This article contains information about the short stories of William Hope Hodgson.
The Sargasso Sea Stories
Carnacki stories
Captain Gault stories
Captain Jat stories
D.C.O. Cargunka stories
Standalone stories described elsewhere
The following short stories are described in separate articles. "A Tropical Horror" "The Voice in the Night" "The Derelict" "Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani"
Miscellaneous stories
"The Goddess of Death" "The Goddess of Death" was Hodgson's first published story, and appeared in 1904 in Royal Magazine.
A village is terrorized by a number of murders by strangulation, and the chief suspect is a statue of the goddess Kali stolen from a Thugee temple. The narrator is a visitor who believes there must be a rational explanation, but he finds it increasingly difficult to explain what is going on when the town's mysterious 8-foot statue is missing from its base and he sees what looks like the statue itself running through the night, carrying a cloth garotte.
Recruiting a friend to help him, the narrator leads a group to find the statue before it kills again. A volunteer is killed, but the narrator shoots at the statue, which disappears into a lake. Things look hopeless until the narrator consults the private journal of the Colonel who brought the statue from India. He learns of a secret catch in the statue's base which lowers and raises it, and which allows entry into a secret passage. Someone has been living inside the secret passage, and at its end, where the tunnel reaches the lake, he sees what appears to be another statue in the water. As he tries to pull it out, he realizes that it is an enormous "Hindoo" (Hindu) high priest wearing a white gown and a mask to imitate the statue; the bullets in fact did reach their mark and the mysterious man is dead. He was a "high priest" who had come to avenge the destruction of his temple.
"Terror of the Water-Tank" This story was first published in 1907 in Blue Book Magazine. Hodgson introduces the story as follows:
Crowning the heights on the outskirts of a certain town on the east coast is a large, iron water-tank from which an isolated row of small villas obtains its supply. The top of this tank has been cemented, and round it have been placed railings, thus making it a splendid "look-out" for any of the townspeople who may choose to promenade upon it. And very popular it was until the strange and terrible happenings of which I have set out to tell.
The "strange and terrible happenings" begin with the discovery of a murder victim on the tank; he died by strangulation. The strangled man is the father of the narrator's fiancee, which leads to the narrator's involvement in the story. A local man named Dr. Tointon has been investigating; he has found that the strangled man's watch and watch chain are missing. The narrator notices that the mud around the tank is undisturbed, indicating that no one passed that way.
No real progress is made until several days later when a policeman who had been patrolling the tank is also found dead; he has been strangled as well. Although witnesses heard the man die, and would have seen anyone leaving the tank via the stairs, the mud beside the tank remains undisturbed. Tointon tells the narrator that he has not yet formed a conclusion, but will speak to him the following day.
The next day comes, but Tointon sends the narrator a note asking him to delay their meeting until late that evening. While waiting, the narrator questions Dufirst, the tank-keeper, a bearded black man whom he considers "an ugly little beast." In Dufirst's cottage the narrator discovers the first strangled man's missing watch and watch chain. The narrator summons the nearby police inspector and has Dufirst arrested. Later that evening we learn that the doctor is still out of town and has become seriously ill.
In the weeks that follow, Dufirst is tried and convicted of the first murder and scheduled for hanging. When Dr. Tointon recovers and returns, he is shocked to learn what has happened, believing that Dufirst is innocent. He assembles a team to investigate the water-tank that evening, bringing along a police constable, a loaded shotgun and several lanterns. Covering the lanterns, they hold a silent vigil on top of the tank. In the dead of night, a "very slight, slurring, crawling sort of noise" is heard. The lanterns are uncovered, and the doctor fires his shotgun.