The haunted island

On Christmas Eve, 1668, I, Francis Clayton, was with my brother Dick at Clayton Manor, our father’s house. ’Tis seated on the bottom of a Bay near Wembury, on the sea coast of D...

We now rapidly left the floundering and mazed man-of-war. But our men kept firing into the medley on her decks, plying the stern-chasers in furious haste; and, ever as he was ab...

We had favourable winds and calm seas, and met with no King’s ships. What other craft we met withal, meddled not with us, nor we with them. Through great part of the Bay of Bisc...

I went on deck, to behold a night of calm and beauty. There was no moon; but the hosts of the stars burned in a clear element, upon a solemn ground, and I thought they were like...

“Close and bolt the door,” said the Englishman so soon as we were alone. “That Quartermaster, saintly soul, may be hereabout. So. And now, my lad, get you into your hammock agai...

“’Twas a sound, a voice--but whether of man, or beast, or worse, we knew not; and it proceeded from the chasm; a sudden, loud, weird, shrieking sound that rose and scattered unt...

I stayed not long in doubt. The steel-grey light of dawn shone upon the sea; and there, within half a mile astern of us, was a great ship flying the flag of St. George.

Coming forth upon the poop, I desponded in my mind, thinking of home and England; and the sea, with all the beauty of its clear and flashing blue waters, was hateful to me; yea,...

The ship lurched and pitched so that I had much ado to keep my feet. We ran before the wind under our topsails only, driven ever onwards with the rolling long waves of the sea a...

And, as we designed to touch at the Isle of Porto Rico, so we could not make it, but must go away under the great Island of Hispaniola. Hereupon the wind chopped back again, so...

In all the space of our voyage from the Island of Hispaniola, round about the great hump of America southwards, and through the Straits of Magellan into the South Sea, there fel...

My confined state was very irksome to me, after the freedom I had enjoyed on board and the daily fare of new and strange experiences. However, I employed the time pleasantly eno...

This put a strange spirit into the mariners, half eager, half fearful; as might be seen from their restless demeanour and furtive converse one with another. And, as it seemed to...

Whether my brother had spoken more, I know not; for, on a sudden, there came a stir and commotion among the men, who began to move towards us in a gang.

For what time my brother should be gone, Wallis, the master-gunner, was left in command; and he presently ordered the lighted match to be fastened in the waist, and three more m...

There was a narrow shore of white sand, curving and twisting with stupendous cliffs, the sheer and beetling fronts of which could not have had less than fifteen hundred feet. A...

I looked up, to behold a man who stood by the side of a settee whereon I lay. He was a very tall, lean, aged man, dressed in a scarlet robe; and I knew him: ’twas he whom the En...

I was nothing loth. The curiosity I had to learn more of the island, was now, indeed, swollen to the highest pitch; so, within a brief space, we went from the cell, coming into...

We went on in silence, through a tract of low level land, void of trees, but clothed with a sort of monstrous tall grasses; and, having gone about a mile and a half, we came to...

When we had run for about a quarter of an hour, and were come, panting, to the side of a wood, Ambrose stood and hearkened intently. Then he cast himself upon the ground, settin...

The Secretary was very gloomy, and brooded in his mind. Nothing worth remark fell out on the way, until we came to the second wood, when, pointing to the right, Ambrose said:

On our way, as we entered the first wood, we came upon the man Barleycorn, who trimmed the path with a macheat. He was a small hairy man, bowed with toil and parched in the sun....

I was startled, and stood perfectly astonished on the threshold; for the walls were all carved out in figures of beautiful sculpture. The subject was religious, depicting the ma...

They were Frenchmen, and chattered over their work, with much gesticulation. I spoke to them; but they would not be troubled with me, and returned me no answer. So I left them,...

The common sort of pirates had their dwelling both in the Cells, and in a system of caves, in part natural, in part excavated out of the cliff, on the further shore of the island.

Ambrose could, or would, tell me nothing. Indeed, he was become so taciturn and out of humour, that scarce he spoke to me ever at all. And then came the day when I hit upon the...

Night had fallen this while, and the hollow in the thicket was black as pitch. I groped my way forth, and, coming to the verge of the swamp, searched for and found my stick that...

The tide was at ebb; but I walked down the shore until I could see, faint and ashen, the curled crests of the breakers and the foam writhing upon the sand. I began to make along...

My thirst I quenched with a draught from the water of the cataract, though it tasted brackish. Hereupon I began to walk back along the shore towards the gully by which I had des...

I got up, and, not staying for breakfast, hasted forth. I went to Ambrose’s cell; but found it empty, and nobody in the passage. I went out, and quickly traversed the wood. Comi...

Then rose up the dreadful figure on the shore, and stretched forth an arm of stone, and with a stone hand laid hold on the ship, and lifted her aloft, and dropt her all shattere...

But the dread geyser gave no light, and the darkness about me was black. I could see neither the Doctor nor Ambrose; and, when I called to them, there came no answer.