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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ghost Ship, by John C. Hutcheson
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Ghost Ship
+       A Mystery of the Sea
+
+Author: John C. Hutcheson
+
+Illustrator: Henry Austin
+
+Release Date: April 15, 2007 [EBook #21087]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE GHOST SHIP ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
+
+
+
+
+The Ghost Ship
+
+by John Conran Hutcheson
+________________________________________________________________
+This book intentionally veers in and out of the supernatural, as the
+title implies.  The officers get more and more bewildered as they
+work out their position, and yet again encounter the same vessel
+going in an impossible direction.
+
+Having warned you of this, I must say that it is a well-written book
+about life aboard an ocean-going steamer at about the end of the
+nineteenth century.
+
+You will find it worth listening to, or reading, and I recommend it.
+N.H.
+________________________________________________________________
+THE GHOST SHIP
+
+BY JOHN CONRAN HUTCHESON
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ONE.
+
+THE STAR OF THE NORTH.
+
+The sun sank below the horizon that evening in a blaze of ruby and gold.
+
+It flooded the whole ocean to the westward, right up to the very zenith,
+with a wealth of opalescent light that transformed sea and sky alike
+into a living glory, so grand and glorious was the glowing harmony of
+kaleidoscopic colouring which lit up the arc of heaven and the wide
+waste of water beneath, stretching out and afar beyond ken.  Aye, and a
+colouring, too, that changed its hue each instant with marvellous
+rapidity, tint alternating with tint, and tone melting into tone in
+endless succession and variety!
+
+Throughout the day the weather had looked more than threatening.  From
+an early hour of the morning the wind had been constantly veering and
+shifting, showing a strong inclination to back; and now the sea was
+getting up and the white horses of Neptune had already begun to gambol
+over the crests of the swelling billows, which heaved up and down as
+they rolled onward with a heavy moaning sound, like one long, deep-drawn
+sigh!
+
+It looked as if the old monarch below, angered by the teasing of the
+frolicsome zephyrs, was gradually working himself up into a passion,
+which would vent itself, most probably, ere long in a much more telling
+fashion than by this melancholy moan, so different to the sea-god's
+usual voice of thunder!
+
+Yes, it looked threatening enough in all conscience!
+
+A brisk breeze had been blowing from the nor'-east before breakfast, but
+this had subsequently shifted to the nor'ard at noon, veering back
+again, first to the nor'-east and then to due east in the afternoon.
+The wind freshened as the hours wore on, being now accompanied towards
+sunset by frequent sharp gusts, a sign betokening plainly enough to a
+seaman's eye that something stiffer was brewing up for us by-and-by.
+
+Glancing over the side, I noticed that our brave vessel, the _Star of
+the North_, was becoming very uneasy.
+
+She was running under her jib and foresail, with fore-topsail and fore-
+topgallantsail, being only square rigged forwards, like most ocean
+steamers; but, in order to save coals and ease the engines, the skipper
+had set the fore and main trysails with gaff-topsails and staysails as
+well, piling on every rag he could spread.
+
+With this press of canvas topping her unaccustomed hull, the poor old
+barquey heeled over more and more as the violent gusts caught her
+broadside-on at intervals, rolling, too, a bit on the wind fetching
+round aft; while, her stern lifting as some bigger roller than usual
+passed under her keel, the screw would whiz round aimlessly in mid air,
+from missing its grip of the water, "racing," as sailors say in their
+lingo, with a harsh grating jar that set my teeth on edge, and seemed to
+vibrate through my very spinal marrow as I stood for a moment on the
+line of deck immediately over the revolving shaft.
+
+At the same time also that the afterpart of the vessel rose up on the
+breast of one billowy mountain, her forefoot in turn would come down
+with a resonant "thwack" into the valley intervening between this roller
+and the next, the buoyant old barquey dipping her bows under and giving
+the star-crowned maiden with golden ringlets, that did duty for her
+figurehead, an impromptu shower bath as she parted the indignant waves
+with her glistening black hull, sending them off on either hand with a
+contemptuous "swish" on their trying in mad desperation to leap on
+board, first to port and then to starboard, as the ship listed in her
+roll.
+
+It was, however, but a vain task for these mad myrmidons of Neptune to
+attempt, strive as recklessly as they might in their wrath, for the good
+ship spurned them with her forefoot and the star-crowned maiden bowed
+mockingly to them from her perch above the bobstay, laughing in her glee
+as she rode over them triumphantly and sailed along onward; and so the
+baffled roysterers were forced to fall back discomforted from their rash
+onslaught, swirling away in circling eddies aft, where, anon, the cruel
+propeller tossed and tore them anew with its pitiless blades--ever
+whirling round with painful iteration to the music of their monotonous
+refrain, "Thump-thump, Thump-thump," and ever churning up the already
+seething sea into a mass of boiling, brawling, bubbling foam that spread
+out astern of us in a broad shimmering wake in the shape of a lady's
+fan, stretching backward on our track as far as the eye could see and
+flashing out sparks of fire as it glittered away into the dim distance,
+like an ever-widening belt of diamonds fringed with pearls.
+
+The SS _Star of the North_ was a large schooner-rigged cargo steamer,
+strongly built of iron in watertight compartments, and of nearly two
+thousand horsepower, but working up, under pressure, of nearly half as
+much again on a pinch, having been originally intended for the passenger
+trade.
+
+She belonged to one of the great ocean lines that run between Liverpool
+and New York, and was now on her last outward trip for the year and
+rapidly nearing her western goal--the Fastnet light--and, according to
+our reckoning when we took the sun at noon, in latitude 42 deg. 35 minutes
+North, and longitude 50 deg. 10 minutes West, that is, just below the banks
+of Newfoundland, our course to our American port having been a little
+more southerly than usual for the season.  This was in consequence of
+Captain Applegarth, our skipper, wishing, as I said before, to take
+advantage of the varying winds of the northern ocean as much as
+possible, so as to economise his steam-power and limit our consumption
+of fuel; for freights "across the herring-pond," as the Yankees call it,
+are at a very low ebb nowadays, and it is naturally a serious
+consideration with shipowners how to make a profit out of the carrying
+trade without landing themselves in the bankruptcy court.  So, they have
+to cut down their working expenses to the lowest point practicable with
+efficiency, where "full speed" all the way is not a vital necessity--as
+in the case of the mail steamers and first-class passenger ships of
+enormous steam-power and corresponding speed, which, of course, run up a
+heavy coal bill, for they always "carry on" all they can to and fro
+across the Atlantic, accomplishing the passage now between Queenstown
+and Sandy Hook, veritable greyhounds of the ocean that they are, within
+the six days, all told, from land to land.  Aye, and even this "record"
+promises to be beaten in the near future.
+
+Prior to our leaving Liverpool on this voyage, the very day before we
+sailed, in fact, greatly to my surprise and satisfaction, as may be
+imagined, I was made fourth officer, the owners having unexpectedly
+promoted me from the position of "apprentice," which I had filled up to
+our last run home without any thought of so speedy a "rise."  Of course
+I had to thank my old friend Captain Applegarth for my good fortune,
+though why the skipper thus spoke up for me I'm sure I cannot say, for I
+was very young to hold such a subordinate post, having only just turned
+my seventeenth year, besides being boyish enough in all conscience, and
+beardless, too, at that!  But, be that as it may, fourth officer I was
+at the time of which I write.
+
+I recollect the evening well enough.
+
+It was on the seventh of November, the anniversary of my birthday, a
+circumstance which would alone suffice to imprint the date on my memory
+were I at all disposed to forget it.  But that is not very likely.
+
+No, I can assure you.
+
+It would be impossible for me to do that, as you will readily believe
+when you come to know my story; for, on this eventful evening there
+happened something which, somehow or other, thenceforth, whether owing
+to what visionary folk term "Destiny," or from its arising through some
+curious conjuncture of things beyond the limits of mere chance, appeared
+to exercise a mysterious influence on my life, affecting the whole tenor
+and course of my subsequent career.
+
+I had better tell you, however, what occurred, and then you will be able
+to judge for yourself.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWO.
+
+"SAIL HO!"
+
+Away forward, I remember, the ship's bell under the break of the
+forecastle, or "fo'c's'le," as it is pronounced in nautical fashion, was
+just striking "two bells" in the first day watch.
+
+In other words, more suited to a landsman's comprehension, it was five
+o'clock in the afternoon when I came on deck from my spell of leisure
+below, to relieve Mr Spokeshave, the third officer, then on duty, and
+the sight I caught of the heavens, across the gangway, was so beautiful
+that I paused a moment or two to look at the sunset before going up on
+the bridge, where Mr Spokeshave, I had no doubt, was anxiously awaiting
+me and, equally certainly, grumbling at my detaining him from his "tea!"
+
+This gentleman, however, was not too particular as to time in relieving
+others when off watch, and I did not concern myself at all about Master
+"Conky," as all of us called him aboard, on account of a very prominent,
+and, so to speak, striking feature of his countenance.
+
+Otherwise, he was an insignificant-looking little chap, as thin as
+threadpaper and barely five feet high; but he was always swelling
+himself out, and trying to look a bigger personage than he was, with the
+exception that is, of his nose, which was thoroughly Napoleonic in size
+and contour.  Altogether, what with the airs he gave himself and his
+selfish disposition and nasty cantankerous temper, Master Spokeshave was
+not a general favourite on board, although we did not quarrel openly
+with the little beggar or call him by his nickname when he was present,
+albeit he was very hard to bear with sometimes!
+
+Well, not thinking of him or his tea or that it was time for me to go on
+watch, but awed by the majesty of God's handiwork in the wonderful
+colouring, of the afterglow, which no mortal artist could have painted,
+no, none but He who limns the rainbow, I stood there so long by the
+gangway, gazing at the glorious panorama outspread before me, that I
+declare I clean forgot Spokeshave's very existence, all-important though
+he considered himself, and I was only recalled to myself by the voice of
+Mr Fosset, our first officer, who had approached without my seeing him,
+speaking close beside me.
+
+Ah, he was a very different sort of fellow to little Spokeshave, being a
+nice, jolly, good-natured chap, chubby and brown-bearded, and liked by
+every one from the skipper down to the cabin boy.  He was a bit
+obstinate, though, was Mr Fosset; and "as pigheaded as a Scotch
+barber," as Captain Applegarth would say sometimes when he was arguing
+with him, for the first mate would always stick to his own opinion, no
+matter if he were right or wrong, nothing said on the other side ever
+convincing him to the contrary and making him change his mind.
+
+He had caught sight of me now leaning against the bulwarks and looking
+over the side amidships, just abaft the engine-room hatch, as he passed
+along the gangway towards the bridge which he was about to mount to have
+a look at the standard compass and see what course the helmsman was
+steering, on his way from the poop, where I had noticed him talking with
+the skipper as I came up the booby-hatch from below.  "Hullo, Haldane!"
+he cried, shouting almost in my ear, and giving me a playful dig in the
+ribs at the same time; this nearly knocked all the breath out of my
+body.  "Is that you, my boy?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," I replied, hesitating, for I was startled, alike by his
+rather too demonstrative greeting as well as his unexpected approach.
+"I--I--mean, yes, sir."
+
+Mr Fosset laughed; a jolly, catching laugh it was--that of a man who
+had just dined comfortably and enjoyed his dinner, and did not have,
+apparently, a care in the world.  "Why, what's the matter with you,
+youngster?" said he in his chaffing way.  "Been having a caulk on the
+sly and dreaming of home, I bet?"
+
+"No, sir," I answered gravely; "I've not been to sleep."
+
+"But you look quite dazed, my boy."
+
+I made no reply to this observation, and Mr Fosset then dropped his
+bantering manner.
+
+"Tell me," said he kindly, "is there anything wrong with you below?  Has
+that cross-grained little shrimp, Spokeshave, hang him! been bullying
+you again, like he did the other day?"
+
+"Oh no, sir; he's on the bridge now, and I ought to have relieved him
+before this," I replied, only thinking of poor "Conky" and his tea then
+for the first time.  "I wasn't even dreaming of him; I'm sure I beg his
+pardon!"
+
+"Well, you were dreaming of some one perhaps `nearer and dearer' than
+Spokeshave," rejoined Mr Fosset, with another genial laugh.  "You were
+quite in a brown study when I gave you that dig in the ribs.  What's the
+matter, my boy?"
+
+"I was looking at that, sir," said I simply, in response to his
+question, pointing upwards to the glory in the heavens.  "Isn't it
+grand?  Isn't it glorious?"
+
+This was a poser; for the first mate, though good-natured and good-
+humoured enough, and probably a thinking man, too, in his way, was too
+matter-of-fact a person to indulge in "dreamy sentimentalities," as he
+would have styled my deeper thoughts!  A sunset to him was only a
+sunset, saving in so far as it served to denote any change of weather,
+which aspect his seaman's eye readily took note of without any pointing
+out on my part; so he rather chilled my enthusiasm by his reply now to
+me.
+
+"Oh, yes, it's very fine and all that, youngster," he observed in an
+off-hand manner that grated on my feelings, making me wish I had not
+spoken so gushingly.  "I think that sky shows signs of a blow before the
+night is over, which will give you something better to do than star-
+gazing!"
+
+"I can't very well do that now, sir," said I slily, with a grin at
+catching him tripping.  "Why, the stars aren't out yet."
+
+"That may be, Master Impudence," replied Mr Fosset, all genial again
+and laughing too; "but they'll soon be popping out overhead."
+
+"But, sir, it is quite light still," I persisted.  "See, it is as bright
+as day all round, just as at noontide!"
+
+"Aye, but it'll be precious dark soon!  It grows dusk in less than a
+jiffey after the sun dips in these latitudes at this time o' year," said
+he.  "Hullo!  I say, though, that reminds me, Haldane--"
+
+"Of what, sir?"  I asked as he stopped abruptly at this point.
+"Anything I can do for you, Mr Fosset?"
+
+"No, my boy, nothing," he replied reflectively, and looking for the
+moment to be in as deep a brown study as he accused me of being just
+now.  "Stop, though, I tell you what you can do.  Run forwards and see
+what that lazy lubber of a lamp-trimmer is about.  He's always half an
+hour or so behind time, and seems to get later every day.  Wake him up
+and make him hoist our masthead lantern and fix the side lights in
+position, for it'll soon be dark, I bet 'ee, in spite of all that flare-
+up aloft over there, and we're now getting in the track of the homeward-
+bounders crossing the Banks, and have to keep a sharp look-out and let
+'em know where we are, to avoid any chance of collision."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," I cried, making my way along the gangway by the side of
+the deckhouse towards the fo'c's'le, which was still lit up by the
+afterglow as if on fire.  "I'll see to it all right, and get our steam
+lights rigged up at once, sir."
+
+So saying, in another minute or so, scrambling over a lot of empty coal
+sacks and other loose gear that littered the deck, besides getting
+tripped up by the tackle of the ash hoist, which I did not see in time
+from the glare of the sky coming right in my eyes, I gained the lee side
+of the cook's galley at the forward end of the deckhouse.  Here, as I
+conjectured, I found old Greazer, our lamp-trimmer.  This worthy, who
+was quite a character in his way, was a superannuated fireman belonging
+to the line, whom age and long years of toil had unfitted for the
+rougher and more arduous duties of his vocation in the stoke-hold, and
+who now, instead of trimming coals in the furnaces below, trimmed wicks
+and attended to the lamps about the ship, on deck and elsewhere.  He
+managed, I may add, to make his face so dirty in the carrying out of the
+lighter duties, to which he was now called, probably in fond
+recollection of his byegone grimy task in the engine-room, that his
+somewhat personal cognomen was very appropriate, his countenance being
+oily and smutty to a degree!
+
+He was a very lazy old chap, however; and, in lieu of attending to his
+work, was generally to be found confabulating with our mulatto cook,
+Accra Prout, as I discovered him now, more bent on worming out an extra
+lot of grog from the chef of the galley in exchange for a lump of "hard"
+tobacco, than thinking of masthead lanterns or the ship's side lights,
+green and red.
+
+"What are you about, lamp-trimmer?"  I called out sharply on catching
+sight of him palavering there with the mulatto, the artful beggar
+furtively slipping the tin pannikin out of which he had been drinking
+into the bosom of his jumper.  "Here's two bells struck and no lights
+up!"
+
+"Two bells, sir?"
+
+"Aye, two bells," I repeated, taking no notice of his affected air of
+surprise.  "There's the ship's bell right over your head where you
+stand, and you must have heard it strike not five minutes ago."
+
+"Lor', Master Dick, may I die a foul death ashore if I ever heard a
+stroke," he replied as innocently as you please.  "Howsomdever, the
+lamps is all right, sir.  I ain't 'ave forgot 'em."
+
+"That's all right, then, Greazer," I said, not being too hard on him,
+and excusing the sly wink he gave to Prout as he told his barefaced
+banger about not hearing the bell, in memory of his past services.
+"Come along now and rig them up smart, or you'll have Mr Fosset after
+you."
+
+Making him hoist our masthead light on the foremast, twenty feet above
+the deck, according to the usual Board of Trade regulations for steamers
+under way at sea, I then marched him before me along the deck and saw
+him place our side lights in their proper position, the green one to
+starboard and the red on our port hand.
+
+Old Greazer then mounted the bridge-ladder, in advance of me, with the
+binnacle lamp in his hand to put that in its place, and, as I followed
+slowly in his slow footsteps, for the ex-fireman was not now quick of
+movement, an accident in the stoke-hold having crippled him years ago, I
+half-turned round as I ascended the laddering to have a look again at
+the horizon to leeward over our port quarters, when I fancied, when
+advancing a foot with the lamp-trimmer, I had seen something to the
+southward.
+
+In another instant my fancy became a certainty.
+
+Yes, there, in the distance, sailing at an angle to our course, right
+before the wind, was a large full-rigged ship.  Everything, though, was
+not right with her, as I noted the moment I made her out, with her white
+canvas all crimson from a last expiring gleam of the afterglow; for I
+could see that her sails were tattered and torn, with the ragged ends
+blowing out loose from the boltropes in the most untidy fashion,
+unkempt, uncared for!
+
+Besides, she was flying a signal of distress, patent to every sailor
+that has ever crossed the seas.
+
+Her flag was hoisted half-mast high from the peak halliards.  Half-mast
+high!
+
+I did not wait, nor did I want, to see anything further.  No, that was
+enough for me; and, springing on to the bridge with a bound that nearly
+knocked poor old Greazer down on his marrowbones as he stopped to put
+the lantern into the binnacle, I shouted out in a ringing voice that
+echoed fore and aft, startling everybody aboard, even myself, "Sail ho!
+A ship in distress!  Sail ho!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THREE.
+
+DID I DREAM IT?
+
+"Where away, Haldane?" cried Mr Fosset, the first to notice my shout,
+catching up a telescope that lay handy on the top of the wheel-house of
+the bridge; and, in his hurry, eagerly scanning every portion of the
+horizon but the right one.  "I don't see her!"
+
+"There she is, sir, away to the right!" said I, equally flurried,
+pointing over the lee rail in the direction where I had observed the
+ship only a second before as I mounted the bridge-ladder, although I
+could not actually make her out distinctly at the moment now, on account
+of the smoke from our funnels, which, just then, came belching forth in
+a thick, black cloud that streamed away to leeward, athwart our
+starboard beam, obscuring the outlook.
+
+"There away, sir; out there!"
+
+"Well, I can't see anything!" ejaculated Mr Fosset impatiently, rising
+to his feet after stooping down to the level of the bridge cloth, trying
+to get a sight of the strange vessel as best he could under the cloud of
+smoke, which was now trailing out along the horizon, blown far away to
+leeward by the strong wind across our beam.  "I'm sure I can't see
+anything over there, youngster; you must have dreamt it!"
+
+"Yes, when you were lolling about in the waist below there, just now,"
+put in my friend, Master Spokeshave, who had been pretending to look-out
+from his end of the bridge because he thought he ought to do so as Mr
+Fosset was there, although he really couldn't possibly see anything aft
+from that position on the port side, on account of the wheel-house and
+funnel, which were of course abaft the bridge, blocking the view.  The
+cantankerous little beggar sniffed his beak of a nose in the air as if
+trying to look down on me, though he was half a head shorter, and spoke
+in that nasty sneering way of his that always made me mad.  He did enjoy
+growling at any one when he had the chance; and so he went on snarling
+now, like a cat behind an area railing at a dog which couldn't get at it
+to stop its venomous spitting.  "I saw you, my joker, star-gazing down
+there, instead of coming up here to relieve me at the proper time!  I
+believe you only sang out about the ship to cover your laziness and take
+a rise out of us!"
+
+"I did nothing of the sort, Mr Spokeshave," I answered indignantly, for
+the little beast sniggered away and grinned at Mr Fosset as if he had
+said something uncommonly smart at my expense.  I saw, however, where
+the shoe pinched.  He was angry at my having kept him waiting for his
+tea, and hence his spiteful allusion to my being late coming on watch;
+so I was just going to give him a sharp rejoinder, referring to his love
+for his little stomach, a weak point with him and a common joke with us
+all below at meal-times, when, ere I could get a word out of the
+scathing rebuke I intended for him, the smoke trail suddenly lifted a
+bit to leeward and leaving the horizon clear, I caught sight again of
+the ship I had seen over the rail.  This, of course, at once changed the
+current of my thoughts; and so, without troubling my head any further
+about "Conky," I sang out as eagerly as before to the first mate, all
+the more anxious now to prove that I had been right in the first
+instance, "There she is, Mr Fosset, there she is!"
+
+"Where on earth are you squinting now, boy?" said he, a bit huffy at not
+making her out and apparently inclined to Spokeshave's opinion that I
+had not really seen her at all.  "Where away?"
+
+"There, sir, away to leeward," cried I, almost jumping over the bridge
+rail in my excitement.  "She's nearly abreast of our mizzen chains and
+not a mile off.  She seems coming up on the port tack, sir!"
+
+For, strangely enough, although we were going ten knots good by the aid
+of the wind that had worked round more abeam, so that all our fore and
+aft sail drew, while the ship, which, when I saw her before, seemed to
+be running with the nor'-easter and sailing at a tangent to our course
+so that she ought really to have increased her distance from us, now, on
+the contrary, appeared ever so much nearer, as if she had either altered
+her helm or drifted closer by the aid of some ocean current in the
+interim; albeit, barely five minutes at the best, if that, had only
+elapsed since I first sighted her.
+
+But, stranger still, Mr Fosset could not see her, when there she was as
+plain as the sun setting in the west awhile ago--at least to my eyes;
+and, as she approached nearer yet in some unaccountable way, for her
+bows were pointed from us and the wind, of course, was blowing in the
+opposite direction, she being on our lee, I declare I could distinctly
+see a female figure, like that of a young girl with long hair, on the
+deck aft; and beside her I also noticed a large black dog, jumping up
+and down!
