'I need to see him!' Horatio was determined to leave the bed this time, but once he attempted to stand, his legs failed him utterly. The Guest caught him, Hornblower's face was buried in his pristine white shirt for a moment, before the young man dragged his useless body back on the bed.

'You are too weak to walk around,' the Guest chided him. Then he added, perhaps to ease his mind: 'He's sleeping. He's not hurting.'

Hornblower recalled the thump he heard the moment William landed on the boards and he shuddered at the memory. He could see the dear man's broken body before his mind's eye now: the arm that lay in a sick angle and the ever-growing pool of blood that spread like a halo under his head. He was haunted by these images and his own body seemed to grow even hotter now that he became freshly aware of what he had done.

The Guest leaned over him, but didn't touch him this time. He seemed to be observing him, his face, his eyes, his thoughts even; Hornblower all at once had this uneasy feeling that he could somehow look inside his head. He had to tear his eyes from the Guest's to guard his secrets and so he lowered his gaze; that's when he discovered a dark blotch on the youth's shirt.

'Is that….?' he started to ask.

'Blood.' The Guest immediately verified his suspicion when he followed his glance. 'Yours,' he nodded towards Horatio's face with his head.

Hornblower touched the delicate skin under his nose and when he pulled his fingers away, they were painted red. He licked his lips and he could taste the steely tang. His pulse was drumming in his head, so buried his forehead in his hands to ease the pain with pressure.

'What's wrong with me?' he questioned his companion.

'A ship came four days ago…' the Guest tried to help.

'Yes, the ship!' Hornblower exclaimed being struck by enlightenment. 'The other ship… it was in my dream!'

He started to speak again in feverish excitement.

"At first it seemed a little speck,

And then it seemed a mist;

It moved and moved, and took at last

A certain shape, I wist."

"Her lips were red, her looks were free,

Her locks were yellow as gold:

Her skin was as white as leprosy,

The Night-mare LIFE-IN-DEATH was she,

Who thicks man's blood with cold."

At first it was but a blot on the horizon, which grew into a mystery. It was heading straight for us, but it wore no flag, nor any other indicator to its origin. This should have made me wary in itself, but I didn't even considerslipping out of its path.

Every man stopped and stared up at the mate in the basket with their mouths agape when he reported he couldn't see a soul on the deck of the vessel.

The man who steered the ship must have been hitherto hidden by the mast and if the deck wasn't swarming with people, I thought, the belly must have contained all of them. My mind was busy finding possible explanations for an empty deck: the Captain must be holding an all-men assembly or there can be some kind of celebration: a wedding or a victory perhaps. The ship wasn't too large, it could have only born a relatively small crew – this fact also supported the possibility of all the men being below deck at the same time.

I quickly assembled a small party to investigate. No one answered our shouts when we neared the strange ship with the boat, but a rope ladder was hanging free on the side, inviting us up. The little mate was right, there was not a single person on deck, no one at the wheel either. By that time, the ship wasn't moving, it had stopped some distance from the Lydia.

I gave the command to search the quarters below, we entered the belly of the beast and tried to find someone – anyone – without luck. The ship seemed to be completely deserted. I sent the men to spread around and examine every space on the vessel to the last speck, hoping they would find something that would lead us to the solution of the missing crew's mystery. I myself headed to the captain's cabin.

That's where I met her; the ghost, the demon, the woman. No one was there when I first looked, but once I stepped inside, the door flew shot behind me. Startled by the noise I turned my head, and when I pulled my gaze back towards the center of the room, there she stood. She wore a long, stained white dress and hummed to herself softly until she lifted her eyes to meet mine. Then she smiled; the eerie curve sent shivers down my spine. I didn't like how she stared at me, I didn't like that mad hunger in her eyes.

'Who are you?' I demanded. 'Where is the captain? Where are the men?'

But she breathed only this:

'The game is done! I've won! I've won!'

Distressed at the thought that the woman must be mad, I took a step back – in vain, for she immediately took one towards me.

'What are you talking about, Madam?' I tried. 'What have you won?'

