WEBVTT

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The Strange Doctor Weird.

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Good evening. Come in, won't you?

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Why, what's the matter? Your hand is shaking.

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Surely you're not afraid of me?

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Oh, perhaps it would be a good idea to have a drink.

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A little story that was just told to me.

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The story of a strange ship that sails the seven seas

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with no crew save death and no passengers except the dead.

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I call the story The Ghost Ship.

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My story The Ghost Ship begins in a badly battered lifeboat

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pitching and tossing on the surface of the South Atlantic.

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Three men wearily bail out the water which the breaking waves

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constantly pour into the boat.

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A fourth man, burly and broad-shouldered, is at the tiller.

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All right, bailer, man, bailer.

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The water's gaining on us.

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What's the use of bailing? We'll never make land.

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Why don't we admit we're done for and get it over with?

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Stop that, Bowson. We may sight a ship any minute.

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You've been saying that every day for a week, man.

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Captain, captain!

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Yeah, what is it, Kirk?

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Hey, Tank, it's a ship. You snow each year. They're too cold.

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All right, look sharp, man.

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I don't see anything. Just another false alarm.

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No, no, it's not. Captain Arce, you're...

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It's a small steamer heading this way.

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Yeah, yeah, I can make her out now.

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She's heading straight for us.

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It's a ship, all right, but she looks mighty funny.

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Look how low she is in the water. See the way she steers.

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She does kind of stagger back and forth.

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Maybe her steering gear broke.

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There's no smoke from her funnels either.

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If you ask me, she's a derelict.

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Hell, maybe she is.

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Even a derelict is better than this lifeboat.

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The wind's carrying across our cords.

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And we're going to board her.

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We're going to board her.

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Half an hour later, the lifeboat rubbed against the side of the strange ship.

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The four hungry weary men clambered aboard her

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and found themselves greeted

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only by the uncanny silence of a deserted ship.

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See? What about I tell you?

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This thing is a derelict, a blooming derelict.

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Yeah, she's a derelict, all right.

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Look at her ironwork, covered with rust.

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I'd say she's been drifting about for a good many months.

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Suppose there may no girl for water aboard her.

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That's what worries me.

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Now, that's what we're going to find out right now.

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Cook and I will search the starboard side of the ship.

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You other two search the port side.

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Look lively now.

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We'll meet in the chart room in 30 minutes.

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All right, Bowson, what did you find?

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We didn't find nothing.

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Not a single solitary thing.

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That's all right, Captain.

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Of course, we're so low in the water

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that all the holes in the cabins below deck are half flooded.

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But we searched everything else, and we didn't find a thing.

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Well, Cook and I had better luck.

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We found the galley dry and plenty of canned grub in it.

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I left Cook rustling up some chow.

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He'll be bringing us a hot meal any minute now.

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Hot food, dog gone. That's what I was wanting to hear.

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What I want to know is why was this freighter abandoned?

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That's it.

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What?

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This is the mermaid girl.

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What?

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There's a name on the log book. She's a ghost ship.

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Do you hear me? We come aboard a ghost ship.

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We've got to get off her or we'll die.

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Bowson, get hold of yourself, will you?

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Well, it's true. This is the mermaid girl.

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And every seaman in the world knows about it.

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Well, sir, I don't.

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Captain, what is this here mermaid girl business about?

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Well, the story of the mermaid girl is a curious one.

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Two years ago she had her hell stove in and a hurricane,

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but she's loaded with lumber and cork,

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which is why she never sunk.

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Well, the first night out after the storm,

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one of the crew disappeared.

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The next night two more men went, and two more the night after.

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I'm telling this, Bowson.

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It's true. Every word of it.

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It's true. The men disappeared.

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The rest of the crew, mutant, eaten, abandoned ship.

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Only one lifeboat with five men in it ever made port.

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They're the ones who spread this story.

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And ever since then, the mermaid girl's been drifting.

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A ghost ship with death at the helm.

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I tell you, we've got to get off or we'll die too.

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Captain! Captain!

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That's a cook.

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Quick, outside. Something's happened to him.

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Captain, look.

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There on the deck a tray.

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Dishes and food.

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Cook was bringing us grub.

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And now he's... he's vanished.

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Say, doctor, do you know you've been on the air for 25 weeks now?

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Evidently, people like your radio show.

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That makes me very happy.

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And I thank them from the bottom of my cold-blooded heart.

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Coming from you, doctor, that's really warm sentiment.

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And while we're about it, the makers of Adam Hats would like to thank the many men

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who have recognized the superiority of Adam Hats this season.

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Gentlemen, you've been keeping our thousands of stores and authorized dealers mighty busy.

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And no wonder why varieties in 100% correct styles,

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combined with finest quality materials and craftsmanship,

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make Adam Hats America's outstanding hat value.

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The well-dressed man particularly appreciates the wide choice of shapes and shades

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available at their Adam Hat store.

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Tomorrow, step into the Adam Hat store nearest you and ask to see the new line of Adam Hats,

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priced sensibly from $3.45 to $10.

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Now, Dr. Weird, on with the show.

