L'horreur tropicale

que faire face à la mer et aux créatures moNstrueuses qu'elle reNferme ? Écrit en 1905 et publié en 1909, Les Pirates fantômes est l'oeuvre de l'un des plus étonnants conteurs fantastiques anglais du début du XXe siècle. Puisant son inspiration dans son expérience de jeunesse passée dans la marine marchande, William Hope Hodgson a, dans deux de ses romans et la plupart de ses contes, peint un univers maritime effrayant, peuplé de créatures monstrueuses, dans lequel l'homme est le jouet impuissant des forces d'une nature inconnue et terrifiante. Les Pirates fantômes appartient à cette veine maritime qui fit le succès d'Hodgson et influença durablement des auteurs tels Lovecraft et Jean Ray. Ce court roman relate le destin tragique d'un navire, le Mortzestus, aux prises avec des créatures spectrales débarquant de vaisseaux fantômes. Rapporté par le seul témoin survivant ? dans une langue quasi argotique ?, le récit de l'attaque du Mortzestus, permet à Hodgson d'instiller une peur aussi insidieuse qu'efficace dans l'esprit du lecteur.

In response to Carnacki's usual card of invitation to have dinner and listen to a story, I arrived promptly at 427, Cheyne Walk, to find the three others who were always invited to these happy little times, there before me. Five minutes later, Carnacki, Arkright, Jessop, Taylor, and I were all engaged in the "pleasant occupation" of dining. "You've not been long away, this time," I remarked, as I finished my soup; forgetting momentarily Carnacki's dislike of being asked even to skirt the borders of his story until such time as he was ready. Then he would not stint words. "That's all," he replied, with brevity; and I changed the subject, remarking that I had been buying a new gun, to which piece of news he gave an intelligent nod, and a smile which I think showed a genuinely goodhumored appreciation of my intentional changing of the conversation. Later, when dinner was finished, Carnacki snugged himself comfortably down in his big chair, along with his pipe, and began his story, with very little circumlocution: "As Dodgson was remarking just now, I've only been away a short time, and for a very good reason tooI've only been away a short distance. The exact locality I am afraid I must not tell you; but it is less than twenty miles from here; though, except for changing a name, that won't spoil the story. And it is a story too! One of the most extraordinary things ever I have run against."