One day Captain Gibson came back on board his ship with a parrot. The parrot was grey and old, and its name was Polly.
“I didn’t want to bring it,” he said to the mate, “but my old uncle asked me to take it to sea. He loves the bird very much and thinks that the sea air will be good for it.”
The mate looked at the parrot. He did not like the bird.
“What’s the matter with it?” he asked. “Is the bird ill? Why does your uncle think that the sea air will be good for it?”
“I don’t know, and I didn’t ask him. My uncle is rich, and I hope that he’ll leave me some money when he dies, so the parrot must feel well on board my ship,” said the captain.
All the sailors on board talked about the parrot and about the ship’s cat. It was a very big black cat, and its name was Satan.
“Old Satan doesn’t like the parrot,” said the cook. “Did you see how he looked at that bird?”
“What shall we do now?” asked old Sam, the sailor, who was Satan’s best friend. “He’ll kill the parrot,” said the cook. “You’ll see, he’ll kill it.”
The mate’s wife had given the cat to the ship when it was a kitten, and it had grown up on board and become a great friend of all the sailors. “We must watch Satan carefully and not let him see the parrot,” the sailors said.
For two days everything was all right. The sailors watched the cat and didn’t let him come anywhere near the Captain’s cabin. But on the third day Satan ran away and got into the cabin. He stayed there only a few minutes, but when the Captain came into his cabin soon after, he shouted so loudly that everyone on board jumped up.
“Where is that black Satan?” shouted the captain.
“Has anything happened, sir?” asked old Sam.
“Happened! Come into the cabin and see.”
When Sam came in, he saw that the mate and another man were already there. They were standing and looking at the parrot, which had lost half of its feathers in a fight with the cat.
“Well, what do you think of that?” asked the captain angrily.
“It’s from the food, sir. The parrot’s food was not right,” began Sam.
“Food? What are you talking about?” shouted the captain.
“Bad food, sir,” said Sam again. “You see, if a grey parrot doesn’t get good food, it begins to lose its feathers.”
“Nonsense!” cried the captain. “You know very well that Satan did it, and I shall throw the cat overboard.”
“Oh no, sir,” cried the mate and another sailor at once, “it couldn’t be the cat. Satan is too kind and good to do such a thing!”
“Satan isn’t even a cat but a kitten, sir,” said Sam. “You couldn’t throw a poor little kitten overboard.”
“Who asked you to tell me what I can and can’t do? Come with me!” shouted the captain and ran out of the cabin.
When they came on deck, the captain called the cat, but the clever animal understood everything and didn’t want to come up to him.
“You call it,” said the captain to Sam.
“Oh no, sir. I shall never do it. I shall not kill a B-L-A-C-K cat, and I shall never help anybody to kill it. It’s all right for you, sir. You have read many books and you know so much. You will not believe it, but I knew one man who had killed a B-L-A-C-K cat, and...” here Sam stopped and shut his eyes. “No, sir, I cannot do it.”
The captain didn’t speak for a moment. He didn’t want to show his men that he was superstitious or afraid of Sam’s words.
He turned to the cook and said, “Well, George, tie something heavy to the cat and throw it overboard.”
“No, sir, not the B-L-A-C-K cat. I wouldn’t do it for a bag of gold. I don’t want to see ghosts all my life.”
“Ghosts?!” asked the captain.
“Yes, sir. A man who kills a black cat sees the ghost of that cat all his life.”
“The parrot feels much better now,” said the mate. “It’s opened one eye.”
“Well,” said the captain, “I don’t want to do anything bad to the cat, so I’ll let it stay on board for now. But if the parrot dies, then the cat goes overboard.”
Every day the cook brought dinner to the captain’s cabin, so the sailors always knew everything about the parrot; and the parrot was getting weaker and weaker. By the time the ship came to London, everybody on board knew that the parrot was dying.
Late in the evening the sailors were sitting and planning what to do with the cat when the parrot died. Suddenly, the cook, who had gone to the port to buy some bread, came in. On his shoulder he carried a big bag. He put the bag on the deck, looked around and asked in a whisper,
“Where is the captain?”
“In his cabin, George.”
“Hush,” said the cook, looking around again. “Do you know what I have in this bag?”
“Bread,” whispered somebody.
“Bread is nothing,” said the cook. “There’s something else in this bag that will save our Satan.”
“What is it? What is it?” asked everybody.
“As you know, I went to buy bread,” began the cook. “I had just left the shop when I suddenly saw a big black cat. It was sitting near a house door. The cat looked like our Satan, and I thought, ‘Let the captain throw this cat overboard instead of our Satan.’ So I caught it and quickly pushed it into the bag.”
“Good work, George,” said Sam. “But are you sure your cat looks like Satan?”
“We’ll see,” said the cook and pulled the cat out of the bag. Somebody brought Satan, and the sailors saw there was no difference between the two cats.
