These stories were often published in the highest paying fiction markets of his day, and demonstrate his wide-ranging narrative talent... Today's readers of Hodgson may be more familiar with his stunningly original novels of cosmic vision, such as The House on the Borderland or The Night Land, but it is his narratives of the sea that first captured the attention of the reading public.
As the captain's health fails, the narrator constructs a superstructure out of wood and pitch-hardened canvas to protect the vessel from the predator.
He takes stock of the ship's stores of food and finds that sufficient provisions exist to keep them alive for fifteen to seventeen years.
The narrative returns from the story-within-a-story to describe the present captain's reaction to the story: "Seventeen years pervisions," he muttered thoughtfully.
A man abuses his friend's trust by taking over his ship and sailing on a mission to the Sargasso Sea to rescue his girlfriend.