WHEN THE SCHOONER WAS EXAMINED, IT WAS found to be a Russian vessel from Varna, baptized Demeter. It was loaded with boxes, each filled with earth—according to the freight bill they were being shipped for engineering experiments. Nobody was found on board, except for the dead man at the steering wheel. Both his hands were tied and a rosary was wrapped around them. In his pocket was a bottle containing a slip of paper that proved to be an addendum to the ship’s logbook.
The logbook reported:
The moment the ship set sail, the crew had been unusually sullen. The Captain and the first mate tried to find out the reason, but the men wouldn’t answer. They did, however, intimate that there was something foul aboard, and they crossed themselves. The ship hadn’t sailed very far when one night the watchman disappeared.
The next day one of the crew-members told the Captain that a stranger was onboard the ship, and some other deckhands also believed they’d noticed a stowaway.
The Captain ordered his men to inspect the whole ship carefully, but they didn’t find a clue.
The ship passed by Gibraltar and for a few days the stars were merciful—but then another sailor disappeared one night during his watch.
The following day the ship entered the English Channel and two more crew-members went missing.
One night the Captain was awakened by an awful sound. He ran up on deck and found the steersman there, who had also heard the noise. The watchman was gone.
The following night the vessel entered the North Sea, and there, yet another crew-member went missing. The Captain called on the steersman, who came up on deck, deathly pale with fear. He whispered to the Captain, “The Devil himself is on board. I have seen him; he is tall and very thin,291 pale as a corpse but very dark around the eyes. He stood looking out over the sea. I snuck up on him from behind and ran a knife through his body, but hit nothing but air.”
The steersman said he wouldn’t give up until he found him, then went with his light and tools into the freight hold to examine the boxes.
Suddenly the Captain heard a terrible sound coming from belowdecks. The steersman came up again, his face disfigured with fear.
“I know how things stand now, but the sea shall deliver me—I have no other way out.” Thereon he threw himself overboard, before the Captain could get ahold of him.
The Captain had also written, “I have seen him—the steersman was right to throw himself into the sea—but the Captain cannot leave his ship. Instead, I’ve decided to tie myself to the steering wheel.”