+
+"I'm sure I can't see any ship, youngster," said Mr Fosset at the
+moment.  Even while he was actually speaking, I observed the sailing
+vessel to yaw in her course, her ragged canvas flattening against the
+masts as if she were coming about, although from the way her head veered
+about, she did not seem to be under any control.  "There's nothing in
+sight, Haldane, I tell you.  What you perhaps thought was a ship is that
+big black cloud rising to the southward.  It looks like one of those
+nasty sea fogs working up, and we'll have to keep a precious sharp look-
+out to-night, I know."
+
+"There's no ship there," echoed my friend "Conky," tapping his forehead
+in a very offensive way to intimate that I had "a screw loose in the
+upper storey," as the saying goes, grinning the while as I could see
+very well in the dim light and poking his long nose up in the air in
+supreme contempt.  "The boy is either mad, or drunk, or dreaming, as you
+say, sir.  It is all a cock and a bull yarn about his sighting a vessel,
+and he only wants to brave it out.  There's no ship there!"
+
+"Can you see anything, Atkins?" asked Mr Fosset of the man steering.
+"There away to leeward, I mean."
+
+"No, sir," answered the sailor; "not a speck, sir."
+
+"Do you see anything, lamp-trimmer?"
+
+"No; can't say I does, sir," replied old Greazer, after a long squint
+over our lee in the direction pointed out, "Not a sight of a sail, nor a
+light, nor nothink!"
+
+It was curious.
+
+For, at that very moment, when the first mate and Spokeshave and the
+helmsman and lamp-trimmer, standing on the bridge beside me, one and all
+said they could see nothing, I declare to you I saw not only the ship
+and the figures on her deck, but I noticed that the girl on the poop
+waved a scarf or handkerchief, as if imploring our assistance; and, at
+the same time, the dog near her bounded up against the bulwarks, and I
+can solemnly assert from the evidence of my ears that I heard the animal
+distinctly bark, giving out that joyous sort of bark with which a well-
+dispositioned dog invariably greets a friend of his master or mistress.
+
+I could not make it out at all.
+
+It was most mysterious.
+
+"Look, look, Mr Fosset!"  I cried excitedly.  "There she is now!  There
+she is, coming up on our lee quarter!  Why, you must be all blind!  I
+can not only see the ship distinctly, but also right down on to her
+deck!"
+
+"Nonsense, boy; you'd better go below!" said the first mate brusquely,
+while Spokeshave sniggered and whispered something to the lamp-trimmer
+and man at the wheel that made them both laugh out right.  "There's
+something wrong with you to-night, Haldane, for you seem quite off your
+chump, so you'd better go below and sleep it off.  There's no ship near
+us, I tell you!  What you imagined to be a sailing vessel is that dark
+cloud there, coming up from the leeward, which is fast shutting out the
+horizon from view.  It's a sea fog, such as are frequently met with
+hereabouts below the Banks, as we are now!"
+
+It was true enough about the cloud, or mist, or fog, or whatever it was;
+for, as Mr Fosset spoke, the darkness closed in around us like a wall
+and the ship that I swear I had seen the moment before vanished, sky and
+sea and everything else disappearing also at the same instant, leaving
+us, as it were, isolated in space, the veil of vapour being
+impenetrable!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOUR.
+
+A CONFLICT OF AUTHORITY.
+
+Just then Captain Applegarth appeared on the scene.
+
+He had gone down by the companion-way into the saloon below, after Mr
+Fosset had left the poop, to look at the barometer in his cabin, and now
+came along the upper deck and on to the bridge amidships, startling us
+with his sudden presence.
+
+The skipper had a sharp eye, which was so trained by observation in all
+sorts of weather that he could see in the dark, like a cat, almost as
+well as he could by daylight.
+
+Looking round and scanning our faces as well as he could in the
+prevailing gloom, he soon perceived that something was wrong.
+
+"Huh!" he exclaimed.  "What's the row about?"
+
+"There's no row, sir," explained the first mate in an off-hand tone of
+bravado, which he tried to give a jocular ring to, but could not very
+successfully.  "This youngster Haldane here swears he saw a full-rigged
+ship on our lee quarter awhile ago, flying a signal of distress; but
+neither Mr Spokeshave, who was on the watch, nor myself, could make her
+out where Haldane said he saw her."
+
+"Indeed?"
+
+"No, sir," continued Mr Fosset; "nor could the helmsman or old Greazer
+here, who came up with the binnacle lamp at the time.  Not one of us
+could see this wonderful ship of Haldane's, though it was pretty clear
+all round then, and we all looked in the direction to which he pointed."
+
+"That's strange," said Captain Applegarth, "very strange."
+
+"Quite so, sir, just what we all think, sir," chimed in Master
+Spokeshave, putting in his oar.  "Not a soul here on the bridge, sir,
+observed anything of any ship of any sort, leastways one flying a signal
+of distress, such as Dick Haldane said he saw."
+
+"Humph!" ejaculated the skipper, as if turning the matter over in his
+mind for the moment; and then addressing me point blank he asked me
+outright, "Do you really believe you saw this ship, Haldane?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered as directly as he had questioned me; "I'll swear
+I did."
+
+"No, I don't want you to do that; I'll take your word for it without any
+swearing, Haldane," said the skipper to this, speaking to me quietly and
+as kindly as if he had been my father.  "But listen to me, my boy.  I do
+not doubt your good faith for a moment, mind that.  Still, are you sure
+that what you believe you saw might not have been some optical illusion
+proceeding from the effects of the afterglow at sunset?  It was very
+bright and vivid, you know, and the reflection of a passing cloud above
+the horizon or its shadow just before the sun dipped might have caused
+that very appearance which you took to be a ship under sail.  I have
+myself been often mistaken in the same way under similar atmospheric
+surroundings and that is why I put it to you like this, to learn whether
+you are quite certain you might not be mistaken?"
+
+"Quite so," shoved in Spokeshave again in his parrot fashion; "quite so,
+sir."
+
+"I didn't ask your opinion," growled the skipper, shutting him up in a
+twinkling; and then, turning to me again, he looked at me inquiringly.
+"Well, Haldane, have you thought it out?"
+
+"Yes, captain, I have," I replied firmly, though respectfully, the ill-
+timed interference of the objectionable Mr Spokeshave having made me as
+obstinate as Mr Fosset.  "It was no optical illusion or imagination on
+my part, sir, or anything of that sort, I assure you, sir.  I am telling
+you the truth, sir, and no lie.  I saw that ship, sir, to leeward of us
+just now as clearly as I can see you at this moment; aye, clearer, sir!"
+
+"Then that settles the matter.  I've never had occasion to doubt your
+word before during the years you've sailed with me, my boy, and I am not
+going to doubt it now."
+
+So saying, Captain Applegarth, putting his arm on my shoulder, faced
+round towards the first mate and Spokeshave, as if challenging them both
+to question my veracity after this testimony on his part in my favour.
+
+"This ship, you say, Haldane," then continued the skipper, proceeding to
+interrogate me as to the facts of the case, now that my credulity had
+been established, in his sharp, sailor-like way, "was flying a signal of
+distress, eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered with zest, all animation and excitement again at
+his encouragement.  "She had her flag, the French tricolour, I think,
+sir, hoisted half-mast at her peak; and she appeared, sir, a good deal
+battered about, as if she had been in bad weather and had made the worst
+of it.  Besides, cappen--"
+
+I hesitated.
+
+"Besides what, my boy?" he asked, on my pausing here, almost afraid to
+mention the sight I had noticed on the deck of the ill-fated ship in the
+presence of two such sceptical listeners as Mr Fosset and my more
+immediate superior, the third officer, Spokeshave.  "You need not be
+afraid of saying anything you like before me.  _I'm_ captain of this
+ship."
+
+"Well, sir," said I, speaking out, "just before that mass of clouds or
+fog bank came down on the wind, shutting out the ship from view, she
+yawed a bit off her course, and I saw somebody on her deck aft."
+
+"What!" cried the skipper, interrupting me.  "Was she so close as that?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said I.  "She did not seem to be a hundred yards away at the
+moment, if that."
+
+"And you saw somebody on the deck?"
+
+"Yes, cap'en," I answered; "a woman."
+
+He again interrupted me, all agog at the news.
+
+"A woman?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said I.  "A woman, or rather, perhaps a girl, for she had a
+lot of long hair streaming over her shoulders, all flying about in the
+wind."
+
+"What was she doing?"
+
+"She appeared to be waving a white handkerchief or something like that,
+as if to attract our attention--asking us to help her, like."
+
+The skipper drew himself up to his full height on my telling this and
+turned round on Mr Fosset, his face blazing with passion.
+
+"A ship in distress, a woman on board imploring our aid," he exclaimed
+in keen, cold, cutting tones that pierced one like a knife, "and you
+passed her by without rendering any assistance,--a foreigner too, of
+all.  We Englishmen, who pride ourselves on our humanity above all other
+nations.  What will they think of us?"
+
+"I tell you, sir, we could not see any ship at all!" retorted the first
+mate hotly, in reply to this reproach, which he felt as keenly as it was
+uttered.  "And if we couldn't see the ship, how could we know there was
+a woman or anybody aboard?"
+
+"Quite so," echoed Spokeshave, emphasising Mr Fosset's logical argument
+in his own defence.  "That's exactly what I say, sir."
+
+"I would not have had it happen for worlds.  We flying the old Union
+jack, too, that boasts of never passing either friend or foe when in
+danger and asking aid."
+
+He spoke still more bitterly, as if he had not heard their excuses.
+
+"But hang it, cap'en," cried Mr Fosset, "I tell you--"
+
+Captain Applegarth waved him aside.
+
+"Where did you last sight the ship, Haldane?" he said, turning round
+abruptly to me.  "How was she heading?"
+
+"She bore about two points off our port quarter," I replied as
+laconically.  "I think, sir, she was running before the wind like
+ourselves, though steering a little more to the southwards."
+
+The skipper looked at the standard compass in front of the wheel-house
+on the bridge, and then addressed the helmsman.
+
+"How are we steering now, quartermaster?  The same course as I set at
+noon, eh?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," replied Atkins, who still stood by the steam steering
+gear singlehanded.  If it had been the ordinary wheel, unaided by steam-
+power, it would have required four men to move the rudder and keep the
+vessel steady in such a sea as was now running.  "We've kept her pretty
+straight, sir, since eight bells on the same course, west by south, sir,
+half south."
+
+"Very good, quartermaster.  Haldane, are you there?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said I, stepping up to him again, having moved away into the
+shadow under the lee of the wheel-house whilst he was speaking to
+Atkins.  "Here I am, sir."
+
+"Was that vessel dropping us when we passed her, or were we going ahead
+of her?"
+
+"She was running before the wind, sir, at a tangent to our course, and
+more to the southwards, moving through the water quicker than we were,
+until she luffed up just before that mist or fog bank shut her out from
+view.  But--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I think, sir," I continued, "that was done merely to speak us; and if
+she bore away again, as she was probably forced to do, being at the
+mercy of the gale, she must be scudding even more to the southwards,
+almost due south, I should fancy, as the wind has backed again more to
+the nor'ard since this."
+
+"I fancy the same, my boy.  I see you have a sailor's eye and have got
+your wits about you.  Quartermaster?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir?"
+
+"Let her off a point or two gradually until you bring her head about
+sou'-sou'-west, and keep her so."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," responded Atkins, easing her off as required.  "Sou'-
+sou'-west it shall be, sir, in a minute."
+
+"That will bring us across her, I think," said the skipper to me.  "But
+we must go a little faster if we want to overtake her.  What are we
+doing now, eh?"
+
+"I don't quite know, sir," I answered to this question.  "I was only
+just coming up on the bridge to relieve Mr Spokeshave when I sighted
+the ship and have not had time to look at the indicator.  I should
+think, though, we're going eight or nine knots."
+
+This didn't satisfy the skipper, so he turned to the first mate, who had
+remained moodily aloof with Spokeshave at the end of the bridge.
+
+"Mr Fosset," he sang out abruptly, "what are the engines doing?"
+
+"About thirty revolutions, sir; half speed, as nearly as possible."
+
+"How much are we going altogether?"
+
+"Ten knots, with our sails," replied the other.  "The wind is
+freshening, too."
+
+"So I see," said Captain Applegarth laconically.
+
+"And it'll freshen still more by-and-bye if I'm not mistaken!"
+
+"Yes, it looks as if we're going to have a bit of a blow.  The scud is
+flying all over us now that we are running before the wind.  I really
+think we ought to ease down, sir, for the screw races fearfully as she
+dips and I'm afraid of the shaft."
+
+"I'm responsible for that, Mr Fosset," answered the skipper as, moving
+the handle of the gong on the bridge communicating with the engine-room,
+he directed those in charge below to put on full speed ahead.  "I never
+yet abandoned a ship in distress, and I'm not going to do so now.  We're
+on the right course to overhaul her, now, I think, eh, Haldane?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I replied.  "I hope, though, we won't pass her in the fog,
+sir, or run into her, perhaps."
+
+"No fear of that, my boy: The fog is lifting now and the night will soon
+be as clear as a bell, for the wind is driving all the mists away.
+Besides, we'll take precautions against any accident happening.  Mr
+Fosset?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir?"
+
+"Put a couple of lookouts on the fo'c's'le."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir."
+
+"Perhaps, too, we'd better send up a rocket to let 'em know we're about.
+Mr Spokeshave?  Mr Spokeshave?"
+
+No answer came this time, however, from my friend, Master "Conky,"
+though he had been ready enough just now with his aggravating "quite
+so."
+
+"I think, sir," said I, "Mr Spokeshave has gone below to his tea."
+
+"Very likely," replied the skipper drily; "he's precious fond of his
+breadbasket, that young gentleman.  I don't think he'll ever starve
+where there's any grub knocking about.  Fancy a fellow, calling himself
+a man, thinking of his belly at such a moment!  Go, Haldane, and call
+him up again and tell him I want him."
+
+I started to obey Captain Applegarth's order, but I had hardly got three
+steps down the ladder when Spokeshave saved me further trouble by coming
+up on the bridge again of his own accord, without waiting to be
+summoned.
+
+The skipper, therefore, gave him instructions to let off, every quarter
+of an hour, a couple of signal rockets and burn a blue light or two over
+our port and starboard quarter alternately as we proceeded towards the
+object of our quest.
+
+"All right, sir; quite so!" said "Conky," as well as he could
+articulate, his mouth being full of something he had hurriedly snatched
+from the steward's pantry when he had gone below, and brought up with
+him to eat on deck, knowing that the skipper would be sure to sing out
+for him if he remained long away at so critical a juncture.  "All right,
+sir; quite so!"
+
+The skipper laughed as he went down again to get the rockets and blue
+lights which were kept in a spare cabin aft for safety.
+
+"He's a rum chap, that little beggar," he observed to Mr Fosset, who
+had been forward to set the look-out men on the forecastle and had
+returned to the bridge.  "I think if you told him he was the laziest
+loafer that ever ate lobscouse, he couldn't help saying `Quite so!'"
+
+"You're about right, sir.  I think, though, he can't help it; he's got
+so used to the phrase," replied the other, joining in the skipper's
+laugh.  "But, hullo, here comes old Stokes, panting and puffing along
+the gangway.  I hope nothing's wrong in the engine-room."
+
+"I hope not," said the skipper.  "We want to go all we can just now, to
+overhaul that ship Haldane saw."
+
+"_If_ he saw it," muttered the first officer, under his breath and
+glowering at me.  "A pack of sheer nonsense, I call it, this going out
+of our course on a wild-goose chase and tearing away full speed on a
+wild night like this, in a howling sea, with a gale, too, astern; and
+all because an ass of a youngster fancies he saw the _Flying Dutchman_!"
+
+I daresay the captain heard him, but the appearance just then of Mr
+Stokes, our chief engineer, who had now reached the bridge, panting and
+puffing at every step, as Mr Fosset had said, he being corpulent of
+habit and short-winded, stopped any further controversy on the point as
+to whether I had seen, or had not seen, the mysterious ship.
+
+"Cap'en, Cap'en Applegarth!" cried out the chief engineer asthmatically
+as soon as he got within hail, speaking in a tearful voice and almost
+crying in his excitement.  "Are you there, sir?"
+
+"Aye, here I am, Mr Stokes, as large as life, though not quite so big a
+man as you," answered the skipper jocularly.
+
+"I am here on the bridge, quite at your service."
+
+Mr Stokes, however, was in no jocular mood.
+
+"Cap'en Applegarth," said he solemnly, "did you really mean to ring us
+on full speed ahead?"
+
+"I did," replied the skipper promptly.  "What of that?"
+
+"What of that?" repeated the old engineer, dumbfounded by this return
+shot.  "Why, sir, the engines can't stand it.  That is all, if you must
+have it!"
+
+"Can't stand what?"
+
+"They can't stand all this driving and racing, with the propeller blades
+half out of water every second revolution of the shaft.  No engines
+could stand it, with such a heavy sea on and the ship rolling and
+pitching all the time like a merry-go-round at Barnet Fair.  The
+governor is no good; and, though Grummet or Links have their grip on the
+throttle valve all the while to check the steam, and I've every stoker
+and oiler on duty, the bearings are getting that heated that I'm afraid
+of the shaft breaking at any moment.  Full speed, sir?  Why, we can't do
+it, sir, we can't do it!"
+
+"Nonsense, Stokes," said the skipper good-humouredly.  "You must do it,
+old fellow."
+
+"But, I tell you, Cap'en Applegarth, the engines can't stand it without
+breaking down, and then where will you be, I'd like to know?"
+
+"I'll risk that."
+
+"No, cap'en," snorted the old chief, doggedly.  "I'm responsible to the
+owners for the engines, and if anything happened to the machinery they'd
+blame me.  I can't do it."
+
+The skipper flew up to white heat at this.
+
+"But, Mr Stokes, recollect I am responsible for the ship, engines and
+all, sir.  The greater includes the less, and, as captain of this ship,
+I intend to have my orders carried out by every man-jack on board.  Do
+you hear that?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I hear," replied Mr Stokes grumblingly as he backed towards
+the bridge-ladder.  "But, sir--"
+
+The skipper would not give him time to get out another word.
+
+"You heard what I said," he roared out in a voice that made the old
+chief jump down half a dozen steps at once.  "I ordered you to go full
+speed ahead and I mean to go full speed ahead whether the boilers burst,
+or the propeller races, or the screw shaft carries away; for I won't
+abandon a ship in distress for all the engineers and half-hearted
+mollicoddles in the world!"
+
+"A ship in distress?" gasped old Mr Stokes from the bottom rung of the
+ladder.  "I didn't hear about that before."
+
+"Well, you hear it now," snapped out the skipper viciously, storming up
+and down the bridge in a state of great wrath.  "But whether it's a ship
+in distress or not, I'll have you to know, Mr Stokes, once for all that
+if I order full speed or half speed or any speed, I intend my orders to
+be obeyed; and if you don't like it you can lump it.  I'm captain of
+this ship!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIVE.
+
+THE GALE FRESHENS.
+
+Presently a cloud of thick black smoke again pouring forth from the
+funnels showed that Mr Stokes had set the engine-room staff vigorously
+to work to carry out the skipper's orders; while the vibration of the
+upper deck below our feet afforded proof, were such needed, that the
+machinery was being driven to its utmost capacity, the regular throbbing
+motion caused by the revolving shaft being distinctly perceptible above
+the rolling of the vessel and the jar of the opposing waves against her
+bow plates when she pitched more deeply than usual and met the sea full
+butt-end on.
+
+The surface fog, or mist, which had lately obscured the view, rising
+from the water immediately after the last gleams of the sunset had
+disappeared from the western sky, had now cleared away, giving place to
+the pale spectral light of night, an occasional star twinkling here and
+there in the dark vault overhead, like a sign-post in the immensity of
+space, making the wild billowy waste, through which we tore with all the
+power of wind and steam, seem all the wilder from contrast.
+
+We had carried on like this for about an hour, steering steadily to the
+southwards, without catching sight again of the strange ship, though
+Spokeshave and I had continued to let off signal rockets and burn blue
+lights at intervals, the gale increasing in force each instant, and the
+waves growing bigger and bigger, so that they rose over the topsail as
+we raced along, when, all at once, a great green sea broke amidships,
+coming aboard of us just abaft of the engine-room hatchway, flooding all
+the waist on either side of the deckhouse and rolling down below in a
+regular cataract of tumid water, sweeping everything before it.
+
+"That's pretty lively," exclaimed Captain Applegarth, clutching hold of
+the rail to preserve his balance as he turned to the quartermaster at
+the wheel.  "Steady there, my man!  Keep her full and by!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," answered Atkins.  "But she do yaw so, when she buries
+her bows.  She's got too much sail on her, sir."
+
+"I know that," said the skipper.  "But I'm going to carry on as long as
+I can, all the same, my man."
+
+Even as he spoke, however, a second sea followed the first, nearly
+washing us all off the bridge, and smashing the glass of the skylight
+over the engine-room, besides doing other damage.
+
+By Captain Applegarth's directions, a piece of heavy tarpaulin was
+lashed over the broken skylight, securing the ends to ringbolts in the
+deck; but hardly had the covering been made fast ere we could see the
+chief engineer picking his way towards us, struggling through the water
+that still lay a foot deep in the waist and looking as pale as death.
+
+"Hullo, Mr Stokes," cried the skipper, when the old chief with great
+difficulty had gained the vantage of the bridge-ladder.  "What's the
+matter now, old fellow?"
+
+He was too much exhausted at first to reply.
+
+"What's the matter?" he echoed ironically when able at last to speak.
+"Oh, nothing at all worth mentioning; nothing at all.  I told you how it
+would be, sir, if you insisted on going ahead full speed in such weather
+as we're having!  Why, Cap'en Applegarth, the stoke-hold's full of water
+and the bilgepump's choked, that's all; and the fires, I expect, will be
+drowned out in another minute or two.  That's what's the matter, sir,
+believe me or not!"
+
+With that the poor old chap, who was quite overcome with the exertions
+he had gone through and his pent-up emotion, broke down utterly,
+bursting into a regular boohoo.
+
+"Dear me, Mr Stokes; Mr Stokes, don't give way like that," said the
+skipper soothingly, patting him on the back to calm him down, being a
+very good-hearted man at bottom, in spite of his strict discipline and
+insistence on being "captain of his own ship," as he termed it.  "Don't
+give way like that, old friend!  Things will come all right by-and-bye."
