The Mystery of the Sargasso
by William Hope Hodgson
The original title of this story was "The Mystery of the Derelict" and we changed that last word to avoid confusion with the author's more famous "The Derelict." At one time the Sargasso Sea used to be the object of many novels and stories, and the legend of the graveyard of lost ships gripped the mind of the imaginative. This is not a story of that watery cemetery—which existed only in the minds of landlubbers—but of the real Sargasso as seamen knew it—a strange area of floating seaweed, mysterious in origin, which may have provided grounds for sailors' yarns such as this one.
All the night had the four-masted ship, Tarawak, lain motionless in the drift of the Gulf Stream; for she had run into a "calm patch"—into a stark calm which had lasted now for two days and nights.
On every side, had it been light, might have been seen dense masses of floating gulf-weed, studying the ocean even to the distant horizon. In places, so large were the weed-masses that they formed long, low banks, that by daylight, might have been mistaken for low-lying land.
Upon the lee side of the poop, Duthie, one of the 'prentices, leaned with his elbows upon the rail, and stared out across the hidden sea, to where in the Eastern horizon showed the first pink and lemon streamers of the dawn—faint, delicate streaks and washes of colour.
A period of time passed, and the surface of the leeward sea began to show—a great expanse of grey, touched with odd, wavering belts of silver. And everywhere the black specks and islets of the weed.
Presently, the red dome of the sun protruded itself into sight above the dark rim of the horizon; and, abruptly, the watching Duthie saw something—a great, shapeless bulk that lay some miles away to starboard, and showed black and distinct against the gloomy red mass of the rising sun.
"Something in sight to looard, Sir," he informed the Mate, who was lean-
119