By the time I realized that I may not have wanted to know the answer to my question, she was already upon me. She possessed incredible strength for a woman: she pushed me up against the door and kissed me hard on the mouth before I could have resisted in any way. Her mouth tasted foul and my whole body objected to her touch. I tried to force her off me, but it was only a few seconds later that she deigned to let me go and not before she whispered the answer to my previous question in my ear:

'You, you silly boy. I've won you.'

'Who are you?' I managed to ask even though I'd been afraid my voice would fail me.

'Life. in. Death.' The three words rolled off her tongue sharply, like a curse; like a verdict.

She laughed after that, in a screeching voice that almost made my head split. My stomach heaved and I bent double retching in the corner of the small cabin. By the time I gathered myself together, she had disappeared.

Our party arrived back on the Lydia without any result and we left the eerie ship to its lonely fate – I was convinced I had seen a ghost but I knew better than to tell anyone about my visitation. I was afraid my men would think me mad. It was only later that I found out I wasn't the only one to have had a strange experience on the mysterious frigate.

Whispered words were floating around among the men that accompanied the party: they talked about a man-shaped spectre that appeared in certain parts of the haunted ship. Some even said it reached out and attempted to touch them, but most of the time dissolved in the air before it could do so.

The illness struck a couple of days after we left the frigate behind. A few of the men grew weak, they bled through their noses and ears and – eventually – died. In the following days, Death's appetite just grew and grew…

'The men are dying…' the young man sighed.

'The ship…' Horatio recalled it all now.

'The crew was plagued' the Guest confirmed. 'We lost fifteen good men in the last couple of days while you were abed. And more are getting sick.'

The frigate that the sea dragged their way, the one they mounted, the one on which they only found death... The crew was infected with a horrible disease that was carried to the Lydia as well.

Hornblower's heart sank at the news. 'Am I dying?' he asked seriously. He knew he would never be ready to face the answer if he didn't get it straight away.

The young man seemed hesitant. He stood up and turned his back to Horatio for a moment. He reached back and started to undo the ribbon in his light hair, however, once he freed his locks his hand started working on redoing the tie immediately.

'Would you answer my question…please?' Hornblower tried to draw the Guest's attention to him again.

The gentleman took his time arranging the ribbon in his hair, then, still turning away from him, took out his handkerchief. He coughed in it once, twice, put it back into his pocket and faced Horatio again.

'Yes and no,' he offered the answer gently.

'Yes and no? What on earth does that mean?' Hornblower asked, half laughing on his own misery and on the young man's decision to play a joke on him in such an unfortunate time.

The Guest shrugged and pushed his hands in his pocket. 'I'm not a doctor, you know. I cannot tell.'

Hornblower smiled at him, because his simple gestures of uncertainty – the shrug, the hands folded in his pockets, how he was replacing his weight from heel to toe – reminded him so much of someone who mattered. If only he could remember who that someone was...

'Craig died two days ago,' the Guest went on. Craig was the only doctor on the ship. 'He didn't get to take a look at you before his demise.'

'God rest his soul,' Hornblower sighed. 'So we don't know if I shall live, then.' He pursed his lips, deep in thought. He wasn't about to get any kind of answer it seemed. But he still had to know more about William. He didn't care about himself as much as he did about the man who fell because of him. He had to see him, and he needed help to do that.

'Would you accompany me to see Mr. Bush?' he asked his associate politely. He waited eagerly for his answer.

'You need bedrest,' the Guest replied with his hands on his hips.

'I will stay in bed after I see him' Hornblower offered the deal without ceremony.

The young man must have seen the desperation in his eyes and he must have taken pity on him, since his arm was around his waist in a minute and he was helping him up from the pillows.

Walking proved to be a harder task than he would have thought. The fever clouded his mind and he felt as if he was a midshipman again who not yet gained his sea legs, for he staggered repeatedly and had to hold onto his support like he was holding on to dear life. But the Guest held him up steadily; there was surprising strength in his slight frame and Horatio trusted him to see him safely to William's cabin.

He wondered if he was dying, but strangely he wasn't scared of the thought.