+
+"O-o-h, will they?" snivelled the old chap, refusing to be comforted,
+like a veritable Rachel mourning for her children.  "We may possibly get
+rid of the water below, but the crosshead bearings are working loose,
+and I'd like to know who's going to give me a new gudgeon pin?"
+
+"Hang your gudgeon pin!" cried the skipper irascibly, not perhaps for
+the moment attaching the importance it demanded to this small but
+essential part of the engines, uniting the connecting rod of the crank
+shaft with the piston which he thus irreverently anathematised; and
+then, struck by the comic aspect of the situation, with the waves
+breaking over us and the elements in mad turmoil around us, while the
+fat old chief was blubbering there like a boy about his gudgeon pin as
+if bewailing some toy that had been taken from him, that he burst out
+with a roar of laughter, which was so contagious that, in spite of the
+gloomy outlook and our perilous surroundings, Mr Fosset and all of us
+on the bridge joined in, even the quartermaster not being able to
+prevent a grin from stealing over his crusty weatherbeaten face, though
+the man at the wheel on board ship, when on duty, is technically
+supposed to be incapable of expressing any emotion beyond such as may be
+connected with the compass card and the coursing of the ship.  "Wha--
+wha--what's the matter with that now, old chap?  One would think it was
+a whale and not a gudgeon, you make such a fuss about it."
+
+Of course the captain's joke set us all off cackling again; Mr
+Spokeshave's "he-he-he" sounding out, high in the treble, above the
+general cachination.
+
+This exasperated Mr Stokes, making the old fellow quite furious.
+
+"This is no laughing matter, Cap'en Applegarth," said he with great
+dignity, standing up as erectly as he could and puffing his corpulent
+figure out to such an extent that I thought he would burst.  "I'll have
+ye to know that, sir.  Nor did I come on deck, sir, at the peril of my
+life almost, to be made a jeer block of, though I'm only the chief
+engineer of the ship and you're the ca'p'en."
+
+He spoke with so stately an air that I confess I felt sorry I had given
+away to any merriment at his expense, while the others grew serious in a
+moment; and as for Atkins, his whilom grinning face seemed now to be
+carved out of some species of wood of a particularly hard and fibrous
+nature.
+
+"Now, don't get angry, Stokes, old fellow," cried the skipper shoving
+out his fist and gripping that of the chief in the very nick of time,
+for the vessel gave a lurch just then and, still "standing on his
+dignity," as the poor old chap was, without holding on to anything, he
+would have been precipitated over the rail to the deck below, but for
+the skipper's friendly aid.  "Don't be angry with me, old chum.  I'm
+sorry I laughed; but you and I have been shipmates too long together for
+us to fall out now.  Why, what the devil has got over you, Stokes?
+You've never been so huffy since I first sailed with you, and I should
+have thought you one of the last in the world to take offence at a
+little bit of harmless chaff."
+
+"Well, well, Cap'en Applegarth, let it bide, let it bide," replied the
+old chief, coming round at once, his rage calming down as quickly as it
+had risen.  "I don't mind your laughing at me if you have a mind too.  I
+daresay it all seemed very funny to you, my being anxious about my
+engines, but I'm hanged if I can see the fun myself."
+
+"But it was funny, Stokes; deuced funny, I tell you, `ho-ho-ho!'"
+rejoined the skipper, bursting out into a regular roar again at the
+recollection of the scene, his jolly laugh causing even the cause of it
+to smile against his will.  "However, there's an end of it, gudgeon pin
+and all.  Now, about that stoke-hold of yours.  It's flooded, you say?"
+
+"Aye; there's eighteen inches of water there now, right up to the
+footplates," said the engineer with a grave air.  "The bilge-pumps won't
+act, and all my staff of stokers are so busy keeping up the steam that I
+can't spare a man to see to clearing out the suctions, though if the
+water rises any higher, it will soon be up to the furnace bars and put
+out the fires."
+
+"Humph, that's serious," answered the skipper meditatively.  "I'll see
+what I can do to help you.  I say, Fosset?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!  Want me?"
+
+"Yes," replied the skipper.  "Mr Stokes is shorthanded below and says
+the bilge-pumps are choked.  Can you spare him a man or two to help
+clear the suctions?  I daresay there's a lot of stray dunnage washing
+about under the stoke-hold plates.  You might go down and bear a hand
+yourself, as I won't leave the bridge."
+
+"Certainly, sir; I'll go at once with Mr Stokes and take some of the
+starboard watch with me.  It's close on seven bells and they'd soon have
+to turn out, anyway, to relieve the men now on deck."
+
+"That'll do very well, Fosset," said the skipper, and, raising his
+voice, he shouted over the rail forwards--
+
+"Bosun, call the watch!"
+
+Bill Masters, who had been waiting handy on the deck amidships,
+immediately below the bridge, expecting some such order with the need,
+as he thought, of the skipper reducing sail, at once stuck his shrill
+boatswain's pipe to his lips and gave the customary call: Whee-ee-oo-
+oo--whee-ee-ee.
+
+"Starboard watch, ahoy!"
+
+The men came tumbling out of the fo'c's'le at the sound of the whistle
+and the old seadog's stentorian hail; whereupon the first mate,
+selecting six of the lot to accompany him, he followed Mr Stokes
+towards the engine-room hatchway.
+
+Before disappearing below, however, the engineer made a last appeal to
+the skipper.
+
+"I say, cap'en," he sang out, stopping half-way as he toddled aft,
+somewhat disconsolately in spite of the assistance given him, "now won't
+you ease down, sir, just to oblige me?  The engines won't stand it, sir;
+and it's my duty to tell you so, sir."
+
+"All right, Stokes; you've told me, and may consider that you've done
+your duty in doing so," replied the skipper, grimly laconic.  "But I'm
+not going to ease down till seven bells, my hearty, unless we run across
+Dick Haldane's ship before, when we'll go as slow as you like and bear
+up again on our course to the westwards."
+
+"Very good, sir," answered the old chief as he lifted his podgy legs
+over the coaming of the hatchway, prior to burying himself in the
+cimmerian darkness of the opening, wherein Mr Fosset and his men had
+already vanished.
+
+"I'll make things all snug below, sir, and bank the fires as soon as you
+give the signal."
+
+With that, he, too, was lost to sight.
+
+The skipper, I could see, was not very easy in his mind when left alone;
+for he paced jerkily to and fro between the wheel-house and the weather
+end of the bridge as well as he was able, the vessel being very
+unsteady, rolling about among the big rollers like a huge grampus and
+pitching almost bows under water sometimes, though the old barquey was
+buoyant enough, notwithstanding the lot of deadweight she carried in her
+bowels, rising up after each plunge as frisky as a cork, when she would
+shake herself with a movement that made her tremble all over, as if to
+get rid of the loose spray and spindrift that hung on to her shining
+black head, and which the wind swept before it like flecks of snow into
+the rigging, spattering and spattering against the almost red-hot
+funnels up which the steam blast was rushing mingled with the flare of
+the funnels below.
+
+After continuing his restless walk for a minute or two, the skipper
+stopped by the binnacle, looking at the compass card, which moved about
+as restlessly as the old barquey and himself, oscillating in every
+direction.
+
+"We ought to have come up with her by now, Haldane," he said, addressing
+me, as I stood with Spokeshave on the other side of the wheel-house.
+"Don't you think so from the course she was going when you sighted her?"
+
+"Yes, sir," I answered, "if she hasn't gone down!"
+
+"I hope not, my boy," said he; "but I'm very much afraid she has, or
+else we've passed ahead of her."
+
+"That's not likely, sir," I replied.  "She looked as if crossing our
+track when I last saw her; and, though we were going slower then, we
+must be gaining on her now, I should think."
+
+"We ought to be," said he.  "We must be going seventeen knots at the
+least with wind and steam."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir, all that," corroborated old Masters, the boatswain, who
+had come up on the bridge unnoticed.  "Beg pardon, sir, but we can't
+carry on much longer with all that sail forrad.  The fore-topmast is a-
+complainin' like anythink, I can tell ye, sir.  Chirvell, the carpenter,
+and me's examinin' it and we thinks it's got sprung at the cap, sir."
+
+"If that's the case, my man," said Captain Applegarth to this, "we'd
+better take in sail at once.  It's a pity, too, with such a fine wind.
+I was just going to spare the engines and ease down for a bit, trusting
+to our sails alone, but if there's any risk of the spars going, as you
+say, wrong, we must reduce our canvas instead."
+
+"There's no help for it, sir," returned the boatswain quickly.  "Either
+one or t'other must go!  Shall I pass the word, sir, to take in sail?"
+
+"Aye, take in the rags!"
+
+"Fo'c's'le, ahoy there!" yelled Masters instantly, taking advantage of
+the long-desired permission.  "All hands take in sail!"
+
+We had hauled the trysails and other fore and aft canvas, which was
+comparatively useless to a steamer when running before the wind at the
+time we had altered course towards the south, in quest of the ship in
+distress, the _Star of the North_ speeding along with only her fore-
+topsail and fore-topgallantsail set in addition to her fore-topmast
+staysail and mizzen staysail and jib.
+
+The gale, however, had increased so much, the wind freshening as it
+shifted more and more to the north that this sail was too much for her,
+the canvas bellying out, and the upper spars "buckling" as the vessel
+laboured in the heavy sea, the stays taut as fiddle-strings and
+everything at the utmost tension.
+
+The skipper perceived this now, when almost too late.
+
+"Let go your topgallant bowline, and lee sheet and halliards," he roared
+out, holding on with both hands to the rail and bending over the bridge
+cloth as he shouted to the men forward who had tumbled out of the
+forecastle on the boatswain's warning hail.  "Stand by your clewlines
+and by your boat lines!"
+
+The men sprang to the ropes with a will, but ere they had begun to cast
+them off from the cleats an ominous sound was heard from aloft, and,
+splitting from clew to earring, our poor topgallantsail blew clean out
+of the boltropes with a loud crack as if a gun had been fired off, the
+fragments floating away ahead of us, borne on the wings of the wind like
+a huge kite, until it disappeared in the dark _chiaraoscura_ of the
+distant horizon, where heaven and sea met amid the shadows of night.
+
+Just then a most wonderful thing happened to startle us further!
+
+While all of us gazed at the wreck aloft, expecting the topsail to
+follow suit before it could be pulled, though the hands were racing up
+rigging for the purpose, the halliards having been at once let go and
+the yard lowered, a strange light over the topsail made us look aft,
+when we saw a huge ball of fire pass slowly across the zenith from the
+east to the west, illuminating not only the northern arc of the sky, but
+the surface of the water also, immediately beneath its path, and making
+the faces of the men in the rigging and indeed any object on board,
+stand out in relief, shining with that corpse-like glare or reflection
+produced by the electric light, the effect being weird and unearthly in
+the extreme!
+
+At the same instant one of the lookouts in the bows who had still
+remained at his post and had probably been awakened from a quiet "caulk"
+by the awful portent, suddenly shouted out in a ringing voice, that
+thrilled through every heart on board--
+
+"Sail ho!"
+
+Captain Applegarth and the rest of us on the bridge faced round again at
+once.
+
+"Where away, where away, my man?" cried the skipper excitedly.  "Where
+away?"
+
+"Right ahead of us, sir," replied the man in an equally eager tone.
+"And not half a cable's length away!"
+
+"My God!" exclaimed old Masters, the boatswain, whose grey hair seemed
+to stand on end with terror as we all now looked in the new direction
+indicated and saw a queer ghost-like craft gliding along mysteriously in
+the same direction as ourselves, and so close alongside that I could
+have chucked a biscuit aboard her without any difficulty.  "That there
+be no mortal vessel that ever sailed the seas.  Mark my words, Cap'en
+Applegarth, that there craft be either _The Flying Dutchman_, as I've
+often heard tell on, but never seen meself, or a ghost-ship; and--Lord
+help us--we be all doomed men!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIX.
+
+A CHAPTER OF ACCIDENTS.
+
+"Nonsense, man!" cried Captain Applegarth.  "Don't make such an ass of
+yourself!  _Flying Dutchman_ indeed!  Why, that cock and bull yarn was
+exploded years ago, and I didn't think there was a sailor afloat in the
+present day ass enough to believe in this story!"
+
+"I may be a hass, sir; I know I am sometimes," retorted old Masters,
+evidently aggrieved by the skipper speaking to him like this before the
+men.  "But, sir, seein' is believin'.  There's this ship an' there's
+that there craft a-sailin' alongside in the teeth o' the gale.  Hass or
+no hass, I sees that, captain!"
+
+"Hang it all, man, can't you see that it is only the mirage or
+reflection of our own vessel, produced by the light of the meteor
+throwing her shadow on to the mass of cloud leeward?  Look, there are
+our two old sticks and the funnels between, with the smoke rushing out
+of them!  Aye, and there, too, you can see this very bridge here we're
+standing on, and all of us, as large as life.  Why, bo'sun, you can see
+your own ugly mug reflected now opposite us, just as it would be in a
+looking glass.  Look, man!"
+
+"Aye, I sees, sir, plain enuff, though I'm a hass," said Masters at
+length.  "But it ain't nat'rel, sir, anyhow; an' I misdoubts sich skeary
+things.  I ain't been to sea forty years for nothin', Captain
+Applegarth, an' I fears sich a sight as that betokens some danger ahead
+as 'ill happen to us some time or other this voyage.  Even started on a
+Friday, sir, as you knows on, sir!"
+
+"Rubbish!" cried the skipper, angry at his obstinacy.  "See, the mirage
+has disappeared now that the meteor light has become dispersed.  Look
+smart there, aloft, and furl that topsail!  It's just seven bells and
+I'm going to ease down the engines and bear up on our course again.  Up
+with you, men, and lay out on the yard!"
+
+The hands who had stopped half-way up the fore-rigging, spell-bound at
+the sight of the mirage, now bestirred themselves, shaking off their
+superstitious fears; old Masters, in the presence of something to be
+done, also working, and soon the sail was furled, the bunt stowed, and
+the gaskets passed.
+
+"It's no use our keeping on any longer after that ship of yours,
+Haldane," observed the skipper, turning to me when the men had all come
+in from the topsail yard and scrambled down on deck again after making
+everything snug aloft.  "If she were still afloat we must have
+overhauled her before this.  I really think, youngster, she must have
+been only a sort of will-o'-the-wisp, like that we saw just now--an
+optical illusion, as I told you at the time, recollect, caused by some
+cross light from the afterglow of the sunset thrown upon the white mist
+which we noticed subsequently rising off the water.  Eh, my boy?"
+
+"Ah, no, captain," I replied earnestly.  "The ship I saw presented a
+very different appearance to that reflection of ours!  _She_ was full-
+rigged, I told you, sir, and though her canvas was torn and she looked a
+bit knocked about in the matter of her tophamper, she was as unlike our
+old _Star of the North_ as a sailing vessel is unlike a steamer!"
+
+"She might have been a derelict."
+
+"I saw a girl on her deck aft, sir, with a dog beside her, as distinctly
+as I see you, sir, now!"
+
+"Well, well, be that as it may, my lad, though I'm very sorry for the
+poor young thing, if she is still in the land of the living, I can't
+carry on like this for ever!  If she were anywhere in sight it would be
+quite another matter; but, as it is, not knowing whether we're on her
+right track or not, we might scud on to the Equator without running
+across her again.  No, no; it wouldn't be fair to the owners or to
+ourselves, indeed, to risk the ship as well as the lives of all on board
+by continuing any longer on such a wild-goose chase."
+
+"Very good, sir," said I, on his pausing here, as if waiting for me to
+say something.  "We've tried our best to come up with her, at any rate."
+
+"We have that, and I daresay a good many would call us foolhardy for
+carrying on as we've done so long.  However, I'm going to abandon the
+chase now and bear up again on our proper course, my boy, and the devil
+of a job that will be, I know, in the teeth of this gale!"
+
+So saying, the skipper, grasping the handle of the engine-room
+telegraph, which led up through a tube at the end of the bridge,
+signalled to those in charge below to slow down to half speed.
+
+"Down with the helm, quartermaster!" he cried to the man at the wheel,
+and, at the same moment holding up his hand to attract the attention of
+old Masters, who had returned to his station on the fo'c's'le, greatly
+exercised in his mind by what had recently occurred, he sang out in a
+voice of thunder that reached the knightheads and made the boatswain
+skip: "Haul in your jib sheet and flatten those staysails sharp!  I want
+to bring her round to the wind handsomely, to prevent taking in another
+of those green seas aboard when we get broadside-on.  Look smart,
+bo'sun, and keep your eye on her.  Keep your eye on her, d'you hear?
+It's ticklish work, you know.  Look-out sharp or she'll broach to!"
+
+Far as the eye could reach, the storm-tossed surface of the deep was
+white with foam, white as a snowfield, and boiling with rage and fury.
+
+The bank of blue-black cloud that had rested along the horizon to
+leeward had now melted away in some mysterious fashion or other, and the
+sky became as clear as a bell, only some wind-driven scrap of semi-
+transparent white vapour sweeping occasionally across the face of the
+pale, sickly-looking moon that looked down on the weird scene in a sort
+of menacing way; while, in lieu of the two or three odd sentinels that
+had previously peeped out from the firmament, all the galaxies of heaven
+were, at this moment, in their myriads above, spangling the empyrean
+from zenith to pole.
+
+But the gale!
+
+While running before the wind, the wind, although it had ballooned our
+sails out to bursting point, brushing us along at a wild, mad-cap rate,
+and buffeting the boisterous billows on either hand, scooping them up
+from the depths of the ocean and piling them in immense waves of angry
+water that rolled after us, striving to overwhelm us, we could hardly,
+even while taking advantage of it, appreciate its awful and tremendous
+force.
+
+On coming about, however, and facing it, the case was vastly different,
+the wind increasing tenfold in its intensity.
+
+Where it had sung through the rigging it now shrieked and howled, as if
+the air were peopled with demons, while the waves, lashed into fury,
+dashed against our bows like battering rams, rising almost to the level
+of our masthead where their towering crests met overhead.
+
+Round came the old barquey's head slowly, and more slowly still as she
+staggered against the heavy sea, until, all at once, she stopped in
+stays, unable apparently, though struggling all she could, to face her
+remorseless foe.
+
+"Luff up, quartermaster!" roared the skipper to the top of his voice and
+dancing up and down the bridge in his excitement.  "Luff, you beggar,
+luff!"
+
+"I can't, sir," yelled the man in desperation--a fresh hand who had come
+on duty to relieve Atkins at six bells.  "The steam steering gear has
+broken-down, sir, and I can't make her move."
+
+"By Jingo, that's a bad job," cried the skipper, but he was not long at
+a nonplus.  "Run aft, Haldane, and you too, Spokeshave.  Loosen the bunt
+of the mizzen-trysail and haul at the clew.  That'll bring her up to the
+wind fast enough, if the sail only stands it!"
+
+To hear was to obey, and both Spokeshave and I scuttled down the bridge-
+ladder as quickly as we could and away along the waist of the ship aft,
+the urgency of our errand hastening our movements if we had needed any
+spur beyond the skipper's sharp, imperative mandate.
+
+But, speedily as we had hurried, on mounting the poop-ladder and rushing
+towards the bitts at the foot of the mizzenmast to cast off the bunt-
+lines and clewlines of the trysail we found we had been already
+forestalled by an earlier arrival on the scene of action.
+
+This was Mr O'Neil, the second officer, whom I had left below asleep in
+his cabin when I came up at two bells from the saloon, he having been on
+duty all the afternoon and his services not being required again until
+night, when he would have to go on the bridge to take the first watch
+from eight to midnight.
+
+Feeling the bucketing-about we were having in the trough of the sea when
+we came about, and probably awakened by the change of motion, just as a
+miller is supposed to be instantaneously roused by his mill stopping,
+though he may be able to sleep through all the noise of its grinding
+when at work, Garry O'Neil had at once shoved himself into his boots and
+monkey jacket and rushed up on the poop through the companion and booby-
+hatch that led up directly on deck from the saloon.
+
+Arrived here, he had evidently noted the vessel's insecurity, and,
+seamanlike, had hit upon the very same way out of the difficulty that
+had suggested itself to the skipper, having, ere we reached his side,
+cast off the ropes confining the folds of the trysail and trying
+singlehanded to haul out the clew.
+
+"Begorrah, me bhoys, ye've come in the very nick o' time!" he exclaimed
+on seeing us.  "Here, Spoke, me darlint, hang on to the end of this
+sheet and you, Dick, step on to the tail of it, whilst I take a turn of
+the slack round that bollard!  Faith, it's blo'in' like the dievle, and
+we'll have our work cut out for us, me bhoys, to git a purchase on it
+anyhow.  Now, all together, yo-heave-ho!  Pull baker, pull dievle!"
+
+With that, bending our backs to it, we all hauled away at the sheet,
+succeeding by a great endeavour in stretching the clew of the sail to
+the end of the boom, which we then secured amidships as best we could,
+though the spar and sail combined jerked to such an extent that it
+seemed as if the mizzenmast would be wrenched out of the ship each
+instant, the heavy fold of the canvas that hung loosely under the jaws
+of the gaff shaking and banging about with a noise like thunder.
+
+Even the small amount of canvas exposed to the wind, however, was
+sufficient to supply the additional leverage required aft; and the
+engines working at half speed, with the headsails flattened, the ship's
+bows were presently brought up to the wind, when we lay-to under easy
+steam.
+
+"Well done, my lads!" sang out the skipper from the bridge, when the
+ship's head was round and the peril of her broaching-to in the heavy
+seaway been fortunately averted; the wind was blowing aft, of course,
+and bringing his voice to us as if he stood by, and shouting in our very
+ears, "Now look sharp and come here under the bridge; I want you to cast
+off the lashings of the big wheel amidships and see that the yolk lines
+run clear.  We shall have to manhandle the helm and steer from below, as
+the steam gear up here in the wheel-house is hopelessly jammed and will
+take a month of Sundays to get right!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," we made answer, under his nose, having been scurrying
+forwards while he was speaking, the Irish mate adding in his native
+vernacular, "Begorrah, we'll rig up the whole, sir, in the twinkling of
+a bedpost, sure!"
+
+"Hullo!" exclaimed the skipper, "is that you, O'Neil?"
+
+"Faith, all that's lift of me, sir!"
+
+"How's that?--I was just going to send down to your cabin to rouse you
+out."
+
+"Begorrah, its moighty little rousin' I want, sor!  The ould barquey's
+that lively that she'd wake a man who'd been d'id for a wake, sure!
+I've been so rowled about in me burth and banged agin' the bulkheads
+that my bones fell loike jelly and I'm blue-mouldy all over.  But what
+d'ye want, cap'en?  Sure, I'm helping the youngster with this whale
+here."
