Chapter 2821 Runaway Wolf (4)

Before twelve o'clock the three of us were back at the inn, and Van Helsing took Dr. Self and me to his room. I've never seen anyone's room be as chaotic as it is in front of me, yet orderly.

Van Helsing sat on the bed, the only one in the room, and Dr. Self and I had to stand and talk to him.

The ship was called the Adonis, and Van Helsing found the captain's diary. He received a strange request to transport some silver sand and a box of soil back to Rotterdam, and the captain felt that the silver sand was not important to this customer. If it weren't for the weirdness of just shipping a box of dirt, he might just want to haul that box of dirt.

The boat departed from Tejirda, the Turkish officials boarded the boat, the captain gave a tip, everything was in order, and sailed at four in the afternoon. Had a little trouble crossing the Dardanelles, more customs officers and a frigate, the officers checked thoroughly, and the captain gave another tip to get them out of port as soon as possible, into the Aegean in the evening .

After passing Cape Matapong, there was commotion on board and one person was missing, the weather was calm and the crew became anxious. One of the crew members ran to the captain's room and told him tremblingly that when he was on duty, he saw a tall and thin man standing at the stern who didn't look like a crew member. When he walked along the deck, the man disappeared. Due to superstitious reasons, he felt very scared, and the captain comforted him. In order to prevent him from infecting others with his fear, the captain promised to give the crew a raise when they disembarked.

After sailing safely for four or five days, they encountered a storm. The sailors were not afraid when facing the stormy sea, but after the storm was over, they found that another person was missing. The crew became suspicious and even suspected that the ship had been destroyed. To the curse.

The captain gathered them together and told them that surrendering to such stupid ideas would affect their morale. He led a search from the bow to the stern of the ship, not sparing any corner.

There was nowhere to hide, and when the search was over everyone was relieved and went back to work happily, only greatly unhappy. He was a Romanian, and in his homeland there was a legend that vampires and wizards would rise from the ashes, and the mate advised the captain to throw the box of dirt into the sea.

The captain didn't agree to do that, not only because it was the customer's cargo, but also because he thought what the mate said was too ridiculous.

All went well through the Strait of Gibraltar, but the weather turned bad again as we entered the Bay of Biscay. Encountered two big storms in a row, what was worse was that another person was missing. The mate became angry, the crew became terrified, and they demanded a two-man vigil, which resulted in a short manned life as hell.

People were exhausted, the captain didn't know what to do with the night watch, and the second mate volunteered to steer and watch so the crew could get a few more hours of sleep. The wind weakened and the wind and waves were still strong, but the boat eased a lot.

According to the nautical chart, they should be approaching England. The weather was fine the next day, and the sails were all up. The captain felt at ease until the first mate told him that the second mate was missing.

This time the first mate brought all the remaining crew and helmsman, and they all armed themselves, and it was obvious that if the captain did not agree to their request, they would throw the captain and the box into the sea.

The captain exhaustedly agreed to their request, but the good weather also disappeared. For two consecutive days, no ships could be seen in the thick fog, and no one answered the distress signal. Get your bearings.

He was awakened by a cry, and the captain met the first mate when he rushed to the deck. He told the captain that another person was missing, and he said that they must have passed the Dover Strait. According to the time, they were almost at Rotterdam. .

In fact, it doesn't matter if they don't reach Rotterdam at this time, they can dock at the French port, but the captain didn't tell the first officer, because the man's eyes were full of despair and panic.

The dense fog seemed to follow them all the time, and God seemed to have abandoned them. At midnight, the captain took over as the helmsman. Except for the sea of ​​fog, the rest was calm. Then the captain saw a tall, thin man, wrapped in a black robe, standing on the side of the ship.

The captain let go of the rudder and took up his sword, and just as he was about to get close to the man, the first mate rushed from the cabin to the deck and struck him madly with the dagger in his hand, but the knife came out of its It passed through the body, as if it was inserted into the air.

At this time, the wind picked up, and the wind blew the lantern, as if in the next second, the first officer calmly jumped onto the side of the ship and jumped into the sea.

"God help me, how am I supposed to explain these horrors when I get to shore?"

The captain wrote in his diary, murmuring again, and then he went back to the cabin to let the rest of the crew inspect the rest of the cargo, and among those boxes he found another box of "clay."

I don’t know when this box of soil was put on the boat. The captain was very angry and ordered everyone to carry it out, but they moved it in vain, and couldn’t lift it up, as if the box had already merged with the boat. One.

One of the crew members said that they should simply blow up this piece with dynamite. The captain told him in a firm tone that he couldn't do that, but these crazy people couldn't listen at all.

If the captain had been a sailor, he would have gone on deck and lowered the boat, the Dover Strait was a busy channel, and soon there would be ships passing by, and he would be saved.

But he is the captain, and the captain cannot leave his ship without authorization, and he will sink with it if necessary.

All he could do was to leave the cabin and go back on deck, and while the fog was still there, he saw the sunrise, which must have been sunrise, not sunset, though he could no longer tell day from night . He stopped listening to what was going on below, and took the helm again, performing his last duties as captain.

The "mysterious incident at sea" ended with the death of all the crew and the madness of the captain. The captain was finally buried in the parish cemetery. During the funeral, a passer-by led a dog past. The dog kept barking a few meters away, regardless of its owner. Stop it, it keeps barking.

I looked at the box of soil at Van Helsing's feet in fear, but Van Helsing calmly told me not to worry, because the ship was not a "ghost ship", but a spirit boat.

Ghost ships will appear on the sea, but the coffin is used for funerals. It is equivalent to a coffin. People will put the deceased on the coffin and let him float away with the water.

I asked Van Helsing why the spirit boat was docked on the second floor of the villa. Van Helsing said it was because the villa was also a coffin, I wondered if he was speaking metaphorically. Doctor Self said that the captain had a family, and although they no longer lived here, no matter what kind of ship it was, it was bound to land.

Van Helsing said that Dr. Self's metaphor was too poetic and inaccurate. The place where the captain's soul wants to go is the same as the place where the body is. The immaterial spirit ship can float in the sea of ​​fog and come to his destination. But I do remember that the captain's body was in the cemetery.

Van Helsing rose now.

"The only way to solve the riddle is to find definitive evidence."

Then he asked Mrs. Harker to borrow a shovel, and I hoped that what he was going to do was not what I thought.

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"The Egyptians believed that the body is the container of the soul, so they often have the experience of 'fugue travel'."

said Snape to the three sixth years when Pomona came back with eggnog.

"Fugue is not sleepwalking, your body is still on the bed."

"It's like an out-of-body experience," Ben said.

"When I need to ask your opinion, I'll say it, Gryffindor..."

"It's the holidays, Severus." Pomona interrupted him. "If you hold it like this, Gryffindor's hourglass will bottom out."

He showed obvious displeasure, but let Ben Cooper go.

Poor Ben breathed a sigh of relief.

"Come on, drink eggnog," said Pomona. "What's a voyage without rum?"

Everyone looked at her strangely.

"Oh, I get it." Liz said with a flash of inspiration, "It's like what my grandma said, the big summer auspicious bird!"

"What does that mean?" Ben asked.

"It probably means 'just in time'," Liz said.

"Where did you go?" asked Pomona.

"You tell her." Severus pointed at Ben Cooper, but he drank the eggnog himself.

"Let me tell," said Barnaby.

"I don't want to hear a Parseltongue tell a story." Snape smiled wickedly, "even if Carter says that almost every Parseltongue goes back to Salazar Slytherin."

Pomona was speechless in shock.

But still sit down quietly and listen to Ben tell the story.