alert me in time.”

Joe resumed his vigil. Suddenly a dark outline showed against the murky background of the night, rising above the surface of the sea.

“That has to be land!” the boy exclaimed. “Ahoy down there!” he shouted toward the deck. “Land to
the right! Land to starboard! Steer to the left! Steer to port! To port!”

On deck, Frank took up the cry. “Steer to port!”

To his horror, Joe heard Parker roar, “Steersman, steer to starboard!”

The
Samoa Queen
swung to the right and raced over the waves.

“Land directly ahead!” Joe cried in alarm. “Turn to port!”

On deck, Frank repeated the warning.

The Hardys were appalled to hear Parker bellow, “Full speed ahead!”

The ship hurtled onward. The dark outline above the surface came closer and closer with frightening speed. Then the ship struck the barrier with a shattering impact!

The mainmast snapped off with a terrifying crash, and fell down among the ship's rigging. Joe was thrown out of the crow's nest onto the deck!

He landed near Frank, who asked anxiously, “Are you all right, Joe?”

“I'm fine,” Joe replied, faintly aware of the fact that he should be hurting but wasn't. “But I believe we're in big trouble!” He pointed to the captain, who was glowering savagely at them.

“You landlubbers are responsible for wrecking the ship on a reef!” Parker screamed.

“But I warned you that you were close to land on the starboard side!” Joe protested.

“And I repeated the warning,” Frank reminded the captain.

“It does not matter. You are mutineers!” Parker
fumed. Turning to a group of sailors, he ordered, “Throw them to the sharks.”

The crew swooped down furiously on the Hardy boys, seized them, and hustled them over to the rail. Suddenly the brothers saw a weird figure standing there by himself. It was the zombie who had lured them to the stern before and then had vanished into thin air!

He stared at them without expression, pointing over the side of the ship. Their captors hurled the boys in the direction he was indicating. But instead of splashing into the water, they landed on wood with a thump. Dazed, they stood up and looked around.

They found themselves in their motorboat, the
Sleuth,
and there was no sign of the
Samoa Queen
anywhere! A gleam of sunlight on the horizon revealed that they were in the Atlantic not far from Barmet Bay.

Frank and Joe stared blankly at each other for several moments. Then Frank pressed the launch's ignition. The motor roared to life! He tried the ship-to-shore radio. It worked perfectly.

“How come these gadgets are okay now when they weren't last night?” he mumbled.

“I don't know,” Joe said. “All I know is I had a very strange dream—”

“About the whaleboat
Samoa Queen
going around Cape Horn in 1850?” Frank asked.

“Yes. Captain Parker's hostile sailors threw us overboard because we hit land—”

“Joe, that was no dream. We both had the same experience. And you know what I think saved us?”

“What?”

“The zombie no one else saw. He was our guardian phantom!”

 
THE HAUNTED CASTLE
 

The jumbo jet thundered eastward high above billowing white clouds that drifted across the Atlantic. Through the window, Joe Hardy could see the coast of Scotland.

“We'll be landing soon, Frank,” he remarked to his brother. “And then we'll find out what this mystery is all about. Lord MacElphin sure was secretive when he phoned us in Bayport.”

“He was too nervous to say much,” Frank observed. “There's obviously something strange going on.

The Hardys were referring to the fact that Lord MacElphin, an old friend of their father's, had called Fenton Hardy and asked him to carry out an investigation at MacElphin Castle in Scotland.

Mr. Hardy was tied up with an assignment for the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, so he had advised the boys to take the case.

“Be careful, though,” he'd warned them. “Lord MacElphin doesn't get upset easily. Something dangerous must be going on at his castle. Still, I know you two can take care of yourselves. So go ahead and book the next flight to Scotland.”

Frank and Joe drove to New York the next morning and caught a transatlantic jet to Europe. Now they watched as the plane circled around and landed at Prestwick Airport near Glasgow. When they had cleared through customs, they took a taxi and asked to be driven to MacElphin Castle.

The cabbie's face darkened as he started his car and moved rapidly into the Scottish countryside. “I cannot take ye to the castle,” he informed the Hardys. “I'll leave ye at the gate and ye'll have to go the rest of the way on foot.”

“Why won't you go to the castle?” Frank wanted to know. “Is something wrong up there?”

“Aye, you could say that. Something no man or woman should meddle with.”

Joe's curiosity was stirred. “Can you tell us what it is?”

“It's the powers of darkness,” the driver muttered hoarsely. “The witch's curse on the house of MacElphin!”

The Hardys were startled by the outburst of the man, who turned off the highway onto a dirt road that ran through farming country. Then he resumed his weird tale of witchcraft.