+
+"By jingo!" cried the skipper, "you're the right man in the right
+place!"
+
+"Faith, that's what the gaolor s'id to the burghlor, sor, when he fixed
+him up noicely on the treadmill!"
+
+The skipper laughed.
+
+"Well, you fix up your job all right, and you'll be as good as your
+friend the gaoler," he said.  "When we have the helm all alaunto again,
+we can bear up on our course and jog along comfortably.  I think we are
+lucky to have got off so lightly, considering the wind and sea, with
+this steering gear breaking down at such an awkward moment!"
+
+"Ah, we ain't seed the worse on it yet, and you'd better not holler till
+ye're out o' the wood!" muttered old Masters under his breath, in reply
+to this expression of opinion of the skipper, the boatswain having come
+to our assistance with all the hands he could muster, so as to get the
+wheel below the bridge in working order as soon as possible.  "I knowed
+that this ghost-ship meant sumkin' and we ain't come to the end o' the
+log yet!"
+
+Almost as he uttered the words, Mr Fosset came up the engine-room
+hatchway and made his way hurriedly towards us.
+
+"By jingo, Fosset, here you are at last!" exclaimed the skipper on
+seeing him.  "I thought you were never coming up again, finding it so
+jolly warm and comfortable below!  Are things all right there now, and
+are the bilge-pumps working?"
+
+Captain Applegarth spoke jocosely enough, everything being pretty easy
+on deck and the ship breasting the gale like a duck, but Mr Fosset's
+face, I noticed, looked grave and he answered the other in a more
+serious fashion than his general wont, his mouth working nervously in
+the pale moonlight that lent him a more pallid air as the words dropped
+from his lips, making his countenance, indeed, almost like that of a
+corpse.
+
+"But what, man!" exclaimed the skipper impatiently, interrupting his
+slow speech before Mr Fosset could get any further.  "Anything wrong,
+eh?"
+
+"Yes, sir, I'm sorry to say something is very wrong, I fear--very wrong
+below," replied the other sadly.  "There has been a sad accident in the
+stoke-hole!"
+
+Old Masters, whose ears had been wide open to the conversation, here
+nudged me with his elbow as I stood beside him, and at the same time
+giving forth a grunt of deep and heartfelt significance.
+
+"I knowed summet 'ud happen," he whispered in a sepulchral voice that
+sounded all the more gruesome from the attendant circumstances, the
+shrieking wind tearing through the riggings, the melancholy wash of the
+waves alongside, the moaning and groaning of the poor old barquey's
+timbers as if she were in grievous pain, while at that very moment the
+bell under the break of the fo'c's'le struck eight bells slowly, as if
+tolling for a passing soul.  "_You_ seed the ghost-ship, Mr Haldane,
+the same as me, for _I_ saw it, that I did!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVEN.
+
+DISASTER ON DISASTER.
+
+"Accident in the stoke-hold!" repeated the skipper, who of course did
+not overhear the old boatswain's aside to me.  "Accident in the stoke-
+hold!" again repeated the skipper; "anybody hurt?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied the first mate in the same grave tone of voice.
+"Mr Stokes and two of the firemen."
+
+"Seriously?"
+
+"Not all, sir," said the other, glancing round as if looking for some
+one specially.  "The chief engineer has one of his arms broken and a few
+scratches, but the firemen are both injured, and one so badly hurt that
+I fear he won't get over it, for his ribs have been crushed in and his
+lower extremities seem paralysed!"
+
+"Good heavens!" exclaimed the skipper.  "How did the accident happen?"
+
+"They were searching under the stoke-hold plates to get out some cotton
+waste that had got entangled about the rosebox of the suctions, which,
+as we found out, prevented the bilge-pumps from acting, when, all in a
+moment, just when all the stray dunnage had been cleared out, the ship
+gave a lurch and the plates buckled up, catching the lot of them, Mr
+Stokes and all, in a sort of rat trap.  Mr Stokes tumbled forwards on
+his face in the water and was nearly drowned before Stoddart and I could
+pull him out, the poor old chap was so heavy to lift, and he nearly
+squashed Blanchard, the stoker, by falling on top of him as we were
+trying to raise him up, cutting his head open besides, against the fire
+bars.  Poor Jackson, however, the other fireman, was gripped tight
+between two of the plates and it was all we could do to release him,
+Stoddart having to use a jack-saw to force the edges of the plates
+back."
+
+"My God! horrible, horrible!" ejaculated the skipper, terribly upset and
+concerned.  "Poor fellows; Jackson, too, was the best hand Stokes had
+below!"
+
+"Aye, sir, and as good a mechanic, too, I've heard them say, as any of
+the engineers," agreed Mr Fosset, with equal feeling.  "But, sir, I'm
+losing time talking like this!  I only came up for assistance for the
+poor fellows and the others who are wounded.  Where's Garry O'Neil?"
+
+"Why, he was here under the bridge a moment ago," cried the skipper
+eagerly.  "Hullo, O'Neil?  Pass the word up, men, for Mr O'Neil.  He's
+wanted at once!  Sharp, look alive!"
+
+Our second officer, it should be explained, was not only a sailor but a
+surgeon as well.  He had run away to sea as a boy, and, after working
+his way up before the mast until he had acquired sufficient seamanship
+to obtain a mate's certificate, he had, at his mother's entreaty, she
+having a holy horror of salt water, abandoned his native element and
+studied for the medical profession at Trinity College, Dublin.  Here,
+after four years' practice in walking the hospitals, he graduated with
+full honours, much to his mother's delight.  The old lady, however,
+dying some little time after, he, feeling no longer bound by any tie at
+home, and having indeed sacrificed his own wishes for her sake,
+incontinently gave up his newly-fledged dignity of "Doctor" Garry
+O'Neil, returning to his old love and embracing once more a sea-faring
+life, which he has stuck to ever since.  He had sailed with us in the
+_Star of the North_ now for over a twelvemonth, in the first instance as
+third officer and for the last two voyages as second mate, the fact of
+his being a qualified surgeon standing him in good stead and making him
+even a more important personage on board than his position warranted,
+cargo steamers not being in the habit of carrying a medical man like
+passenger ships, and sailorly qualities and surgical skill
+interchangeable characteristics!
+
+Hitherto we had been fortunate enough to have no necessity for availing
+ourselves of his professional services, but now they came in handy
+enough in good sooth.
+
+"Mr O'Neil?" sang out the men on the lower deck, passing on his name in
+obedience to the skipper's orders from hand to hand, till the hail
+reached the after hatchway, down which Spokeshave roared with all the
+power of his lungs, being anxious on his own account to be heard and so
+released from his watch so that he could go below.  "Mr O'Neil?" he
+again yelled out.
+
+Spokeshave must have shouted down the Irishman's throat, for the next
+instant he poked his head up the hatchway.
+
+"Here I am, bedad!" he exclaimed, shoving past Master "Conky," to whom
+he had a strong dislike, though "Garry," as we all called him, was
+friendly with every one with whom he was brought in contact, and was,
+himself, a great favourite with all the hands on board.  Now, as he made
+his way towards the bridge, where some of the men were still singing out
+his name, he cried out, "Who wants me, sure?  Now, don't ye be all
+spaking at once; one at a time, me darlints, as we all came into the
+wurrld!"
+
+"Why, where did you get to, man?" said the skipper, somewhat crossly.
+"We've been hunting all over the ship for you!"
+
+"Sure, I wint down into the stowage to say if the yolklines and chains
+for the wheel were all clear, and to disconnect the shtame stayrin'
+gear," replied our friend Garry.  "But you'll find it all right now,
+with the helm amidships, and you can steer her wheriver you like; only
+you'll want four hands at least to hauld the spokes steady if she breaks
+off, as I fear she will, in this say!"
+
+"That's all right," cried the skipper, appeased at once, for he
+evidently thought that Garry had gone back to his cabin and left us in
+the lurch.  "But I've bad news, and sorry to say, O'Neil, we want your
+services as a doctor now.  There's been a bad accident in the stoke-hold
+and some of the poor fellows are sadly hurt."
+
+"Indade, now!" ejaculated the other, all attention.  "What's the matter?
+Any one scalded by the shtame, sure?"
+
+"No, not that," said Mr Fosset, taking up the tale.  "Mr Stokes has
+had his arm broken and another poor fellow been almost crushed to death.
+He's now insensible, or was when I came on deck so you'd better take
+some stimulant as well as splints with you."
+
+"Faith, I understand all right and will follow your advice in a brace of
+shakes," replied the second mate, as he rushed off towards the saloon.
+"You'd better go on ahead, Fosset, and say I'm coming!"
+
+With these parting words both he and the first officer disappeared from
+view, the latter hastening back to the engine-room, while the captain
+slowly mounted the bridge-ladder again and resumed his post there by the
+binnacle, after placing four of the best hands at the wheel amidships
+with old Masters, the boatswain, in charge.
+
+"Ah, what d'ye think o' that now?" observed the latter to me, as I stood
+there awaiting my orders from the skipper, or to hear anything he might
+have to say to me.  "I said as how summut was sure to happen.  That
+there ship--the ghost-ship--didn't come athwart our hawser for nothink,
+I knowed!"
+
+Just then there was a call up the voicepipe communicating between the
+wheel-house on the bridge and the engine-room.
+
+The skipper bent his ear to the pipe, listening to what those below had
+to say, and then came to the top of the ladder.
+
+"Below there!" he sang out.  "Is Mr Spokeshave anywhere about?"
+
+"No, sir," I answered.  "He went off duty at eight bells."
+
+"The devil he did, and me in such a plight, too, with that awful
+accident below!" cried Captain Applegarth angrily.  "I suppose he's
+thinking of his belly again, the gourmandising little beast!  He isn't
+half a sailor or worth a purser's parings!  I'll make him pay for his
+skulking presently, by Jingo!  However, I can't waste the time now to
+send after him, and you'll do as well, Haldane--better, indeed, I
+think!"
+
+"All right, sir," said I, eager for action.  "I'm ready to do anything."
+
+"That's a willing lad," cried the skipper.  "Now run down into Garry
+O'Neil's cabin and get some lint bandages he says he forgot to take with
+him in his hurry, leaving them on the top of his bunk by the doorway;
+and tell Weston, the steward, to have a couple of spare bunks ready for
+the injured men--in one of the state rooms aft will be best."
+
+"All right, sir," said I, adding, as he seemed to hesitate, "anything
+else, sir?"
+
+"Yes, my boy; take down a loose hammock with you, and some lashings, so
+as to make a sort of net with which to lift and carry poor Jackson.
+He's the only chap badly hurt and unable to shift for himself, so O'Neil
+says.  Look sharp, Haldane, there's no time to lose; the poor fellow's
+in a very ticklish state and they want to get him up on deck in order to
+examine his injuries better than they can below in the stoke-hold!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!"  I answered, darting aft immediately, to avoid further
+debation, towards the saloon door under the poop.  "I'm _off_, sir, at
+once!"
+
+Here I soon got what the Irishman had asked for out of his cabin, and,
+giving Weston his order about the state room, unslinging the while my
+own hammock from its hooks and rolling it up, blankets and all, in a
+roll, I kicked it before me as I made my way down the engine-room
+hatchway as quickly as I could.
+
+The machinery, I noticed when passing through the flat to the stoke-
+hold, which was, of course, on a still lower level, was working away
+pretty easily, the piston in the cylinder moving steadily up and down,
+and the eccentric, which always appeared to me as a sort of bandy-legged
+giant, executing its extraordinary double-shuffle in a more graceful
+fashion than when we were going at full speed, as it performed its
+allotted task of curvetting the up-and-down motion of the piston into a
+circular one, thus making the shaft revolve; while Grummet, the third
+engineer, who was still watching the throttle valve, hand on lever, had
+a far easier job than previously, when we were running with full power
+before wind and sea, and rolling and pitching at every angle every
+minute.
+
+But even in the fleeting glance I had passing by, the screw still went
+round in a dangerous way when the stern of the vessel lifted, as some
+big wave passed under her keel, in spite of all Grummet's precautions in
+turning off steam and I could not help wondering how long the engines
+would stand the strain, which was all the more perilous from being
+intermittent.
+
+On reaching my destination below, however, all thought of the machinery
+and any possible damage to the ship was instantly banished from my mind
+by the sight that met my gaze.
+
+In the narrow stoke-hold, lit up by the ruddy glare of the furnace
+fires, the light from which enabled me to see the brackish bilge water
+washing about beneath the hole in the flooring and gurgling up through
+the broken portplates there, I saw that a group of half-naked firemen,
+and others, were bending over a pile of empty coal sacks heaped up
+against the further bulkhead, dividing the occupied apartments from the
+main hold, as far away as possible from the blazing fires, on which one
+of the stokers on duty pitched occasionally a shovelful of fuel, or
+smoothed the surface of the glowing embers with a long-toothed rake.
+
+I couldn't distinguish at first any one in particular, the backs of all
+being towards me as I came down the slippery steel ladder, carrying the
+hammock, for I had taken the precaution of hoisting it on my shoulders
+on leaving the engine-flat above, in order to prevent its getting wet,
+while the noise of the machinery overhead and the roar of the furnaces,
+coupled with the washing of the water, prevented my hearing any distant
+sound.
+
+Presently however, I recognised Garry O'Neil's voice above the general
+din.
+
+"Clear off, ye murthorin' divvles!" he cried, waving his arms above the
+heads of the crowd of onlookers, as I could now see.  "The poor chap
+wants air, and ye're stayling the viry br'ith out of his nosshrils!
+Away wid ye all, ye spalpeens! or by the powers, it's a-pizening the
+howl batch of ye I'll be doin' the next toime ye comes to me for pill or
+powdher!"
+
+The men clustering round him spread out, moving nearer to me; and they
+laughed at his comical threat--which sounded all the more humorous from
+the Irishman's racy brogue, which became all the more prominent when
+Garry was at all excited.  God knows, though, their merriment, untimely
+as it might have sounded to outside ears, betrayed no want of sympathy
+with their comrade.  They laughed, as sailors will do sometimes, holding
+their lives in their hands, as is the practice of those who have to
+brave the manifold dangers of the deep below and aloft on shipboard,
+even when standing on the brink of eternity.
+
+As they moved away, the fierce light from one of the open furnace doors
+was beating on their bare bodies and making them look, indeed, the very
+devils to whom the Irishman had jocularly likened them; the latter
+looked up quickly, saw me, and beckoned me to approach nearer.
+
+"Arrah, come along, man, with those bandages!" he said.  "Sure ye moight
+have made 'em in the toime since I called up to the skipper.  Where are
+they now, me darlint?"
+
+I produced the roll of lint at once from the pocket of my monkey jacket.
+
+"Hullo!" said he as he took and deftly proceeded to unroll the bundle of
+bandages, "what's that you've got on your shoulders--a rick?"
+
+"A hammock, sir," I replied.  "Cap'en Applegarth told me to bring one
+down for lifting the poor chap who's so hurt, and so I took my own,
+which had blankets already in it, thinking it would be warmer for him,
+sir."
+
+"Begorrah, the skipper's got his head screwed on straight, and you the
+same, too, Haldane," said he approvingly, with a sagacious nod as he
+bent over the pile of sacks in the corner.  "Come and see the poor
+fellow, me bhoy.  There doesn't seem much loife lift in him, sure, hay?"
+
+There certainly did not; to me he looked already dead.
+
+Stretched out on the pile of dirty sacking, in a half-sitting, half-
+reclining position, lay the recumbent figure, or rather form, of the
+unfortunate fireman Jackson, his face as ghastly as that of a corpse,
+while his rigid limbs and the absence of all appearance of respiration
+tended to confirm the belief that the spark of life had fled.
+
+Stoddart, the second engineer, was kneeling beside the poor fellow,
+rubbing his hands and holding every now and then to his nose what seemed
+to me a bottle of ammonia or some very pungent restorative, the powerful
+fumes of which overcame the foetid atmosphere of the stoke-hold, Mr
+Stokes, looking almost as pale as the unconscious man, assisting with
+his unwounded arm, with which he lifted Jackson's head, his broken one
+being already set in splints by our doctor-mate.
+
+Blanchard, the other sufferer from the accident, was sitting down on a
+bench near by, evidently recovering from the shock he had experienced,
+which really was not so serious as at first anticipated, a rather stiff
+glass of brandy and water which Garry had given him, having pretty soon
+brought him to himself.
+
+All our attention, therefore, concentrated on Jackson, who, as yet, made
+no sign of amendment, in spite of every remedy tried by O'Neil.
+
+"By George!" exclaimed Mr Stokes, a few minutes later when we all began
+to despair of ever bringing him back to life again.  "I'm sure I felt
+his head move then!"
+
+"Aye, sir," corroborated Stoddart, pressing his hand gently on Jackson's
+chest, to feel his heart, where a slight convulsive movement became
+perceptible, at first feeble and uncertain enough, as you may suppose,
+but then more and more sustained and regular, as if the lungs were
+getting to work again.  "Look alive! he's beginning to breathe again--
+and--yes--his heart beats, I declare, quite plain!"
+
+"Hurray!" shouted Garry O'Neil, hastily putting to his patient's lips a
+medicine glass, into which he dropped something out of a small vial,
+filling up the glass with water.  "I've got something here shtrang
+enough, begorrah, to make a dead man spake!"
+
+The effect of the drug, whatever it was, seemed magical.  In an instant
+the previously motionless figure moved about uneasily, the pulsation of
+his chest grew more rapid and pronounced, and then, stretching out his
+clenched hands with a jerk, as if he were suddenly galvanised into life,
+thereby displaying the magnificent proportions of his torso, he being
+stripped to the waist, Jackson opened his eyes, drawing a deep breath
+the while, a breath something between a sob and a sigh!
+
+"Where--where am I?" he said, looking round with a sort of far-away,
+dreamy stare, but meeting Mr Stokes' sympathetic gaze, he at once
+seemed to recover his consciousness.  "Ah, I know, sir.  I found out
+what was the matter with the suction before that plate buckled and
+gripped me.  I have cleared the rose box, too, sir, and you can connect
+the bilge-pumps again as soon as you like, sir."
+
+Of course all this took him some time to get out.
+
+"All right, my man," answered the old chief, greatly overcome at the
+fact of the old sailor, wounded to the death, thinking of his duty in
+the first moment of his recovery.  "Never mind that, man!  How do you
+feel now, my poor fellow--better, I trust?"
+
+"Why, just a little pain here, sir," said Jackson, pressing his hand to
+his right side.  "I'm thankful, though, my legs escaped, sir.  I've no
+pain there."
+
+Garry O'Neil looked grave and shook his head at this, and looking too as
+he cast down his eyes over the lower part of the unfortunate man's body,
+I saw that the cruel edges of the iron plates had torn away part of his
+canvas overalls from the thigh to the knee of one leg, peeling off with
+the covering, the flesh from the bone; while the foot of the other--boot
+and all--was crushed into a shapeless bloody mass horrible to behold,
+the sight making one feel sick.
+
+"It's a bad sign his having no fayling there, Haldane," whispered the
+Irishman to me very low, so that Jackson could not hear.  "It's jost
+what I thought, sure.  God may help him, but I can't.  He'll niver
+recover, do what we moight for him, niver in this worruld.  The poor
+misfortunate fellow has his spoine injured, and he can't live forty-
+eight hours, if as long as that, sure!"
+
+He did not tell him this, however; nor did he lead any of the others to
+understand, either, that Jackson's case was hopeless!
+
+On the contrary, when he spoke aloud, as he did immediately afterwards,
+he seemed in the best of spirits, as if everything was going on as well
+as possible, though I noticed a tear in his eye and a quiver in his
+voice that touched me to the heart, making me turn away my head.
+
+"Now you mustn't talk now, old fellow, for we want you to husband all
+your strength to get up the hatchway to a foine cabin of yer own on the
+upper deck, where we're goin' to nurse ye, me darlint, till ye're all
+roight, sure!" he said cheerfully.  "Here, now, just dhrink another drop
+of the craythur, me bhoy, to kape yer spirits up, and you, Master
+Haldane, jist hand over that hammock ye've got storved away on ye
+shulder, so that we can fix up Jackson comfortable like for his trip to
+the upper reggins!"
+
+So saying, the good-hearted Irishman busied himself, with the help of
+Stoddart, who was equally gentle in handling the poor fellow, getting
+him ready for removal; and when he had been carefully placed in the
+hammock and covered with the blanket, the two of them, both being strong
+and powerful men, they lifted their burden with the utmost tenderness
+and carried him upward to the main deck, where he was put into a berth
+in one of the state rooms that the steward had prepared, and every
+attention paid him.
+
+Mr Fosset and I helped up Blanchard, the other fireman, he, luckily,
+not requiring to be carried; and we then went down for Mr Stokes, who
+had refused to leave the stoke-hold until his men had been attended to.
+
+Propping up the stout old chap behind so that he could not slip back
+down the slippery steel ladder, as he only had the one arm now to hold
+on by, the three of us reached the level of the engine-room all right,
+the chief, resting here a moment to give a look round and a word to
+Grummet, who of course was still in charge, telling him to slow down
+still further and use all his spare steam for clearing the bilge, as the
+sluice valves had been opened to prevent the fires being flooded out,
+and the pumps were in good working order again.
+
+Grummet promised to attend carefully to these directions, and a host of
+others I cannot now recollect, poor Mr Stokes being as fussy and
+fidgetty as he was fat, and in the habit of unintentionally worrying his
+subordinates a good deal in this way, and the three of us again started
+on our way upwards, the old chief leading, as before, and Mr Fosset and
+I bringing up the rear very slowly, so as to prevent accident, when all
+at once there was a fearful crash that echoed through my brain, followed
+by a violent concussion of the air which nearly threw us all down the
+engine-room ladder, though Mr Fosset and I were both hanging on to it
+like grim death and supporting the whole weight of Mr Stokes between
+us.
+
+At the same instant, too, the crank shaft stopped revolving, all motion
+of the machinery ceased, and the hatchway, with all the space around us,
+was filled by a dense cloud of hot steam!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHT.
+
+ANCHORED.
+
+Nor was this the worst, for hardly had we begun to draw breath again in
+the stifling vapour-bath-like atmosphere surrounding us, ere we could
+utter a cry, indeed, or exchange a word of speech with reference to what
+had just occurred, there arose a sudden and violent oscillation of the
+vessel, which pitched and rolled, and then heeled over suddenly to port,
+while an avalanche of water came thundering down the hatchway on top of
+our heads.