'Death must be peaceful,' he murmured musingly to his companion as they were striding through the corridor.

'In my dream, I couldn't die you know.' He tried to direct his mind to the continuance of his story to take the edge off the struggle of walking.

An orphan's curse would drag to hell

A spirit from on high;

But oh! more horrible than that

Is the curse in a dead man's eye!

Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,

And yet I could not die.

They all died, one by one. We buried them in the beginning, gave all their bodies to the sea while there were able man to conduct the funerals; while there was a priest, while there were men left to mourn. Not for long, though. In the last days you could only hear moans and cries… those died down slowly too.

I was the only one who didn't get sick. I just watched them passing, one after the other and I tried to console them, but there was no one to console me. In the end I was left utterly alone, damned to wander on the bloody deck by myself. I was physically exhausted and so just left the corpses where they were. The food supply was running out by then, after idling in the ice for weeks and having to feed the sick amply for days on end.

I didn't have much to eat, not that I could have stomached a lot. I was waiting for something to happen, but the sea stretched a long way in all directions, I may as well have waited for a miracle. No ship crossed my way, and I didn't hear any other sound than the water lapping at the side of my vessel for seven days. The sea appeared murky all around, I couldn't see through it like before; no fish were visible and no bird graced the cloudy sky either.

I was lost, trapped, shut together with the dead shells of the men I had cared so much about and each and every one of them blamed me for their deaths. Silent were their lips but so much more talkative their eyes: 'It's all your fault,' their orbs transported the message better than their lips ever could have.

I wished to die, I wanted to joined them, but there was no mercy for me. 'I've won! I've won!' I seemed to hear the voice of the strange woman from the deadly ship clearer and clearer as the days went by. Life in death indeed it was, and such a torture I wouldn't wish for my worst enemy. Death became an idol, a God for me in those days; I prayed for him to come every day. I yearned for peace.

Styles was just leaving William's cabin when they got there. He looked pale and he was sweating heavily. When he saw that he was facing his captain, his skin turned to an even whiter tone.

'You should be sleeping, sir,' he slurred and hurried to help the Guest holding him up.

'I'm here to see Mr. Bush, Styles.' He opted to avoid answering to his man's observation. 'How is he?'

'Not well, sir' Styles shook his head slowly. 'He hit his head very hard and he won't wake up.' There was a sadness in the faithful servant's voice.

'Help me into the room,' Horatio requested, and his wish was granted.

They left him after sitting him down on the bed to give him some privacy. William was lying there motionless, a white band of dressing ran around the crown of his head, hiding his injury.

Horatio bent down to leave a feather kiss on his lips. He didn't react, his eyelids didn't even flicker. The Captain rested his hand on the soft locks on the top of William's head. He squeezed his lips into a thin line and tried to keep the tears from falling.

'I'm so sorry, William. It is all my fault.' He had to concentrate in order to breathe evenly. No sobs were allowed now; he wasn't a child – he'd made a fatal mistake and he had to bear the consequences like a man.

He ran his palm over the days-old stubble on Bush's face; no one bothered to give him a shave, even though they all must know he hated looking unkempt…

After minutes of observation, Hornblower decided his lover looked as if he were dead. When he placed his fingers in the curve of his neck and pushed down gently he could feel a pulse; however weak, it was there. Life. But, despite the presence of the heartbeat, the man wasn't a least bit animated. William was all but gone.

'Your fault, your fault…' Hornblower started repeating all of a sudden and he hugged his sickly body, thus trying to ease the emotional and physical pain that threatened to tear him apart.

Out of nowhere came the ringing voice: 'I've won! I've won!' He thought he heard the accompanying laughter with it.

Hornblower sat up suddenly and his eyes darted around the room. 'Not him, not him!' he shouted, his voice must have been heard all around the ship. 'Let him go, you Witch, let him die if he must, but don't touch him!'

He was sobbing now, letting it all out, throwing caution to the wind. The Guest came into the room with hurried steps, locked his reassuring arms around Hornblower and held him steadfast until the crying subsided.