“Very well,” cried Sam. “I’ll make some holes in the boy’s sea chest and we’ll keep our Satan there.”
The ship left London and was soon on the open sea. The new cat sat on deck and looked sadly at the sea waves.
“What’s the matter with Satan, captain?” asked the mate, who knew the sailors’ plan. “Do you see how sadly it looks at the sea?”
“It’ll soon be in the sea if the parrot dies,” answered the captain angrily.
A few hours later the captain came out of his cabin with the body of the dead parrot in his hands. The cat, who thought the bird was for its dinner, followed him. Without a word, the captain threw the bird overboard, caught the poor cat and threw it overboard too. The sailors pretended to shout in protest, and old Sam said,
“Black cat, black cat! You have killed a black cat — something bad will happen to the ship now.”
The captain said nothing and went back to his cabin.
Next day it was raining and a strong cold wind began to blow. The captain came up on deck, looked at the angry sea, and suddenly thought of old Sam’s words.
At that moment Satan, who had escaped from the sea chest, came up on deck and slowly walked toward the captain.
The sailors thought Satan was lost, but old Sam quickly caught the cat and hid it under his coat. The captain heard the mewing and asked the mate, “Did you hear a cat, Dick?”
“A cat, sir?” asked the mate.
“Yes, I think I heard a cat.”
“No, sir, I didn’t hear anything,” said the mate — and at that moment the cat under Sam’s coat mewed again.
“Did you hear it, Sam?” asked the captain.
“Hear what, sir?” asked Sam, afraid to turn around.
“Did you hear mewing, Dick?” asked the captain again.
“No, sir, I didn’t. Do you think you heard it, sir?”
“Yes, I’m sure I did.”
“Well, sir, some sailors say that if someone kills a black cat on board, the cat might come back as a ghost. But I don’t believe it, of course,” laughed Dick.
The captain didn’t answer and went away.
The next day the captain didn’t hear the cat and began to feel better.
“It’s all nonsense about ghosts,” he thought. Still, when night came, he was glad not to be alone on deck and was happy to talk with the sailor on duty.
It was two o’clock at night. The rain stopped, and the moon came out from behind the clouds. Satan, who had escaped again, came on deck and sat looking at the moon. Satan mewed.
“Ted,” shouted the captain, “did you mew?”
“Did I what, sir?” asked the sailor.
“Did you mew like a cat?”
“No, sir, I didn’t.”
The captain didn’t say anything; he was frightened. He looked sadly at the moon and thought how sorry he was that he had killed a black cat.
At that moment Satan came up to him and rubbed against his leg. The captain jumped high into the air and shouted so loudly that Ted thought somebody was killing him.
“What’s the matter, sir?” asked Ted.
“Oh, Ted, you won’t believe it — but the ghost of the poor cat I killed came up to me and rubbed against my leg!”
“Right or left leg, sir?” asked Ted, who always liked to know the details.
“What difference does it make which leg?” shouted the captain.
“Look! Look! There’s the cat!” he cried.
Ted looked but said, “I don’t see any cat, sir.”
“Of course, only I can see it. It’s the ghost of Satan — the cat I killed two days ago,” said the captain sadly and went away to the mate’s cabin.
He woke the mate and said, “Dick, please go on deck. I’m not quite well and I want to go to bed.”
The captain looked so sad that the mate felt sorry for him.
“All right,” said he, “go to bed and sleep well. I think you’ll never see that ghost again.”
Early next morning the mate went on deck and said to the sailors, “Watch Satan well, or I’ll throw him overboard.”
That day the weather was very bad; a strong wind was blowing, and the sailors were working hard trying to tie up the cargo on deck. Suddenly, two big boxes broke loose and slid across the deck. Old Sam picked up one of the boxes, and at that moment the sea chest in which the sailors kept Satan turned over. The cat jumped out and ran across the deck. Sam tried to catch it and dropped the box. The box fell on Satan’s tail. The cat mewed terribly. The captain turned round and saw a black cat with a box on its tail.
“Sam,” shouted the captain, “do you see anything under that box?”
“No, sir, nothing under it,” he answered.
“There’s Satan’s ghost, and the box has fallen on its tail,” said the captain.
Satan was trying to pull his tail free and mewing terribly, but the sailors tried to show by their faces that they neither saw nor heard the cat. At that moment the mate came on deck. When he saw the mewing cat with a box on its tail, he forgot the ghost story and shouted,
“Why doesn’t somebody take the box off that poor cat’s tail?”
“Dick, do you see and hear the cat too?” cried the captain.
“Heavens! Anyone could hear that cat even from the cabin, I— I...”
The mate looked at the sailors and remembered everything. But it was too late. The captain came up, lifted the box off the cat’s tail, then turned to the sailors, looked at the cook, and said, “Well?”
The cook told him everything.
The captain didn’t say a word and went away to his cabin. He never touched old Satan again.