+
+"Good Lord, we're lost!" gulped out Mr Stokes as we all floundered
+together on the grating forming the floor of the engine-room, where
+fortunately the flood had washed us, instead of hustling us down the
+stoke-hold below, where all three of us would most inevitably have been
+killed by the fall.  "A boiler's burst and the ship broached-to!"
+
+"Not quite so bad as that, sir," sang out the voice of Grummet in the
+distance, the thick vapour lending it a far-away sound.  "The vessel is
+recovering herself again, and the cylinder cover's blown off, sir--
+that's all!"
+
+"_All_, indeed!" exclaimed the old chief in a despairing tone as he
+staggered to his feet, enabling Mr Fosset and myself to rise up too--an
+impossibility before, as he was right on top of us, and had served us
+out worse than the water had done.  "Quite enough damage for me, and all
+of us, I think!"
+
+"How's your arm, Mr Stokes?" asked Mr Fosset as the atmosphere cleared
+a little and the engine-room lights glimmered through the misty darkness
+that now enveloped the place.  "I hope it hasn't been hurt by your
+tumble?"
+
+"Oh, damn my arm!" cried the other impatiently, evidently more anxious
+about the machinery than his arm.  "Have you shut off the steam?"
+
+"Yes, sir," replied his subordinate calmly.  "I closed all the stop
+valves up here the moment I knew what had happened; and the men below in
+the stoke-hold have cut off the supply from the main pipe, while Mr
+Links has gone into the screw well to disconnect the propeller."
+
+"Very good, Grummet.  So they be all right down below?"
+
+"All right, sir."
+
+"Thank God for that!  How about the fires?"
+
+"Drowned out, sir, all but the one under the fire boiler on the
+starboard side."
+
+"You'd better look after that, to keep the bilge-pumps going, or else
+it'll be all drowned out, with this lot of water coming down the
+hatchway every time the ship rolls!  I do hope the skipper will lie-to
+and keep her head to sea until we can get the engines going again,
+though I'm afraid that'll be a long job!"
+
+Before Grummet could reply to this, Stoddart, the second officer, or
+rather engineer, came scrambling down from the saloon, where he had been
+assisting Garry O'Neil in making poor Jackson comfortable, the escape of
+the steam having evidently told its own tale to an expert like himself.
+
+Although a younger man than Mr Stokes, his brains were considerably
+sharper and he was a better mechanic in every way; so now, when, after
+examining the damage done to the cylinder, he made light of the
+accident, instead of groaning over it like the old chief.  Mr Fosset, I
+could see, and with him myself also, who shared his belief, saw that the
+injury was not irreparable and that it might certainly have been worse.
+
+"Of course it can't be done in a day!"  Stoddart said; "still it can be
+patched up."
+
+"That's all very well," interposed Mr Stokes, holding to his despondent
+view of the situation.  "But I'd like to know how you're going to get
+that cracked cover off the cylinder with the vessel rolling like this!"
+
+"Oh, I'll manage that easy enough," said the energetic fellow in his
+confident way.  "I've done worse jobs than that in a heavy sea.  Why,
+I'll lash myself to the cylinder if it comes to the worse and unscrew
+the cover nut by nut, shifting my berth round till I have it off.  Then
+if Grummet will see to getting the portable forge ready, and some old
+sheet iron or boiler plates for working and making into a patch, and if
+Links will turn out some new bolts and screws with the lathe, we'll have
+everything in working order before we know where we are!"
+
+"Bravo, my hearty!" cried Mr Fosset, lending Stoddart a hand to lash
+himself to the cylinder, while Grummet held a screw-wrench and other
+tools up to him.  "You ought to be a sailor, you're so smart!"
+
+"I prefer my own billet," retorted the other with an air of conscious
+power.  "I am an engineer!"
+
+Mr Fosset laughed.
+
+"All right!" said he good-humouredly.  "Every one to his trade!"
+
+"Humph!" groaned Mr Stokes, who was leaning against the bulkhead,
+"looking very white about the gills," as Grummet whispered to me.  The
+steam gradually dispersing and the lights burning more brightly, enabled
+us to see his face better.  "I suppose there's nothing I can do?"
+
+"No, nothing, sir," answered Stoddart, busy at the moment with the first
+nut of the cylinder cover.  "You can very safely leave matters to
+Grummet and me!  And Mr O'Neil told me as I left the maindeck that you
+ought to go to your cabin and lie down, so as to rest your arm, or it
+might mortify, he says, when he would not answer for the consequences,
+you understand, sir?"
+
+"Ah, that settles the matter; I won't give our amateur sawbones a chance
+of lopping it off, as I daresay he'd like!" said poor Mr Stokes, with a
+feeble attempt at a joke.  "Yes, I'd better go to my cabin, for I see
+I'm not wanted here; and, to tell the truth, I've an aching all over me,
+and feel rather tired and faint."
+
+"Then off you go to the doctor at once," cried Mr Fosset, catching hold
+of him by his uninjured arm and leading him towards the hatchway again,
+the ship being pretty steady for the moment.
+
+"You and I, too, Haldane, ought to be on deck helping the skipper and
+the rest, instead of stopping here, hindering these smart fellows at
+their work.  Come along with me, my lad!"
+
+Leaving Mr Stokes at the door of the saloon in charge of Weston, the
+steward, the first mate and I proceeded along the waist to the bridge,
+where we found Captain Applegarth pacing up and down in his customary
+jerky, impatient way, like the Polar bear in the Zoological Gardens, as
+I always thought.
+
+"Well," he said to Mr Fosset, bringing himself up short in front of the
+rail on our approach, "how are matters getting on below--badly, I'm
+afraid?"
+
+The first mate explained.  Spokeshave, who was at the other end of the
+bridge, coming up to listen, as usual, to the conversation.
+
+"That's good news, indeed!" said the skipper on hearing how Stoddart had
+set to work to repair the damage.  "I thought the engines were
+completely broken-down.  If it weren't for poor Jackson, who, O'Neil
+told me just now, was in a bad way, I think we'd got out of the scrape
+pretty well, for the old barquey is comfortable enough now, and, though
+there's a heavy sea running and it is still blowing stiff from the
+north'ard and the west'ard, the sky is clearer than it was, and I fancy
+we've seen the worst of the gale, eh?"
+
+"I'm sure I hope so, sir," replied Mr Fosset, not committing himself to
+any definite expression of opinion in the matter.  "It has given us a
+rare good doing all round while it was about it, at an rate!"
+
+"Aye, it has that," said the skipper.  "The old barquey, though, has
+come through it better than any one would have supposed, with all that
+deadweight amidships, considering that she broached-to awhile ago and
+got caught in the trough of the sea the very moment the machinery below
+gave out.  By George, Fosset, we had a narrow squeak then, I can tell
+you!"
+
+"I can quite believe that, sir," said the other, looking round about and
+aloft, sailor-like, as he spoke.  "For my part I feared the worst, I'm
+sure.  However, all's well that ends well, and the old barquey looks
+first rate, as you say, sir, in spite of all she's gone through.  She
+rides like a cork."
+
+She certainly was a capital seaboat and lay-to now as easily as if she
+were at anchor in the Mersey, though the wind was whistling through the
+rigging and the ocean far and wide white with foam, bowing and scraping
+to the big waves that rolled in after her like an old dowager duchess in
+a ball room, curtseying to her partner.
+
+During the long time the first mate and I had been down below in the
+stoke-hold, the skipper had lowered the upper yards and housed her top-
+masts, getting her also under snugger canvas, the fore and mizzen
+topsails being set "scandalised," as we call it aboard ship, that is,
+with the heads of the sails hauled up, and their sheets flattened taut
+as boards, so as to expose as little surface as possible to the wind,
+only just sufficient to keep the vessel with her head to sea, like a
+stag at bay.
+
+Opportunity had also been taken, I noticed, to secure the broken engine-
+room skylight in a more substantial way than formerly, and so prevent
+any more green seas from flooding the hold, the opening having been
+planked over by the carpenter, and heavy bars of railroad iron, which
+formed part of our cargo, laid across, instead of the tarpaulin that was
+deemed good enough before and had given way when Mr Stokes--poor man--
+and the first mate and myself got washed down the hatchway by a wave
+that came over the side, crumpling the flimsy covering as if it were
+tissue paper.
+
+Altogether, the outlook was more reassuring than when I had gone below;
+for although a fierce northerly gale was howling over the deep, making
+it heave and fret and lashing it up into wild mountainous billows, the
+heaven overhead was clear of all cloud, and the complaisant moon, which
+was at the full, but shining with a pale, peaceful light, while numerous
+stars were twinkling everywhere in the endless expanse of the firmament
+above, gazing down serenely at the riot of the elements below.
+
+It was now close on midnight and Garry O'Neil came on deck to take the
+middle watch, it being his turn of duty.
+
+"Well, doctor," said the skipper, anxious to hear something about the
+invalids, "how're your patients?"
+
+"Both going on capitally; Jackson sleeping quietly, sir, though he can't
+last out long, poor fellow!"
+
+"And Mr Stokes?"
+
+"Faith, he's drivin' his pigs to market in foine stoil; you should only
+hear him, cap'en!" answered the Irishman, looking out to windward.
+"Begorrah, ain't it blowin', though, sir!  Sure, as we used to say at
+ould Trinity, _de gustibus non est disputandum_, which means, Mister
+Spokeshave, as yo're cockin' up your nose to hear what I'm after sayin',
+it's moighty gusty, an' there's no denyin' it!"
+
+The skipper laughed, as he generally did at Garry's nonsensical, queer
+sayings.
+
+"By George, O'Neil!  I must go down and have a glass of grog to wash the
+taste of that awful pun out of my mouth!" he cried, turning to leave the
+bridge for the first time since he had come up there at sunset.  "You
+can call me if anything happens or should it come to blow worse, but I
+shall be up and down all night to see how you're getting on."
+
+"Och! the divvle dout ye!" muttered the Irishman in his quizzing way, as
+the skipper went down the ladder, giving a word to the boatswain and man
+at the wheel below as he passed them on his way up.  "Ye niver give a
+chap the cridit of keeping a watch to himself!"
+
+Soon after this I, too, left the deck and turned in, Garry O'Neil
+telling me he did not want me on the bridge and that I had better sleep
+while I could, a permission I readily availed myself of, tired out with
+all I had gone through and the various exciting episodes of the evening.
+
+There was no change in the weather the following morning, the wind even
+blowing with greater force and the sea such as I had never seen it
+before, and such a sea as I hope never to experience again; so, in order
+that the ship might ride the more easily and those below in the engine-
+room better able to go on with the repair of the cylinder than they
+could with the old barquey pitching her bows under and then kicking up
+her heels sky high, varying her performances by rolling side to side
+violently, like a pendulum gone mad, the skipper had all our spare spars
+lashed together, and attaching a stout steel wire hawser to them,
+launched the lot overboard through a hole in the bulwarks, where one of
+the waves had made a convenient clean sweep, veering the hawser ahead
+with this "jetsam" to serve as a floating anchor for us, and moor the
+ship.
+
+By this means we all had a more comfortable time of it, the old barquey
+no longer shipping water in any considerable quantity and there being
+less work below in the way of clearing it, all of the bilge-pumps,
+fortunately for us all, Stoddart and the engine-room staff were able to
+keep going; otherwise we must have foundered long since!
+
+The gale continued without abatement all that day and the next, the
+second since our mishap, when, late in the afternoon the wind began to
+go down, veering from the north-west to the north, and so on, back to
+the eastern quadrant.
+
+Soon after this, just before it got dark, an English man-of-war hove in
+sight, and, seeing our disabled condition, signalled to ask whether we
+required any assistance.
+
+Through the clumsiness of Mr Spokeshave, who had charge of our signal
+department and showed his cleverness by hoisting the very numbers of the
+flags giving the skipper's reply, that, though our engines were
+temporarily broken-down, they were fast being repaired, the captain of
+the man-of-war could not understand him; and so, fearing the worst,
+ranged up under our stern to see what help he could render, in what he
+evidently considered, from Spokeshave's "hoist," to be a pressing
+emergency.
+
+"Ship ahoy!" he shouted through a speaking trumpet from his quarter-deck
+aft, which was on a level with our bridge, the vessel, a splendid
+cruiser of the first-class, towering over the comparatively puny
+dimensions of the poor, broken-down _Star of the North_.  "Shall I send
+a boat aboard with assistance?"
+
+"No, thank you very much," replied our skipper, taking off his cap and
+returning the greeting of the naval officer.  "We've got over the worst
+of it now, sir, and will be soon under weigh again, as the weather is
+breaking."
+
+"Glad to hear it," returned the other, who could read our name astern as
+she lay athwart us.  "Where are you bound to?"
+
+"New York, sir," sang out the skipper.  "Twelve days out from England.
+We've been disabled forty-eight hours."
+
+"Hope your engines will soon be in working order," sang out the handsome
+officer from the deck of the man-of-war, giving some other order at the
+same minute, for I heard the shrill sound of a boatswain's pipe and the
+rattle of feet along her deck.  "Please report us when you reach your
+destination."
+
+"What name, sir?"
+
+"Her Majesty's ship _Aurora_, on passage from Bermuda to Halifax."
+
+With that he waved his hand, and her white ensign, whose blood-red cross
+of Saint George stood out in bold relief, dipped in parting salute to
+our vessel, which reciprocated the compliment as the man-of-war bore
+away on her course to the northward, a group of officers rollicking
+round their captain on her deck aft and gazing at us as she moved off
+rapidly under a full pressure of steam, evidently admiring our skipper's
+wonderful sea anchor.
+
+As the noble ship glided away through the still tempestuous sea against
+a strong headwind, a thing of beauty and of might--such a contrast to us
+lying there, almost at the mercy of the seas--I could not help thinking
+of the wondrous power of mind over matter displayed in our grand ocean
+steamers, and what a responsibility rests upon their engineers!
+
+How little do the thousands of passengers who yearly go to and fro
+across the Atlantic know, or, indeed, care to know, that their comfort
+and the rate at which they travel through the water--they who talk so
+glibly of making the passage in such and such a time, be the sea smooth
+or rough, and the wind fine or contrary--that all this depends on the
+unceasing vigilance of the officers in charge of the vessel, in which
+they voyage!
+
+Do they even think, I wondered, that while they are sleeping, eating,
+enjoying themselves and doing what they please on board, even grumbling
+at some little petty defect or shortcoming which they think might be
+prevented, the engineers below, in an atmosphere in which _they_ could
+not breathe, are incessantly watching the movements of the machinery and
+oiling each part at almost every instant of time, moving this slide and
+that, adjusting a valve here and tightening a nut there, ever cooling
+the bearings and raking at the furnaces and putting on fresh coal, this
+being done every hour of the day and night through the passage from land
+to land?  Have any of them realised the fact that these same engineers
+and their able assistants, the firemen and oilmen and trimmers, the
+whole stoke-hold staff, so to speak, run a greater risk of their lives,
+in the event of an accident happening, than any one else in the ship,
+as, should a boiler or cylinder burst they may be scalded to death
+before the noise of the explosion could reach those above?  Or again,
+should the vessel strike on a rock, the compartment below in which
+perforce they are compelled to work deep down in the vessel's bowels
+will fill, from the very weight of the engines, quicker than any other
+part of the ship, most probably, when those confined below must
+necessarily be liable to be drowned, like rats in a hole, without the
+chances of escape possessed by the passengers and hands on board.
+
+"No, I don't suppose any one even thinks of such things," said I to
+myself as I left the bridge and went towards the saloon to ask how poor
+Jackson was, uttering my thoughts unconsciously aloud as I reflected,
+and now that I considered their responsibility, thought how much poor
+old Mr Stokes, with his broken arm, and Stoddart and the others must
+have on their minds!  "Hullo, who is that?"
+
+It was Weston, the steward, who spoke.
+
+"I wish you'd come and look at Jackson, sir," he said.  "The poor chap
+wore all right when Mr O'Neil comed down jist now, and a sleepin' still
+as when you seed him awhile ago.  But all of a suddink he starts up as
+he hears you a comin' down the companion-way, sir, and is jabbering away
+like anythink!"
+
+"Oh, but," I exclaimed, "why did you leave him?"
+
+"I wor afeard he'd jump overboard, or try to do somethink awful!"
+
+"Nonsense! the very thing you are there for to prevent," said I, going
+into the cabin, where I saw the poor fellow trying to get out of the
+cot.  Turning angrily to Weston I repeated again, "You shouldn't have
+left him for one moment in this state!"
+
+"But, sir, I wanted to hail Mr O'Neil or somebody; I thought I oughter
+'ave summun by to 'elp me, in case he becomed desperate-like, and I
+couldn't make no one hear on deck, and that's why I comed when I knowed
+you was a-passing along, sir."
+
+This was unanswerable logic, though Weston always had an answer for
+anything and everything.
+
+Poor Jackson, though, did not look as if he would be "desperate" again
+in any shape or form.
+
+That he was delirious I could see at a glance, for his eyes, great wild
+eyes, were wide open, staring at vacancy, fixed on the bulkhead that
+divided the cabin from the captain's, which was just beyond; and he was
+very much excited, sitting up in the cot and, gesticulating violently
+with both his hands, and waving his arms about as he repeated some
+unintelligible gibberish over and over again, that I could not make out.
+
+Presently he looked at me very straight as if he recognised me, and
+afterwards spoke a little more coherently.
+
+"Ah, yes, sir, I recollect now," he said at last.  "You're Mr Haldane,
+I know; but--where's the little girl and the--the--dog?"
+
+"Why, Jackson, old man," I said, speaking soothingly to him, "what's the
+matter with you?  There's no girl or dog, you know, here.  Don't you
+know where you are, my poor fellow?"
+
+He got quite savage at this.  There's no reason in delirium!
+
+"Of course I know where I am," he screamed out, making a grab at Weston,
+as he writhed in torture from the internal and violent inflammation
+which must have set up.  "I'm in--hell.  I--can--feel--I--am--I am--
+burning--all over--inside me--here.  And you?  Oh, yes--I know you!"
+
+This paroxysm left him again after a moment, and he lay back on his
+pillows, only to sit up the next minute again, however.
+
+He now pointed his finger in the direction of the sea through the
+porthole, gazing earnestly as if he saw something there.
+
+"The ship has come for me again--as--it did t'other night--you know--you
+know?" he said in agonised whispers.  "There--there,--can't you see it
+now? sailing--along--as--Mister--Haldane--said,--there with a--a--
+signal--of--distress--flying--the--flag--half-mast high!  Why,--there it
+is,--now, as plain as--plain--can be; and, see--see they're--lowering--
+a--boat,--look,--for me,--to take me aboard.  Lend us a hand,--mate.  I
+wants to halloo--to 'em and I--feels so bad--and--I can't, I can't--move
+myself.  Hi,--there!--Ship ahoy!  Wait--a--minute--can't you?  Ship
+ahoy!--I'm--coming--I'm--comi-ing.  I'm--"
+
+Then, raising his eyes to heaven, and drawing a long deep breath,
+something between a sob and a sigh, a breath that was his last, poor
+Jackson fell back on the pile of pillows behind him, stone dead!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINE.
+
+WE SIGHT THE STRANGE CRAFT AGAIN.
+
+"That's number one!" said old Masters, the boatswain, meeting me at the
+door of the saloon as I came out on deck, Weston having already told him
+the sad news.  "Master Stokes'll foller next, and then you or hi, Master
+Haldane, for we be all doomed men, I know, arter seein' that there
+ghost-ship!"
+
+I made no reply to the superstitious old seaman's ominous prediction,
+but as I made my way forward to the bridge, to inform Captain Applegarth
+and the others of what had happened, I could not help thinking how
+strange it was that poor Jackson should have recalled, at the very
+moment the spirit was quitting his crippled body, the fact of my
+sighting the ship in distress, and the account I had given the skipper
+of what I had seen on board that mysterious craft!
+
+Mr Fosset, or some of the hands who accompanied him, must have taken
+down the yarn to the stoke-hold, only just before the unfortunate man
+met with his terrible accident, though I had no doubt that he must have
+seen the man-of-war through the port hole of the cabin, which was right
+opposite his bunk, as she brought up under our stern to speak to us
+earlier in the afternoon, and the sight of _HMS Aurora_ had, somehow or
+other, amid the wanderings of his unconscious brain, got mixed up with
+the remembrance of what he had previously heard concerning the vessel I
+had seen at sunset the two days prior.
+
+It was now getting dark, the evening closing in quickly, and, what with
+the dying man's queer talk and the boatswain harping on the same theme
+immediately afterwards, I confess I felt far from comfortable, my nerves
+being in a state of constant tension from the painful scene in the cabin
+that I had just witnessed, while the gloomy shades of the night that
+were fast enwrapping us, the dull roar of the ever-breaking sea and the
+groaning of the ship as she rolled, like a living creature in pain, all
+worked on my overtried fancy and made me almost afraid of my own shadow
+as I slipped and stumbled along the sloppy deck, my mind being in a
+complete whirl till I reached my goal--the bridge.
+
+"What's the matther, me bhoy?" asked Garry O'Neil, who was speaking to
+the skipper, the two examining a chart in the wheel-house, the light
+from the doorway of which fell on my face.  "Faith, ye look quite
+skeared, Haldane, jist as if ye'd sane a ghoast, sure!"
+
+I mentioned what had happened, however, and he at once dropped his
+chaffing manner, looking as grave as a judge.
+
+"Begorrah, it's moighty sorry I am to hear that, now!" said he in a more
+serious tone.  "Sure, and he was a foine, h'ilthy man entirely, barrin'
+that accident, bad cess to it!  He moight have lived till a hundred, an'
+then aunly died of auld age; for he'd the constitution of an illiphent.
+Faith, I never saw such a chist and thorax on a chap in me loife
+before!"
+
+"Poor fellow!" observed the skipper.  "He seems to have gone off awfully
+sudden at the last.  I thought you said he was getting on well when you
+went down to see him awhile ago?"
+
+"Bedad, I did that, sir; father's no denyin' it," answered the Irishman,
+off-hand.  "But I niver s'id he'd git over it, cap'en.  I tuld ye from
+the first he couldn't reciver, for he was paralysed, poor craytur', from
+the waist downwards, and had a lot of internal injury besides.  It was
+aunly bekase he was sich a shtrang man that he's lasted so long, sir.
+Any one else would have died directly outright afther the accident, for
+he was pretty well smashed to pieces!"
+
+"Strange!" muttered Captain Applegarth, who, although hasty of temper
+sometimes, was a man of deep feeling.  "Sunday night again and that man
+dead!  Only a week ago, this very evening, he came up to me here as I
+was standing by the binnacle to ask about some carpenter's stores that
+were wanted in the engine-room.  He and I then got talking, I recollect,
+it being Sunday, I suppose, of religious matters.  He imagined himself--
+poor chap--a `materialist,' as they call themselves, but his arguments
+on the point were very weak.  He argued that there was no hereafter, no
+future state; the heaven and hell spoken of in Scripture, he suggested,
+being the happiness or punishment we meet with below here, while living,
+in accordance with our own lives."