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And now to continue my story, the Ghost Ship.

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It is night, and in the inky darkness half submerged,

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the derelict steamship Mermaid Girl drifts onward across the wavetoss surface of the South Atlantic.

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Huddled in the chart room with two flickering lanterns for light,

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the three shipwreck survivors discuss the strange disappearance of the cook,

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the fourth member of their group.

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I tell you the spook got him,

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for the devil or whatever it is that's put a curse on this ship.

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It takes more than a spook to make a grown man vanish while I trace most of the seas different from the land.

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There's devils that haunt the ocean no land lover can know about.

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You've heard of the flying Dutchman haven't you, Tex?

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Uh-huh, reckon I have. What about her?

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For a hundred years or more.

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Manned by phantoms she's been sailing the seven seas,

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full rigged and always running with the storm dead astern.

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The devils of the sea put a curse on her,

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and so the flying Dutchman will sail on forever.

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The flying Dutchman is just a sailor's superstition, Bowson. You know it.

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And I suppose this ship we're on now is just a superstition too.

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And the fact that she's been drifting for two years with no end to her helm,

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I tell you we've got to get off her or else we'll die.

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We can't get off her. I like boats swamp when we came aboard.

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So stow that kind of talk, Bowson.

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That's what I say too. I don't believe in spooks or devils.

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Fact is I got me an ocean to go down to the galley right now and rustle up some grub.

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You want the same thing to them and to the cook to happen to you?

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Oh, nothing happened to me.

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Kevin, you got an extra revolver in your pocket?

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Yeah.

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Well now just you let me take it an out-face Santa thing to get me some grub.

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Well it's three days since we had food and I'm too hungry to wait for morning.

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All right, here's the extra gun. It has three shells in it.

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And take this lantern, but look sharp.

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I'll do that, Captain. And I'll bring back whatever I can carry.

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Good.

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And if I meet any spooks, I'll bring them back too.

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You shouldn't have let him go, Captain.

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He'll be all right with a light and a gun. We don't need food.

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You'll see, Captain, this ship's a ghost ship.

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Come on, we got to go to his house.

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No, Captain. It's too late.

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It's gotting whatever it is that's on in this ship.

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And if we got out there now, it'll get us too.

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All night the two men huddled in the charter room.

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The doors bolted.

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The memory of Texas screams ringing in their ears.

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In the morning, with a fog covering the sea,

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they cautiously emerged and searched the ship.

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The captain keeping his revolver always ready.

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And they found...

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Nothing. That's what we found, Captain.

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Nothing but a smashed lantern and the empty gun line on the deck

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where Texas dropped them.

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Well, frankly, I think Tex and the cook went out of their heads

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and jumped overboard.

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There's absolutely nothing on this ship that could have harmed them.

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But there is.

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Only it's something you can't see unless it wants you to see it.

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Oh, that's ridiculous.

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Bo, so listen to me. I tell you...

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Captain, wait. What is it? Listen.

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What is it, Sharp?

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It's a foghorn.

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It's a steam ship someplace in the fog off the starboard of us.

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It's set in this way.

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But you'll never see us.

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Look how fast the fog's thickening.

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Yeah, yeah, we gotta work fast.

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There's a hand-operated foghorn up in the bow of this vessel.

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Get up forward and start sounding it.

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I'll hunt for distress rockets.

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We've got to attract attention before that ship gets too far away.

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Aye, aye, sir.

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I'll signal an SOS with the arms.

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Good man.

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Oh, she's passing the stern of us.

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Blast this fog.

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If it hadn't thickened up so fast, we'd have been sighted.

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Captain! Captain!

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Yeah, what is it, Bolson?

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Captain, it's on me!

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It's dragging me to the hole! Captain, help! Help!

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I'm coming, Bolson.

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Bolson! Bolson, where are you?

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Captain! Captain!

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It's down here.

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In the hole! Help me!

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In the hole?

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Bolson, what's happened?

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Captain, it's an octopus!

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What?

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A giant octopus!

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It's got me down here in the hole!

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A tentacle caught me!

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You know what?

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You know what pulled me in?

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An octopus! So that's it!

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That's the devil that's been haunting this ship.

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I can see it, Bolson.

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Just under the water.

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I'm gonna try and shoot it.

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Hurry! Hurry!

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All right, devil, take that!

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Hold on!

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It's pulling me up there!

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It's...

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My gun's empty.

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I've got a...

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A tentacle...

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A tentacle's around my legs.

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I can't get loose.

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It's pulling me down into the hole too.

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If I can only...

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I can't...

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Help!

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Help!

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No wonder the shipwreck sailors who boarded the mermaid girl

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could find nothing.

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The devil who haunted her was an underwater devil

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whose presence they couldn't guess.

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And so the mermaid girl still drifts on across the seven seas

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with death in the shape of a giant octopus,

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her captain, and dead men, her only crew.

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Perhaps some day...

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Oh, you have to go now.

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I do hope you'll drop in again soon.

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Just look for the house on the other side of the cemetery,

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the house of Dr. Weird.