+
+"Faith!" said Garry O'Neil, who was not a deep thinker, not troubling
+himself much about anything beyond the present.  "That's a puzzling
+question; but I, for one, wouldn't care to be of that way of thinkin',
+sure, sir."
+
+"That question however, poor Jackson has solved, long ere this!"
+
+As Captain Applegarth uttered these words, solemnly enough, the
+fireman's ravings, when in the agonies of death, came back to me, and I
+thought that, if confident in his materialism when in health and
+strength, his creed had not altogether eased his mind at the last, when
+I saw him raise his eyes, for a few minutes, to heaven in prayer.
+
+That night the gale, which had moderated considerably during the
+afternoon, assailed us again with renewed vigour, as if old Boreas had
+put a fresh hand to the bellows, as sailor folk say.
+
+It began in the middle watch, when the wind suddenly veered to the
+southwards, and it came on to blow great guns, causing the skipper the
+utmost uneasiness, as he feared we would break away from our spar
+anchor, when, disabled as we were, a steamer in a storm without the use
+of the engines being no better off than a baby in arms deprived of its
+nurse, it seemed almost impossible to prevent the vessel from broaching-
+to, in which case she would more than likely founder with all hands.
+
+Consequently, not a soul turned in the livelong night, the port and
+starboard watches both remaining on duty, with Captain Applegarth and
+Mr Fosset on the bridge, while Garry O'Neil relieved the boatswain, who
+now had eight men under him in charge of the wheel, where the utmost
+caution and the greatest vigilance were necessary to keep the old
+barquey's head to the sea.  I had fearfully hard work, too, for the big
+waves ever and anon leapt up over her bows, burying the fo'c's'le in
+clouds of spray and spent water that came pouring down into the waist
+and rushing aft, flooding the whole deck almost up to the gunwhales
+taking everything movable overboard, the boats being lifted off the
+chocks amidships even and swept away, and the cook's galley in the
+forward part of the deckhouse got badly damaged.
+
+This was in the height of the storm, just before daybreak, about two
+bells in the morning watch, or five o'clock AM.
+
+Our poor old barquey then rolled so much that the skipper thought the
+wire hawser attached to the spars had parted and that we were at the
+very mercy of the tempest.  So certain, indeed, was he, that he yelled
+out for all hands to make sail, with the idea of trying one last
+desperate venture and beard the winds with our puny canvas.
+
+Fortunately, however, there was no need for us to essay this futile
+expedient, breaking the force of the billows as they reared up in their
+colossal grandeur to annihilate us and keeping us steadily facing their
+attack; and presently, shortly after six bells, when we really
+experienced pretty nearly the worst of it, there was a muttered growl of
+thunder, accompanied by a lightning flash that illuminated the whole of
+the heavens from pole to pole, and then rain came down in a deluge, the
+wind dropping, as suddenly, with a wild, weird shrill shriek of
+disappointed rage that wailed and whistled through the rigging, and then
+quietly died away.
+
+Of course the sea did not quiet down all at once, old Neptune not being
+easily pacified after being stirred up to so great an extent, and the
+waves ran high most of the day, while the sky was overcast and the ocean
+of a dull leaden colour; but towards evening it cleared up and, the
+water being a bit calmer, the captain thought it a fitting time to bury
+poor Jackson.
+
+All the hands were mustered on deck, the engineers and stokers stopping
+their busy repairing work below, which they had kept at night and day
+without intermission ever since our breakdown, and coming up with the
+rest of the crew to pay the last tribute of respect to their departed
+comrade, even Mr Stokes, though he was still in a very weak state of
+health and had his head and broken arm bandaged up, insisting on being
+present, Garry O'Neil and Stoddart supporting him between them for the
+purpose.
+
+Then the body of the unfortunate fireman, enclosed in a hammock covered
+by the ship's ensign and having a pig of ballast tied to the feet to
+ensure its submersion, was brought up from the cabin where he had died,
+and placed on a plank by the gangway where the waves had washed away our
+bulwarks, leaving a wide open space.
+
+Captain Applegarth read over the remains the beautiful prayers of the
+Church Service appointed for the burial of those who die at sea, all of
+us standing bareheaded around.
+
+A faint gleam of light from the setting sun, away on our port bow, shone
+through a mist of cloud that obscured the horizon to windward; and, as
+this disappeared, the skipper came to the end of the viaticum, when, at
+a signal from the boatswain, the plank was tipped and poor Jackson's
+body was committed to the deep with a sigh of regret at his untimely
+end, and the devout hope that though his earthly voyage had been cut
+short, he might yet reach that haven where there are no accidents nor
+shipwrecks, and where seas swallow not up, or stormy winds blow!
+
+Some little while after this a slight breeze sprang up from the
+southward and westward, bringing a cool feeling with it, and I shivered
+as I stood on the bridge looking out over the dark waste of waters,
+feeling rather melancholy, if the truth be told.
+
+"That's a bad sign, Master Haldane," said old Masters close to my ear,
+making me jump, for I did not know he was there.  "They say that when a
+ship chap shivers like that there, it be meaning that somebody or summit
+be a-walking over his grave!"
+
+"Stave that, bo'sun!"  I cried impatiently.  "You're a regular old
+Jonah, and enough to give a fellow the creeps!"
+
+"Ah, you may try to laugh it off, Mister Haldane," he retorted in his
+lugubrious way.  "But, as I says to ye last night, says I, when that
+poor chap kicked the bucket as we've just been a-burying on, we ain't
+seen the end on it yet.  I misdoubts the weather, too, sir.  There's a
+great bank of cloud now rising up to win'ard, and I fancies I heard jist
+now the sound o' thunder ag'in."
+
+"Thunder?"  I exclaimed.  "Nonsense!"
+
+"No, Mister Haldane, it ain't no nonsense," said the old fellow
+solemnly.  "You ain't known me to croak afore without re'sin, and I
+tells ye I don't likes the look o' things to-night.  There's summit a-
+brewin' up over there, or I'm a Dutchman!"
+
+"What's that, bo'sun?" cried the skipper, coming up on the bridge at the
+moment to look for the chart of the North Atlantic, which he had left in
+the wheel-house the night before, and overheard the old growler's
+remark.  "Got the _Flying Dutchman_ on the brain again?"
+
+"No, sir, I weren't talking o' that," replied Masters.  "I was a-saying
+to Master Haldane that it were precious misty and thick to win'ard and I
+feared thunder over there."
+
+"Thunder! thunder your grandmother!" cried the skipper testily.  "I've
+pretty sharp ears, bo'sun, and I have heard none to-night.  Have you,
+Haldane?"
+
+"N-n-o, sir, not thunder," I answered, listening attentively for a
+moment.  "Stay, sir, though.  I do hear something now, but the sound
+seems more like firing in the distance."
+
+"What, guns?"
+
+"No sir, more like rifle shots, or the discharge of a revolver firing
+quickly at intervals."
+
+Captain Applegarth thereupon listened attentively, too, in his turn,
+while Masters went out to the end of the bridge and peered out over the
+side to windward with rapt gaze.
+
+"By George, yes, you're right, boy!" cried the skipper the next moment.
+"I can hear the shots quite plainly, I do believe.  Hullo, there!  What
+the deuce is going on over there, I wonder?"
+
+There was reason for exclamation.
+
+At that instant the dark mass of cloud on the horizon, towards which we
+were all looking, was rent by a flash, and we could see, standing
+against the black background in vivid relief, the masts and spars of a
+large full-rigged ship.
+
+She was evidently burning a "flare-up" to attract attention, and, ere
+the light waned, I noticed that her yards were all a cock-bill and her
+sails and rigging torn and disordered; while, stranger still, she had
+her flag astern hoisted half-mast high--the French tricolour, too!
+
+Both the boatswain and I, simultaneously, involuntarily, uttered a cry
+of dismay.
+
+The vessel in sight was the very identical ship I had seen three nights
+before, flying the same signal of distress; and here she was now,
+sailing, as then, four points off our weather bows and eight before the
+wind, which was, as I've already said, blowing a light breeze from the
+southward and westward.
+
+What new calamity did this second appearance of the "ghost-ship," as the
+old boatswain called her, portend to all of us?
+
+Aye, what, indeed!
+
+Time alone could tell.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TEN.
+
+MYSTIFICATION.
+
+Old Masters turned his face towards me as the fleeting vision became
+swallowed up in the darkness that now obscured the sky to the westwards,
+and I saw that he looked horror-struck, staring into space spell-bound.
+
+As for me, I cannot express what I felt, because I am unable to describe
+it fully.
+
+"There, there!"  I exclaimed, clutching Captain Applegarth's arm in
+nervous horror.  "There she is again!"
+
+But the skipper, although startled by the sudden appearance of the
+mysterious vessel in the first instance, as his ejaculation on catching
+sight of her showed, evidently did not regard her in the same light as
+the boatswain and myself.
+
+"Why, Haldane, what's the matter with you, my lad?" he said in a joking
+way, "You seem all of a tremble; and, by George, you grip tight!"
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure," I stammered out, trying to pull
+myself together as I released his arm.  "But--but--did you--did you--see
+her, sir?"
+
+"See that ship just now?  Yes, of course I did.  I suppose she sighted
+us lying here like a log and wanted us to report her or something,
+though why they lit that flare-up over her stern I am sure I can't
+imagine.  They couldn't expect us to read her name at that distance.
+She must have been close on five miles off!"
+
+"But, sir," I cried out quickly.  "She's the same!"
+
+"The same what, Haldane?"
+
+"Why, the ship in distress, sir, that I sighted at sunset on Friday
+night just before our breakdown."
+
+Captain Applegarth whistled through his teeth.
+
+"My good lad," he said incredulously, "that's simply impossible!"
+
+"Well, sir, you may not believe me," I urged, rather nettled that he
+should put me down in this way, "but I declare to you she is the
+identical vessel I saw that evening, as I told you at the time, and of
+which we went in chase till the gale stopped us and our machinery gave
+out!  I cannot doubt the evidence of my own eyes, sir."
+
+"My dear boy," replied the skipper, in kinder tones than I expected to
+this outburst, for he was a hot-tempered man generally, and disliked
+anything like argument from his officers when he had once said his say,
+being of the opinion that his word should be last.  "Just reflect a
+moment and let your own natural good sense decide the point.  How can it
+be likely that the vessel you asserted you saw on Friday night, hundreds
+of miles away from here, should come across us now under precisely
+similar circumstances, considering all that has happened since?"
+
+"She's the same ship, sir, nevertheless," I maintained stubbornly,
+though I was a bit puzzled on my own account, mind, by his putting the
+case so strongly.  "The vessel I saw on Friday night was a full-rigged
+ship, with her sails knocked about and had her ensign hoisted half-mast
+high at the peak, and this one seemed the same in every particular.  I
+did not notice all that when she burnt the flare-up just now.  The light
+only lasted an instant."
+
+"There is something in that, certainly, Haldane," answered the skipper,
+wavering a little, I thought, in his ideas.  "Still, when one is
+inclined to believe in a thing, the imagination is often a great aid in
+turning a wish into a certainty."
+
+"Besides, sir," I continued, wishing to clench my argument, "if we were
+driven out of our course by the gale, she might have been similarly
+affected, and the winds and currents might have brought us together
+again."
+
+"That's possible, but not probable," he rejoined.  "I've known two
+bottles of the same weight dropped overboard from the same ship at the
+same hour, and--"
+
+"Well, sir?"
+
+"One was found landed on the Lofoden Isles, off the coast of Norway: the
+other came ashore at Sandy Point, in the Straits of Magellan!"
+
+He laughed when he said this, apparently thinking he had utterly settled
+the matter, but I checkmated him with his own theory.
+
+"The very uncertainty of the action of the currents of the Atlantic
+which you instance, sir," I said, "shows that what you think impossible
+might be very possible, and the strange, weird vessel that I saw three
+nights ago might have come within sight of us again."
+
+"That's one for you, Haldane," acknowledged the skipper very good-
+naturedly, for he was a fair man when anything was laid clearly before
+him.  "But, recollect, no one saw this ship distinctly but yourself.  I
+couldn't say of my own knowledge what rig she was, and I certainly
+didn't see any flag or sign of distress.  I only saw something that
+looked like a ship burning a flare-up in the distance--that's all."
+
+"Beg pardon, sir," whispered old Masters, stepping up and touching his
+cap ere he addressed the skipper, "but I seed the ghost-ship, too, sir,
+the same as Master Haldane, sir."
+
+The skipper wheeled round and stared at him.
+
+"Ghost-ship, man!  What do you mean?"
+
+"I means that there ghost-ship that hove in sight jist now and which
+have passed us afore, sir.  She be sent as a warning to us, I knows, and
+as a Christian man, Cap'en Applegarth, I takes it as sich!"
+
+The old seaman spoke so earnestly that the skipper, although he had hard
+work to keep himself in, answered him without ridiculing his
+extraordinary delusion, as he held it to be.
+
+"I am a Christian man, too, I hope, bo'sun," he said.  "I believe in a
+divine power above, and put my trust in a merciful providence; but I
+can't believe in any of your queer supernatural visitations, whether as
+warnings or what not!"
+
+"Not if you seed the same blessed thing three times?"
+
+"No; not if I saw it a hundred times!" he roared out impatiently.
+
+"Ah, seein' is believin', I says," whined old Masters, not a whit shaken
+on the point, in spite of the skipper's scepticism.  "Master Haldane
+seed it, and I seed it, and poor Jackson seed it."
+
+"Indeed?" cried the skipper.  "I did not know he had been on deck before
+the accident."
+
+"It wore arter that, sir, that he seed the ghost-ship," said the old
+boatswain in reply to the implied question.  "It were jist afore he
+died."
+
+"Just before he died!" repeated Captain Applegarth indignantly, as if he
+thought he was being made a fool of.  "Why, man, the poor fellow was out
+of his mind then, and besides, never stirred out of his cabin!"
+
+"Ah, but he had the warnin' jist the same, for Weston, it was, told me
+as how Jackson seed the ship and cried out when he lay there a-dyin'.
+Bulkheads can't keep sperrits out, sir."
+
+"Nor in, either, as I know to my cost," returned the skipper drily.
+"Your friend Weston is pretty familiar with them, if they come in his
+way, I fancy!  Stuff and nonsense, bo'sun; how can you believe such
+rubbish?  The other night you imagined the reflection of our own vessel,
+when that meteor came by, to be a ghost-ship, as you call it in your
+absurd folly; and to-night, when that craft to win'rd passed and lit a
+flare-up, hanged if you aren't at it again with your ghost-ship!  By
+George, it makes me sick, Masters, to think that a grown man and a good
+seaman like yourself should be such a confounded ass!"
+
+"Hass or no hass, there she wer'," said the old fellow doggedly.  "But
+here comes Mr Fosset, sir.  He were on the poop aft when that vessel
+passed as I speaks on.  Ax him what he thinks of her and if she weren't
+the same full-rigged ship as Master Haldane and all of us seed?"
+
+"I will," replied Captain Applegarth promptly; and on the first mate
+approaching nearer, he hailed him.  "I say, Fosset, what did you think
+of that ship just now?"
+
+The other's answer, however, bewildered the skipper more than Masters
+and I had done previously.
+
+"Ship!" said the first mate.  "What ship?"
+
+"That vessel that lit the flare-up awhile ago."
+
+"I didn't see any flare-up!" replied Mr Fosset, "and certainly no ship
+has passed us to my knowledge since I've been on deck."
+
+"By George, I don't know who or what to believe," exclaimed Captain
+Applegarth, looking from the one to the other of us.  "You've set my
+very brains wool-gathering between you, with your `vessels in distress'
+and `ghost-ships'; I'm hanged if I won't go down to the engine-room and
+have a little practical common sense knocked into me, as well as see how
+they're getting on with the repairs to the machinery!"
+
+So saying, the skipper went below, and, as there was nothing particular
+for me to do on deck, I followed his example.  Instead of proceeding
+down to the engine-room, however, I only went as far as my bunk and
+turned in, wondering what the morrow would bring forth.  I was haunted,
+though, by strange dreams all through the night, continually waking up
+and then getting to sleep again in snatches, only to wake up again
+immediately after I had dropped off.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER ELEVEN.
+
+IN THE GULF STREAM.
+
+"It's a dead calm, sir!"  I heard Mr Fosset sing out next morning
+outside the door of the skipper's state room, which opened out of the
+saloon, close to my berth, when he went to call him at four bells, in
+obedience to orders given overnight.  "The gale has completely blown
+itself out, and there's only a little cat's-paw of a breeze from the
+south'ard."
+
+"Humph!" yawned the skipper from within.  "That's a good job, Fosset.  I
+think we've had enough wind to last us for a blue moon!"
+
+"So say I, sir," agreed the other with much heartiness.  "I wouldn't
+like to go through the same experiences again, by Jingo!"
+
+"Nor I," came from the other, evidently about to turn out from his bunk.
+"I'll be on deck in five minutes or so, Fosset."
+
+The first mate, however, would not take this for a dismissal, having
+apparently further important information to give and which he at once
+proceeded to disclose.
+
+"Do you know, sir, I think we're in the Gulf Stream," he said in an
+impressive tone.  "There's a lot of the weed knocking about round the
+ship."
+
+"Gulf-weed?" exclaimed the skipper's voice again from the cabin,
+sounding a bit muffled as if he were in the act of pulling his shirt
+over his head.  "Are you certain?"
+
+"Aye," affirmed the other.  "There's not the slightest doubt about it.
+It's as plain as a pike staff, sir."
+
+"The deuce it is!" said the skipper in a louder key, showing that my
+surmise had been correct as to the progress of his toilet, and that his
+head was now unloosed from its bag-like envelope.  "By George, I can't
+make it out at all!"
+
+"There's no getting over the fact, sir," persisted the first mate.
+"We're quite surrounded by the weed.  I saw it well the first streak of
+light at two bells, on suddenly looking over the side, sir.  There's Mr
+O'Neil up on the bridge now, and he has noticed it too!"
+
+The skipper, to judge from the voice that came from his cabin and the
+way he was banging his boots and other things about, was as much
+mystified by Mr Fosset's unexpected announcement as he had been the
+previous evening by the sight he and I and the boatswain had seen.
+
+He was also angry, I know, so I thought it good for me to turn out
+likewise from my bunk as speedily as possible, it not being advisable
+under the circumstances to be "caught napping."
+
+"By George, I can't understand it!" repeated Captain Applegarth crossly.
+"If we're in the Gulf Stream, all I can say is, we must have drifted a
+wonderful distance in the last two or three days.  Why, man, the current
+is seldom perceptible above the fortieth parallel!"
+
+"I know that, sir," replied the first mate; "but if you recollect, sir,
+from the lunar observation Mr O'Neil took on the night of the
+breakdown, we were then as far south as 41 deg. 30 minutes, and we've been
+drifting south-east by east ever since."
+
+"Well, Fosset, I'm hanged if I know where we are, after the bucketting-
+about we've had since last Friday!" said the skipper, who now came into
+the saloon, where I, already dressed, was hurriedly having a cup of
+cocoa and bite of biscuit Weston had just brought me in from the pantry.
+"I feel half inclined to believe now in the old superstition about it
+being an unlucky day, though I always used to laugh at the notion!"
+
+"There are plenty aboard who believe queerer things than that!" said Mr
+Fosset drily, with a meaning glance in my direction, eyeing my cocoa as
+if he rather fancied a cup himself.  "I say, Haldane, that cocoa smells
+good!"
+
+"It's not half bad, sir," I replied grinning.  "Perhaps you would like
+some too, sir.  Weston's got a lot more inside here, hot, just fetched
+from the galley!"
+
+"I don't mind if I do have a cup," said he.  "Will you join me, cap'en?"
+
+"No, thanks; I'm too worried.  I'll wait till breakfast," said the
+skipper, turning to go up on deck by the companion-way and hitching his
+cap off the hook by his cabin door.  "You won't be long, I hope, eh?"
+
+"I'll follow you up in a jiffey, sir, as soon as I have swallowed a
+toothful of this warm stuff to keep out the cold.  Hi, steward?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir?" answered Weston, promptly putting his head out of his
+pantry, where he had been listening.  "Cup of cocoa, sir?--yezzir."
+
+"I say, Fosset," said the captain, who had lingered near awhile, as if
+in deep thought, as he stood with one foot on the lower step of the
+companion as if he were trying to recollect something, "I say, we must
+make some points to-day on the chart, you know!"
+
+"Yes, sir.  I don't think there'll be any difficulty about that.  Do
+you?"
+
+"No; the sun ought to be pretty clear at noon with a morning like this--
+clear enough, at all events, for us to find out the latitude and
+longitude."
+
+"Just what I said to Spokeshave, sir, before I came down to call you
+awhile ago."
+
+"Quite so."
+
+"Aye, `quite so,' sir."
+
+Whereupon both sniggered at the skipper's apt mimicry of Master Conky's
+pet phrase, which Captain Applegarth pronounced in the little beggar's
+exact tone of voice, so like indeed being the imitation that I nearly
+choked myself while swallowing the balance of my cocoa, as I hastily
+drained my cup and rose to follow the skipper up the companion-ladder to
+the deck.
+
+As Mr Fosset had said, there was a dead calm on the bosom of the deep,
+for the slight swell that remained after the gale on the previous
+evening, even up to the time of my going down below, had quite
+disappeared, the surface of the water being as smooth as glass as far as
+the horizon line and all aflash now with the rosy hue of sunrise to the
+eastward.  The sky still preserved, however, the pale neutral tints of
+night in the west, and up to the zenith, where it merged into a faint
+and beautiful seagreen that lost itself imperceptibly in the warm
+colouring of the orient, which each moment became more and more intense
+in hue, heralding the approach of morn.
+
+At last, up jumped the glorious orb of day, proudly, from his ocean bed,
+came with one bound as it were, a veritable globe of liquid fire,
+flooding the vast distant heaven and sea with a wealth of light and
+radiance that seemed to give life to everything around.
+
+"There, Haldane," said Captain Applegarth, pointing over the taffrail at
+a lot of straggling masses of quasi-looking stringy stuff that came
+floating on top of the water close by the ship, resembling vegetable
+refuse discarded from Neptune's kitchen garden.  "That's the gulf-weed
+Mr Fosset was just speaking about to me."
+
+"Indeed, sir, I can't say much for its appearance.  It looks more like a
+parcel of cauliflowers run to seed than anything else, sir!"
+
+"Yes, that's not a bad simile of yours, my lad," he replied, moving
+nearer to the side and sending his keen sailorly glance alow and aloft,
+examining our old barquey to see how she fared after the storm.  "If I
+can remember rightly, I think one of our best naturalists has given a
+similar description of it.  Yes, that's the gulf-weed, or sargassum, or
+_fucus natans_, as the big guns variously call it in their Latin lingo.
+A rum sort of tackle, isn't it?"
+
+"Yes, it does look funny, queer stuff, sir," said I, for I had never had
+the opportunity of noticing it before, all my voyages hitherto backwards
+and forwards across the Atlantic having been outside the limits of the
+uncanny looking gulf-weed.  "Does it grow in the sea, sir?  It looks so
+fresh and green."
+
+"Well, that depends how you take it, my lad," returned the skipper
+rather absently, his attention being fixed on something forward, about
+which he evidently could not quite make up his mind, as there was a
+slight puzzled expression on his face.  "You see, it is all through
+those long-winded chaps, who won't be content with what the Creator
+gives them, but must put a cause and reason for everything beyond God's
+own will and pleasure, and who lay down arbitrary rules of their own for
+the guidance of Dame Nature, though, between you and I and the binnacle,
+Haldane, the old lady got on well enough for a good many scores of
+years--I'd be sorry to say how many--without their precious help!  Now
+these gentlemen, who know everything, will have it that the gulf-weed
+grows deep down at the bottom of the sea and that only the branches and
+tendrils, or leaves, so to speak, float on the top and are visible to
+us."
+
+"How strange, sir," said I.  "Just like an aquarium plant.  It is
+strange!"
+
+"It would be, if true, for they would have to possess uncommonly long
+stems, as, in the Sagossa Sea, in the centre of the Gulf Stream, where
+the weed is most plentiful and to be seen at its freshest and most
+luxuriant growth, the recorded depth of the water is over four miles!"
+
+"That is not likely, then," I observed in reply to this--"I mean, sir,
+the fact of its growing up from the bottom of the sea."
+
+"Certainly not, my boy.  Another wise man, of the same kidney as the
+long-winded chap of the theory I've just explained, says that the gulf-
+weed in its natural and original state grows on the rocky islets and
+promontories of the Florida coast and that it is torn thence by the
+action of the great Atlantic current that bears it many miles from its
+home; though, strangely enough, I have never seen any gulf-weed growing
+on rocks in the Gulf of Florida or in any of the adjacent seas, nor has
+any one else to my knowledge!"
+
+"Then you do not believe it grows to anything at all, do you, sir?"
+
+"No, I don't.  My opinion is that it is a surface plant of old Neptune's
+rearing and that the warm water of the Gulf Stream breeds it and
+nourishes it, for at certain times it seems partly withered, and this
+could not be due to accident.  The weed, I believe, is a sailor, like
+you and I, my lad, and lives and has its being on the sea, no matter
+what your longshore naturalists, who don't know much about it from
+personal observation, may say to the contrary.  Hullo! though, my boy,
+look forrad there!  Where has our spar anchor gone?  I thought I noticed
+something and could not make out at first what it was.  Look, youngster,
+and see whether you can see it!"
+
+I was equally puzzled for the moment, for although our good ship rested
+as peacefully on the bosom of the deep as if she were moored, the
+raftlike bundle of spars, to which she had been made fast the night
+before, was now no longer to be seen bobbing up ahead, athwart our
+hawser as then.
+
+Where could our wonderful floating anchor have gone?
+
+The next moment, however, I saw what had happened, the mystery being
+easily explained by the calm.
+
+"They've floated alongside, sir," I said.  "I can see them under the
+counter on the port side, sir."
+
+"Yes, of course, there they are, exemplifying the attraction of
+gravitation or some other long-winded theory of your scientific
+gentlemen," replied the skipper, who seemed to have got science on the
+brain this morning, being violently antagonistic to it, somehow or
+other.  "Ah, Fosset, see, our anchor's come home without weighing.  I
+think you'd better have the spars hauled on board and rig up the sticks
+again, now that they've served our time in another way--aye, and served
+it well, too."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," said the first mate, who had come up after us on the
+poop, looking, I couldn't help noticing, all the better for the good and
+early breakfast he had just finished.  "I thought of getting them in
+just now, but waited to call you first."
+
+"Well, you needn't wait any longer, Fosset," rejoined the skipper.
+"Pass the word for the bo'sun forrad."
+
+"Yes, yes, sir.  Quartermaster, call Masters!"
+
+"Bo'sun, pipe all hands to hoist spars aboard!"  These orders were
+roared out by Mr Fosset in rapid succession, and then in equally rapid
+sequences came the boatswain's whistle and hail to the men down the
+hatchway just along the deck.
+
+All had a rare time of it, and an amount of "yoho-hoes-hoing" went round
+that it would have done anybody's heart good to hear; the first mate was
+bellowing out his orders and old Masters seeing to their proper
+execution by the busy hands and active feet, the skipper meanwhile
+standing on the poop, superintending matters with his keen eye, and woe
+to the lubber who bungled at a hitch or left a rope's end loose or brace
+slack!
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWELVE.
+
+BOAT AHOY!
+
+By the time the sun was near the meridian our top-masts were up and the
+upper yards swayed aloft and crossed, making the old barquey all ataunto
+again and pretty nearly her old self, our broken bulwarks and smashed
+skylight betraying the only damage done by the storm, on deck, at all
+events.
+
+"I `calculate,' Fosset, as our Yankee friends would say, we may now cry
+spell O!" observed the skipper, who was highly pleased with the progress
+made in refitting the ship.  "Tell the bo'sun to pipe the hands to
+dinner, and you and I had better go up on the bridge and see what we can
+do in the way of determining our position on the chart.  That gulf-weed
+must have lost its bearings, I'm sure.  It seems impossible to me that
+we could have drifted so far to the south as to bring us in the Stream!"
+
+"An observation will soon settle the point, sir," replied the first
+mate, passing the word to Masters to knock off work.  "Run down,
+Haldane, and get my sextant for me, there's a good chap!  I left it on
+the cabin table, all ready.  You'll find it there!"
+
+"Belay, there!" sang out the skipper, as I started off towards the
+companion-way.  "You may as well bring mine, too, while you're about it.
+Two heads are better than one, eh, Fosset?"
+
+"Yes, sir, perhaps so," rejoined the other, before I got out of earshot.
+"It seems, though, as if we're going to have three on the job; for here
+comes Mr O'Neil with his sextant under his arm, evidently bent on the
+same errand!"
+
+I soon was back with the instruments for the other two, and presently
+all three were at work taking the sun's altitude and measuring off the
+angle made by the luminary with the horizon.
+
+A short delay ensued from our clocks being fast on account of our having
+drifted to the eastward, of where they had last been set.
+
+Then all at once Mr Fosset sang out.
+
+"It's just noon, sir, now.  The sun's crossing the meridian!"
+
+"All right, make it so," replied the skipper.  "Bos'un, strike eight
+bells."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," came back from old Masters away forward, and then
+followed the melodious chime of the ship's bell that hung immediately
+under the beak of the fo'c's'le.  "Ting-ting, ting-ting, ting-ting,
+ting-ting."
+
+"Now," going into the wheel-house, "let us look at the chronometer and
+see what Greenwich time says, and then tot up our reckonings!"
+
+The two others followed him into the little room on the bridge, sitting
+down to a table in which the track chart of the ship's course lay, and
+all were busy for some few moments calculating and working out our
+latitude and longitude.
+
+I was standing by the doorway after bringing up the correct time of the
+chronometers, which the skipper kept locked up in his own cabin to
+prevent their being meddled with, and I could see he looked puzzled,
+adding up and subtracting his figures over and over again, as if he
+thought he must have made some error, though he found that he invariably
+came to the same result.
+
+"Well, Fosset," he cried at length, unable to restrain himself any
+longer.  "What do you make it?"
+
+"39 deg. 20 minutes north latitude sir, and 47 deg. 15 minutes west longitude."
+
+"Faith, an' I make it the same, sir," also put in Garry O'Neil, the
+twain having worked out the reckoning long before the poor skipper.
+"Both of us agree to the virry minnit, sure, lavin' out the sicconds,
+sir!"
+
+"By George!" exclaimed the skipper.  "It's even worse than I thought."
+
+"How, sir?" asked Mr Fosset with a smile on his face, no doubt
+chuckling to himself at being cleverer and wiser than Captain
+Applegarth, who would not believe we were in the Gulf Stream.  "Don't
+you think us right, sir?"
+
+"Oh, yes, Fosset; I agree with you myself.  The _reckoning_ is right
+enough, but father's the devil to pay!"
+
+The skipper couldn't sacrifice the joke, though he was terribly put out.
+
+"See here," he continued, "jabbing," with great noise and force the
+compasses with which he was measuring off our position, into the chart,
+as if that was in fault, while Fosset and O'Neil laughed.  "Look where
+we are!  I shouldn't have thought it possible for us to have been driven
+so far south, right into the Gulf Stream, as we are, for the current
+generally runs to the nor'-east'ards below the Banks."
+
+"The stream has done it, though, sure enough," said Mr Fosset; "that
+and the gale, for the one has drifted us to the coast and the other
+pressed us down southwards; and between the two we're just fetched where
+we are, sir!"
+
+"Well," replied the skipper, shrugging his shoulders, "you were right,
+Fosset, and I was wrong this morning.  Let me see, though, how we have
+fetched here, if we can trace our course so far, from when we last took
+the sun."
+
+"Sure, an' that was Friday, that baste of a day!" interposed Garry
+O'Neil, pointing to a place on the chart.  "I worked at the rickonin'
+and I put it down meself, marking it with a red pencil."
+
+"Yes; here it is, 42 deg. 35 minutes north latitude, and longitude 50 deg. 10
+minutes west," said the skipper.  "I worked it out also, on my own hook,
+and you and I tallied, if you recollect?"
+
+"Of course we did, the divvil doubt it, sir," answered the second mate
+in his usual Irish fashion.  "Thin, sor, we ran for five hours from that
+p'int on a west by south course, going between ten and twelve knots;
+for, though I didn't say it meself, Mister Fosset tould me the wind was
+freshinin' all the toime, so that we must have travelled about sixty
+miles, more or less."
+
+"So that brings us to this blue mark here?"
+
+"Yes, sor, to 42 deg. 28 minutes north, and 51 deg. 12 minutes west."
+
+"Then we sailed right before the wind, due south?"
+
+"Sure, an' we did that same afther Mister Haldane's will-o'-the-wisp for
+three hours, bedad!"
+
+"Oh, Mr O'Neil," I pleaded, "please leave me out of it.  I'm sure I've
+seen and heard enough of the ship already!"
+
+"Be aisy, me darlint!  It's only me fun, sure; and I mean ye no harrum,"
+said he in his jocular way.  "Arrah how can I lave ye out of the story
+when ye're the howl h'id and tail of it, sure, and without ye there'd be
+none to tile.  Yes, cap'en, dear, sure, an' as I was a-saying when
+Haldane broke in upon me yarn, thray hours on this southerly course
+brought us here right where ye see me little finger, now!"
+
+"About 51 deg. 5 minutes west longitude and 41 deg. 40 minutes north latitude.
+How did you get this, eh?"
+
+"Faith, sor, the ould moon looked so moighty plisint that night that I
+took a lunar or two, jist to divart mesilf with, when Spokeshave wint
+below and there was nobody lift to poke fun at, sure!"
+
+"A very useful sort of amusement," said the skipper drily.  "And I see,
+too, you've put in the distance we've run, by dead reckoning, as about
+another fifty miles or so?"
+
+"Yes, sor.  The bo'sun hove the log ivery half hour till the engines
+stopped, an' he made out we were going sixteen knots an' more, bedad, so
+he s'id, whin we were running before the wind with full shtame on."
+
+"That was very likely, O'Neil," replied the skipper, "but, after that,
+we altered course again, you know!"
+
+"In course we did, sor, an' you'll say it marked roight down there on
+that line!  We thin sailed west, a quarter south by compass, close-
+hauled on the starboard track, for two hours longer after you altered
+course ag'in an' bore up to the west'ard, keeping on till the ingines
+bhroke down, bad cess to 'em!"
+
+"When was that?" asked the skipper slowly.  "I was so worried and
+flurried at the moment that I forgot to take the time."
+
+"Four bells in the first watch, sor," replied the Irishman quickly.  "It
+was after we'd brought up poor Jackson from below, as Stoddart, the
+engineer, faith, was a sittin' near, jist before me, attindin' on the
+poor chap in the cabin, whin the rush of shtame came flyin' up the
+hatchway, faith, an' the sekrew stopped.  We both of us looked at the
+saloon clock on the instant, sure, an' saw the toime, sor."
+
+"That is the last mark on the chart, then?" said the old skipper
+meaningly, pencil and compass in hand, and still bending over the tell-
+tale track map spread out on the wheel-house table.  "Since that, nobody
+knows how we've drifted!"
+
+"Faith, no one, sor," returned Garry O'Neil, thinking the question was
+addressed to him.  "Only, perhaps, the Pope, God bless him, or the
+Imporor of Chainy!"
+
+All laughed at this, Captain Applegarth now losing his preoccupied air
+as if there were nothing to be gained, he thought, by dwelling any
+longer on the past.
+
+It was wonderful, though, how we _had_ drifted in the short interval,
+comparatively, that had elapsed since we became disabled!
+
+As Mr Fosset had been the first to find out in the morning the Gulf
+Stream--that great river that runs a course of some two thousand miles
+in the middle of the ocean, keeping itself perfectly distinct from the
+surrounding water through which it flows, from its inception as a
+current in the Caribbean Sea to its final disposal in the North
+Atlantic--had first carried us in an easterly direction after we had
+broken-down so utterly; while the strong nor'-westerly gale, aided
+probably by the Arctic current, running due south from the Polar regions
+and which disputes the right of way with the Gulf Stream some little
+distance to the southwards of the great Banks of Newfoundland, had
+pressed upon the helpless hull of the _Star of the North_, bearing her
+away whither they pleased.
+
+So, unable to resist either the winds or the waves, these combined
+forces had driven her off her course at an oblique angle, thus
+converting the nor'-easterly, or easterly drift proper, of the Gulf
+Stream into a true sou'-westerly one, taking us from latitude 41 deg. 30
+minutes north and longitude 51 deg. 40 minutes west, where we were on the
+previous Friday night, when we were forced to lie-to, to our present
+position on the chart.
+
+To put the case more concisely, the _Star of the North_ had been carried
+for the distance of _four degrees and a half_ exactly of longitude
+backward on her outward track to New York and some _two degrees_ or
+thereabouts to the southwards, placing us as nearly as possible in the
+position the skipper had already indicated, a direction of some five
+hundred miles more or less from our proper course and about midway
+between Bermuda and the Azores, or Western Islands.
+
+While Captain Applegarth was explaining this, as much for my benefit and
+instruction, I believe, as anything, a thought occurred to me.
+
+"Are we not now, sir, in the track of all the homeward-bound ships
+sailing on the great circle from the West Indies and South American
+ports?"
+
+The skipper looked at me steadily, "smelling a rat" at once.
+
+"I suppose, Haldane," he said somewhat sternly, "you want to get me back
+to that infernal ship again?  Not if I know it, my lad.  As you told Mr
+O'Neil just now, we've all had enough and to spare of that vessel and
+the wild-goose chase she has led us from first to last.  I won't hear
+another word about her, by Jingo!"
+
+Just then old Masters, who had gone up in the foretop to set something
+right which had struck his sailor eye as not being altogether as it
+should be aboard the _Star of the North_, raised his arm to attract the
+attention of those on deck below him.
+
+"Hullo, there, bo'sun!" called out the skipper, seeing him, for he
+seldom kept his glasses away from the rigging of the ship and things
+aloft.  "What's the row, eh?"
+
+"I sees summit to win'ard, sir."
+
+"By George!" exclaimed the skipper in a tone that made every one laugh
+who heard, all but Masters; the coincidence was so comical after what
+Captain Applegarth had said only a minute before.  "Not another `ghost-
+ship,' I hope!"
+
+"No, sir," growled the boatswain rather savagely.  "It bean't no ghost-
+ship this time, though _she_ ain't far off, I knows, to my thinkin'!"
+
+He added the last words as if speaking to himself, but I heard him, and
+his remark stopped my mirth instanter.
+
+"What is it, bo'sun, that you _do_ see, then?" cried the skipper
+impatiently; "that is, if you see anything at all beyond some vision of
+your own imagination!"
+
+"I ain't dreaming," hailed back old Masters, not quite catching what he
+said.  "I sees summit as plain as possible out to win'ard.  Aye, it be
+a-driftin' down athawt our hawser, too, cap'en.  Why, hullo!  I'm
+blessed.  Boat ahoy!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTEEN.
+
+IN THE NICK OF TIME.
+
+"A boat!" exclaimed Captain Applegarth, his jesting manner changing
+instantly to one of earnest attention.  "Where away?"
+
+"On our starboard beam, sir," sang out Masters from the foretop.  "About
+two points off, I fancies, sir."
+
+"I can't see her," said the skipper, looking in the direction the
+boatswain had indicated.  "I thought she was close-to from your hailing
+her."
+
+"She's further away now than I thought, sir!" shouted old Masters in
+reply to this, after having another squirm over the topsail yard.  "I'm
+blessed, though, if I ain't lost her, with the ship's head bobbing all
+round the compass.  No; there she be ag'in, sir.  No--yes--yes.  There
+she is, about a mile or so off, sir, I'm thinkin'."
+
+"By George, Masters, you think too much, I think!" the skipper retorted
+angrily.  "You don't seem to know what you're saying, and I believe
+you've gone off your chump since you saw that `ghost-ship,' as you
+called it!  Go aloft, Haldane, and see what you can make of this blessed
+boat he says he sighted!"
+
+I was already in the weather shrouds before the skipper gave me this
+order, and in another minute I was on the top beside the boatswain, who
+pointed out silently to me a little black speck in the distance
+apparently dancing about amid the waves, which were beginning to curl
+before an approaching breeze that was evidently springing up from the
+westwards.  Fortunately, I had a pair of binoculars in my jacket pocket,
+and I immediately levelled the glasses at the object in view.
+
+"Well, Haldane!" at last sang out the skipper impatiently from the end
+of the bridge, where he still stood, looking up at me with his chin
+cocked in the air.  "What do you make it out to be, eh, my lad?"
+
+"It's a boat sure enough, sir," I shouted down to him, without taking my
+eyes off it.  "She's a long way off, though, sir, and I think she's
+drifting further away, too."
+
+"The deuce!" exclaimed Captain Applegarth.  "Can you see any one in the
+boat?"
+
+"No--no--not distinctly, sir," I replied after another searching look.
+"Stay; I do--I do think there's a figure at one end! and, yes--yes--I'm
+sure I noticed something that appeared like a movement, but it might
+have been caused by the rocking of the sea."
+
+"But don't you see anybody, or can't you make anything else out?"
+
+"Only the boat, sir, and that a breeze seems coming up from the
+westward.  I see a white line on the water along the horizon.  That's
+all I can see, sir!"
+
+"Well, that's not much use to us," he growled below, beginning his
+customary "quarter-deck walk" up and down the bridge.  "I wish some one
+would come up from the engine-room to say they had repaired the cylinder
+and that we could go ahead again!"
+
+Almost as soon as he spoke thus I noticed Mr Stokes, who I thought was
+lying down in his cabin, coming towards the forepart of the ship where
+we were, from the direction of the engine-room hatchway.
+
+"Hullo, Stokes," said the skipper, catching sight of him at once with
+his eagle eye that seemed to take in everything that went on, whether
+his back was turned or not.  "I thought you were on the sick list still,
+and ill.  You oughtn't to be bustling about so soon after your accident,
+my dear fellow!"
+
+"No, but I feel better!" replied the old chief, who, although he was
+still pale and shaky, had a more cheerful look on his face than the day
+before, when he appeared decidedly ill.  "I've been down below and I'm
+glad to say Stoddart and the other artificers, who I must say have
+worked well without me, you will be glad to know, have got the cylinder
+cover on again.  They've made a splendid job of it!"
+
+"Stoddart himself is a splendid fellow," said the skipper
+enthusiastically.  "Aye, and the rest of your staff, too, my dear
+Stokes.  By George, you've brought us good news!"
+
+"But that isn't all, cap'en," cried the old fellow, beaming over with a
+broad smile of quiet enjoyment at the surprise the skipper showed.
+"They say below that they'll be able to start the engines as soon as
+there's a full head of steam on!  Now what do you think of that, sir?
+Isn't that good news?"
+
+The skipper looked ready to embrace our fat chief, and I believe only
+refrained from giving this expression of his joy by the sight of poor
+Mr Stokes' bandaged arm, which was still in a sling.
+
+He contented himself, therefore, with patting him tenderly on the back
+and walking round him admiringly, like a cat purring round a saucer of
+cream.
+
+"By George!" he cried.  "I feel as pleased as if my grandmother had left
+me five thousand pounds!"
+
+"I wish she had," laughed the old chief.  "I would ask to go shares!"
+
+"And so you should, my boy; so you should," repeated the skipper with
+much heartiness, and as if he really meant it.  "How soon do you think
+we shall be able to start, eh?"
+
+"Very soon, I think, sir.  The after-boiler fires were lit early this
+morning and they've been getting up steam ever since."
+
+"That's good!" cried the skipper, stopping in his excited walk up and
+down the bridge, which he had again resumed, being unable to keep still,
+when he looked up, caught sight of me and hailed me.
+
+"I say, Haldane?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir?"  I sang out from the top, where I had remained with the
+boatswain on the look-out, and hearing likewise all that transpired
+beneath.  "What do you want, sir?"
+
+"I hope you're keeping your eye on that boat, my lad.  If she is there
+we may be able to overhaul her yet, if you don't lose sight of her!"
+
+"No fear of that, sir," I shouted back, pointing with my finger in the
+distance.  "There she is, still to win'ard, pretty nearly flush with the
+water."
+
+"Then she really is there all right, my lad.  Keep your eye on her."
+
+The funnels had been emitting smoke for some time without our having
+paid much attention to the fact, the fires of the fore-boilers having
+been kept in and banked ever since our breakdown, in order to work the
+pumps and capstan gear when required; but now steam, I noticed, came out
+as well as smoke, and I could hear it plainly roaring up the waste pipe,
+besides making a fearful row.
+
+Presently another sound greeted my ears and made me jump.
+
+It was that of the electric bell in the wheel-house, giving warning that
+those below in the emporium wished to make some communication.
+
+Mr Stokes went to the voice-tube that led down thither from the bridge.
+
+"What's the matter?" he roared into the mouthpiece so loud that I heard
+every word he uttered, although a-top of the mast.  "Anything wrong?"
+
+I couldn't of course catch the reply that came up the pipe; and it
+certainly was not a satisfactory one, for Mr Stokes turned round at
+once to the skipper, who immediately stopped his quarter-deck walk to
+hear what the chief had to say.
+
+"They've corrected the propeller, sir," he exclaimed with a chuckle that
+made his fat form shake all over; "and Stoddart says he's only waiting
+for your signal to close the stop valves and let the steam into the
+cylinder."
+
+"By George, he shan't wait a minute longer!" cried Captain Applegarth,
+moving the engine-room telegraph.  "Go ahead, my hearties, as soon as
+you please!  Hullo, there, forrad, I want a hand here at the wheel.  I
+suppose the steam steering gear is all right again now?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir," replied Mr Stokes to this.  "Grummet fixed that up on
+Sunday afternoon, he told me.  I am sure it was done.  I remember he was
+doing it when that man-of-war came alongside and spoke you."
+
+"Strange I didn't see him at the job; he must have been pretty smart
+over it!" replied the skipper.  "But I'm very glad it is done, though."
+
+In answer to the skipper's signal a sudden blast of steam rushed up the
+funnel abaft the wheel-house, and I could feel the ship tremble as the
+shaft began to revolve and the propeller blades splashed the water
+astern with the familiar "thump-thump, thump-thump."
+
+All hands joined in a hearty cheer, to which Masters and I in the top
+lent what aid our lungs could give.
+
+"Steady amidship, there," sang out the skipper as the old barquey forged
+ahead once more.  "Steady, my man."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," answered the foremost hand, Parrell, who had come from
+the fo'c's'le to take the first "trick" at the steering wheel on the
+bridge.  "Steady it is."
+
+"How does the boat bear now, Haldane?"
+
+"Two points off our starboard bow, sir," I replied to this hail of the
+skipper.  "She's about three miles off, I think, sir."
+
+"All right," he shouted back to me.  "Port your helm, there!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," repeated Parrell.  "Port, sir, it is."
+
+"We're rising her fast now, sir," I called out after a short interval.
+"There's a man in the boat; yes, a man, sir.  I can see him quite
+plainly now, and I'm sure I'm not mistaken!"
+
+"Are you quite sure, my lad?"
+
+"Quite sure, sir.  And he's alive, too, I'm certain.  Yes, sir; he moved
+then distinctly.  I could see him plainly.  Why, the boat is so near now
+that you ought to see it from the deck."
+
+"And so I can, by Jingo, Haldane!" replied the captain, peering out
+ahead himself with a telescope from the end of the bridge.  "I fancy I
+can see a second figure, and it looks like another man, too, lying down
+in the bows of the boat, as well as the figure at the stern, who seems
+to me to be holding up an oar or something!"
+
+"Yes, there is, sir," I called out, stopping on my way down the rigging
+to have another look.  After a pause I exclaimed, "I can see both of
+them, and with my naked eye.  I can see them now!"
+
+"Well, then, you'd better come down from aloft.  Tell your friend, the
+boatswain, to come down as well.  He'll be wanted at the fo'c's'le when
+we presently come up to the boat, as I trust we shall!"
+
+"Lucky Masters saw the boat, sir," said I when I reached the deck and up
+to the skipper's side again.  "But even more fortunate it is for the
+poor fellows that our engines are working again, sir, for otherwise we
+could not have been able to get up to the boat and save them."
+
+"It isn't luck, my boy," observed Mr Stokes, whom the death of poor
+Jackson and his own narrow escape from a like fate had led to think of
+other matters besides those connected with his mundane profession.
+"It's Providence!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
+
+AN APPEAL FOR AID.
+
+"Aye, that's the better way of looking at it," chimed in the skipper,
+raising his arm at the same time from his station at the end of the
+bridge, where he was conning the ship.  He then called out sharply, to
+enforce the signal.
+
+"Luff up, you lubber, luff!"
+
+"Luff it is, sir," rejoined the helmsman, rapidly turning round the
+spokes of the little steam steering wheel.  "It's hard over now, sir."
+
+"Steady there," next sang out the captain.  "Steady, my man!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," repeated the parrot-like Tom Parrell, bringing the helm
+amidships again.  "Steady it is!"
+
+"By George, we're nearing the boat fast!" cried the skipper after
+another short pause, during which we had been going ahead full speed,
+with a quick "thump-thump, thump-thump" of the propeller and the water
+foaming past our bows.  "Starboard, Parrell!  Starboard a bit now!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," came again the helmsman's answering cry from the wheel-
+house.  "Starboard it is, sir!"
+
+"Keep her so.  A trifle more off.  Steady!"
+
+"Steady it is, sir!"
+
+"Now down with it, Parrell!" sang out the skipper, bringing his hand
+instanter on the handle of the engine-room gong, which he sounded twice,
+directing those in charge below to reduce speed, while he hailed old
+Masters on the fo'c's'le.  "Hi, bo'sun!  Look-out there forrad with your
+rope's end to heave to the poor fellows!  We're just coming alongside
+the boat."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir!" replied Masters promptly, keeping one eye on the
+skipper on the bridge and the other directed to the little craft we were
+approaching, and now close to our port bow.  "We're all ready forrad,
+sir.  Mind you don't run her down, sir.  She's nearly under our
+forefoot."
+
+"All right, bo'sun," returned the skipper.  "Port, Parrell!"
+
+"Port it is, sir," repeated Tom Parrell.  "Two points off."
+
+"Steady, man, steady," continued the skipper, holding his hand up again.
+"Boat ahoy!  Stand by.  We're going to throw you a rope!"
+
+At the same instant Captain Applegarth sounded the engine-room gong
+again, bringing the _Star of the North_ to a dead stop as we steamed up
+to the boat slanting-wise, the steamer having just sufficient way on her
+when the screw shaft ceased revolving, to glide gently up to the very
+spot where the little floating waif was gently bobbing up and down on
+the wave right ahead of us, and barely half a dozen yards away,
+drifting, at the will of the wind, without any guidance from its
+occupants, who seemingly were unaware of our approach.
+
+"Boat ahoy!" shouted the skipper once more, raising his voice to a
+louder key.  "Look-out, there!"
+
+The men in the bows of the boat still remained in the same attitude, as
+if unconscious or dead; but the other in the stern-sheets appeared to
+hear the skipper's hail, for he half-turned his head and uttered a
+feeble sort of noise and made a feeble motion with one of his hands.
+
+"Now's your time, bo'sun!" cried Captain Applegarth.  "Heave that line,
+sharp!"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," roared out Masters in his gruff tones.  "Stand by,
+below there!"
+
+With that the coil of half-inch rope which he held looped on his arm
+made a circling whirl through the air, the end falling right across the
+gunwales of the boat, close to the after thwart, where sat the second of
+the castaways, who eagerly stretched out his hand to clutch at it.
+
+But, unfortunately, he failed to grasp it, and the exertion evidently
+being too much for him, for he tumbled forward on his face at the bottom
+of the boat, while the rope slipped over the side into the water, coming
+back home to us alongside the old barquey on the next send of the sea,
+the heavy roll of our ship when she brought up broadside-on, as well as
+the weight of the line saturated with water, fetching it in to us all
+the sooner.
+
+"Poor fellows; they can't help themselves!" cried the skipper, who had
+watched the boatswain's throw and its unsatisfactory result with the
+deepest interest.  "Bear a hand there, some one forrad, and have another
+try to reach them.  The boat's drifting past, and we'll have to go
+astern to board her in another minute, if you don't look sharp!"
+
+Having climbed into the fore-rigging, however, so as to have a good look
+at the boat and its occupants as we neared them, I was quite as quick as
+the skipper to notice what had happened, having, indeed, foreseen the
+contingency before it occurred.
+
+So, ere Masters or any of the other men could stir a hand, having made
+up my mind what to do, I had seized hold of part of the slack of the
+line that remained inboard and, plunging into the sea, swam towards the
+boat.
+
+A couple of strokes, combined with the forward impetus of my leap
+overboard, took me up to the little craft, and in a jiffey I had grasped
+the gunwale aft and clambered within her, securing the end of the line I
+had round one of the thwarts at once, amid the ringing cheers of the
+skipper and my shipmates in the old barquey, who proceeded to haul us up
+alongside without further delay, tugging away at the tar rope I had
+hitched on, yo-heave-hoing and hurrahing in one and the same breath
+right lustily!
+
+So smart were they, so instantaneous had been the action of the moment
+during the episode, that we were close in to the ship's side and under
+her conning, immediately below the port end of the bridge, where the
+skipper stood leaning over the rail and surveying operations, before I
+had time actually to look round so as to have a nearer view of the
+unfortunate men whom we had so providentially rescued.
+
+When I did though, one glance was enough.
+
+I was horror stricken at the sight that met my eyes.
+
+The man whom I had observed when we were yet some distance off to be
+lying huddled up in the bows motionless, as if dying or already dead, I
+now saw had received a horrible wound on the top of his head that had
+very nearly smashed in the skull, besides almost severing one of his
+ears which was hanging from the cheek bone, attached by a mere scrap of
+skin, the bottom boards of the boat near him being stained with blood
+that had flowed from the cut, and his hair likewise matted together with
+gore.  Oh, it was horrible to see!  He was not dead, however, as I had
+thought, but only in a state of stupor, breathing heavily and making a
+strange stertorous sound as if snoring.
+
+His fellow-sufferer aft, who did not appear to have suffered so much as
+his comrade, had seemingly swooned from exhaustion or exposure; as, on
+my putting my arm round him and lifting up his bent head, the man opened
+his eyes and murmured something faintly in some foreign lingo--Spanish,
+I think it was; at any rate a language I did not understand.
+
+But I was unable to notice anything beyond these details, which I
+grasped in that one hurried glance; for as I was in the act of raising
+up the poor chap in the stern-sheets, the skipper hailed me from the
+bridge above.
+
+"Below there!" he sang out.  "How are the poor fellows?  Are they alive,
+Haldane?"
+
+"They are in a bad way, sir," I replied.  "They've got the life left in
+them and that's all, I'm afraid!"
+
+"Neither dead, then?"
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Bravo! `whilst there's life there's hope,'" cried the skipper in a
+cheery tone.  "Are they quite helpless, do you think, Haldane--I mean
+quite unable to climb up the side?"
+
+"Quite unable, sir," I answered.  "One's unconscious, and I don't think
+the other could move an inch if he tried!"
+
+"Then we must haul 'em up," said Captain Applegarth, turning to Masters,
+who had popped his head over the bulwarks and was now looking down into
+the boat, like the rest of the hands on board.  "I say, bo'sun, can't
+you rig up a chair or something that we can lower down for the poor
+fellows?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," responded old Masters, drawing in his head from the
+bulwarks and disappearing from my view as I looked upwards from the
+stern-sheets, where I was still holding up the slowly-recovering man.
+"I'll rig up a whip from the foreyard and we can let down a hammock for
+'em, tricing up one at a time."
+
+"Stay, cap'en," cried Mr Fosset as the boatswain went bustling off, I
+suppose, though of course from my position I could not see him, to carry
+out this plan of his.  "The davits here amidship are all right, as well
+as the tackle of our cutter that had got washed away in the gale.
+Wouldn't it be easier to let down the falls, sir, and run up the boat
+all standing with the poor fellows in her as they are?"
+
+"By George, the very thing, Fosset!" exclaimed the skipper, accepting
+the suggestion with alacrity.  "It will save the poor fellows a lot of
+jolting, and be all the easier for us, as you say.  Besides, the little
+craft will come in handy for us, as we're rather short of boats just
+now!"
+
+"Short of boats, sir!" repeated the first mate ironically as he set to
+work at once, with the help of a couple of the hands who jumped to his
+side to assist him the moment he spoke, casting off the lashings of the
+davits so as to rig them outwards, letting go at the same time the hooks
+of the fall blocks and overhauling the running gear.  "Why, sir, we
+haven't even the dinghy left intact after that clean sweep we had from
+the wave that pooped us!"
+
+"Oh, aye, I know that well enough," said the skipper drily.  "But, look
+alive now, Fosset, with that tackle, and don't be a month of Sundays
+over the job!  Send down two of the cutter's crew to overrun the falls
+and drop down into the boat.  They can help Haldane in holding up that
+poor chap astern and also bear a hand in hoisting up."
+
+"All right, sir; we're just ready," shouted back the first mate as he
+gave the word to let go.  "Lower away there with the slack of those
+falls.  Easy, my man, gently does it!"
+
+In another instant down came the fall blocks, with one of the hands
+hanging on to each, the men alighting "gingerly" on the thwarts of the
+boat in the bow and stern of the little craft, which became immersed
+almost up to the gunwales with the additional weight.
+
+This was only for a moment, for the next minute Mr Fosset gave the
+signal to "hoist away," the falls having been hooked on beneath the
+thwarts in a jiffey, and up we all went in mid air, "between the devil
+and the deep sea," as we say afloat sometimes!
+
+"Bravo!" cried the skipper when we reached the level of the gangway and
+were all able to step out on to the deck.  "That's very handsomely done,
+my lads!  Now let us see about lifting the poor fellows out.  That chap
+there in the bows seems in a very bad way!  You'd better carry him into
+the cuddy at once and let Mr O'Neil look after him."
+
+"Indade, I will, sor," said our doctor-mate, who was standing near by
+with a spirit flask in one hand and a medicine glass in the other, ready
+to give immediate succour to the rescued men.  "Carry the poor beggar
+along an' I'll be afther ye in a minnit; for this other misfortunate
+gossoon here looks as if he wouldn't be the worst for a dhrop of good
+brandy, an' faith, I'll say to him fourst, avic!"
+
+So saying the Irishman poured some of the contents of the spirit flask
+into the glass, which he held to the lips of the man.  Mr Fosset and I
+were supporting him in our arms against the side of the boat, whence we
+had just removed him.
+
+The poor fellow's strength returned to him almost as soon as he had
+sipped a drop or two of the brandy, and, starting away from the first
+mate and myself, as if no longer needing our aid, he stood erect on the
+deck.
+
+"_Mil gracias, amigos_," he said, with a polite inclination of his head,
+in apology like for shaking himself free from us.  "_Estoy major_!"
+
+Captain Applegarth stepped up to him.
+
+"I am sorry I can't speak Spanish, sir, though I understand you to say
+you're better.  We're Englishmen all on board this ship, sir, and I'm
+glad we've been able to pick you up."
+
+The eyes of the man glistened and a pleased expression stole over his
+face.
+
+"What!  You are English! he exclaimed excitedly.  But--but I'm an
+American!  Only I've been so long in Venezuela amongst Spaniards that I
+sometimes forget my own language."
+
+Our skipper was equally delighted.
+
+"By George!" he said.  "I was sure you were no blessed foreigner, in
+spite of your lingo, sir!  Welcome on board _the Star of the North_."
+
+The stranger looked round and his manner changed at once, and he pointed
+towards our funnels anxiously and their escaping steam.
+
+"A steam vessel, eh!"
+
+"Yes, sir," said the skipper.  "I command her, sir.  Cap'en Applegarth,
+at your service!"
+
+"The deuce!  I was forgetting.  We passed you last night, I remember
+now! and you're the captain?"
+
+"Aye!" replied the skipper, not quite making out what the other was
+driving at.  "I'm captain of this ship!"
+
+"Merciful Heavens!" cried the rescued man, falling on his knees on the
+deck and bursting into a passion of sobs.  "Thanks be to God!  Yes,
+thanks be to God!  You will save her, captain.  You will save her?"
+
+The skipper thought the evident suffering he had gone through had turned
+his brain.
+
+"Save who?" he asked, adding in a kinder tone: "Of course, we'll do
+anything and everything we can for you, but I must know my bearings
+first, my friend."
+
+The man was on his feet at once.
+
+"I am not mad, captain, as you appear to think.  I can see from your
+manner you think so," he said.  "I want you to save my Elsie, my only
+child, my little daughter, whom those villains, those black devils, are
+carrying off!"
+
+"Your only child, your daughter--black devils," echoed Captain
+Applegarth, astonished at the poor man's speech and at his wild and
+agonised look.  "What do you mean, sir?"
+
+"Heavens!  We're losing time while those scoundrels are getting away
+with the ship!" exclaimed the other frantically and walking to and fro
+in a most excited state.  "Fire up the engines, pile on the coals and
+steam like the devil! and go in chase of her, my good captain, you will?
+For Heaven's sake, captain, for the love of God, start at once in chase
+of her!"
+
+"In chase of whom?" asked Captain Applegarth, still believing him to be
+out of his mind.  "In chase of whom?"
+
+The man uttered a heart-rending cry, in which anger, grief and piteous
+appeal were alike blended.
+
+"In chase of a band of black miscreants who have committed murder and
+piracy on the high seas!" he ejaculated in broken accents.  "The blood
+of a number of white men massacred by treacherous negroes calls for
+vengeance, the safety of a young girl and the lives of your brother
+sailors still on board the ship calls to you for help and rescue!  Great
+Heaven!  Will you stand idly by and not render the aid you can?  Think,
+captain, a little girl like your own daughter--my Elsie, my little one!
+Yes, and white men, your brothers, and sailors, too, like yourselves, at
+the mercy of a gang of black ruffians!  Sir, will you help them or not?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
+
+WE START IN CHASE OF THE SHIP.
+
+The effect of this appeal was electrical, not only on the skipper, but
+on all of us standing by.
+
+"Great heavens, man!" cried the captain, staring at the other in wild
+astonishment.  "What do you mean?  I cannot understand you, sir.  Your
+ship, you say--"
+
+"My words are plain enough, captain," said the stranger, interrupting
+the skipper.  "Our ship, the _Saint Pierre_, is in the possession of a
+gang of Haytian negroes who rose on us while we were on the high seas
+and murdered most of the officers and the crew.  They then threw poor
+Captain Alphonse, who commanded her, overboard, after they had half
+killed him, and the rest of the unfortunate sailors and passengers,
+amongst them my little daughter, are now at the mercy of the black
+devils!"
+
+"My God!" exclaimed the skipper, confounded by this lucid statement.
+"And you, sir?"
+
+"I am an American!" said the other with a proud air, drawing himself up
+to his full height of six feet and more, and with his eyes flashing,
+while a red flush mounted to his cheeks, which had formerly been deadly
+pale.  "I'm a white man, captain, and it's not likely I would stand by
+and see people of my own colour butchered!  Of course, sir, I went to
+the poor captain's assistance, but then the murderers served me almost
+as badly as they did him, chucking me overboard after him."
+
+"I beg your pardon, sir, I'm sure, for appearing to doubt your story,"
+cried the skipper, stretching forward his hand, which the other eagerly
+grasped.  "The fact is, sir, I thought at first your sufferings had set
+your head wrong; but now I need hardly say I believe thoroughly every
+word you've told us, and you may rely on my aid and that of every man
+aboard here to help you and yours.  There's my hand on it, sir, and my
+word you'll find as good as my bond, so sure as my name is Jack
+Applegarth!"
+
+"And mine, captain, is Vereker, Colonel Vereker, at your service,"
+returned the other, reciprocating the skipper's cordiality as he looked
+him straight in the face, holding his hand the while in a firm grip.  He
+let go the skipper's fist, however, the next moment and a puzzled
+expression came into his eyes as he glanced round occasionally,
+apparently in search of some one or other.  "Heavens!  Where's my
+unfortunate comrade who was in the boat with me--poor Captain Alphonse?
+Alas, I had forgotten him!"
+
+"We have not forgotten him, though, colonel," said the skipper smiling.
+"He has been carried below to the saloon on the maindeck, where my
+second mate, Mr O'Neil, who is a qualified surgeon, is now attending to
+his injuries.  He has been terribly mauled, poor fellow; we could see
+that!"
+
+"Aye, terribly!" repeated the other with a shudder, as if the
+recollection of all he and his fellow-sufferers had gone through
+suddenly came back to him at the moment.  "But, great Heavens! captain,
+we're losing time and that accursed ship with those scoundrels and our
+remaining comrades, and with my darling child on board, is speeding away
+while we're talking here.  You will, will you not, Senor Applegarth, go
+in pursuit of her, my friend?"
+
+"By George I will, colonel; I will at once--immediately--if you'll tell
+me her bearings," cried the skipper excitedly.  "When was it this
+terrible affair happened?  When did you leave the ship, and where?"
+
+"The revolt of the blacks, or mutiny, I should call it, captain, broke
+out four days ago, on last Friday, indeed, sir," said the American
+promptly in his deep musical voice, and whose foreign accent obliterated
+all trace of the unmelodious Yankee twang.  "But we kept the rascals at
+bay until last night, soon after sundown, when they made an ugly rush
+and overpowered us.  Captain Alphonse had just sighted your vessel in
+the distance and was burning a blue light over the stern to attract your
+attention, so as to get assistance at the time this happened."
+
+"Was yours a large, full-rigged ship?"
+
+"Yes, sir, the _Saint Pierre_ is of good size and had all her sails
+set," replied the other to the skipper's question.  "We were running
+before the wind with our helm lashed amidship, as it had been since the
+previous Friday, for we were all too busy defending our lives to think
+of attending to the ship."
+
+"Steering about nor'-east, I suppose?"
+
+"Confound it, captain!" said the colonel impatiently.  "We were
+drifting, I tell you, sir, at the mercy of the elements, and heaven only
+knows how we were going!  Fortunately, the weather was pretty fair, save
+the very day the mutiny broke out, when it blew heavily and our canvas
+got split to pieces as there was no one to go aloft and take it in.
+Otherwise we must have gone to the bottom!"
+
+"By George!" exclaimed the skipper, turning round to old Masters and
+myself, who were still standing by with the hands who had come aft to
+haul up the boat.  "Then my bo'sun here, and this young officer were
+right when they declared they saw a large full-rigged ship to the
+westward of us, though I only noticed the light of your flare-up.  You
+were too far off for me to make you out."
+
+"_Ojala_!" ejaculated the American, reverting again to the familiar
+Spanish tongue in his emotion.  "Would to God, captain, you _had_ seen
+us!"
+
+"It would have been useless if I had, my friend," said the skipper
+soothingly.  "We couldn't move to come to your assistance if every soul
+on board had seen you and known your peril, sir; for our engines were
+broken-down and we were not able to get up steam again until late this
+afternoon, when we ran down to pick you up!"
+
+"But, sir," hastily whispered the colonel, suppressing a sob of emotion,
+"you can and will steam now?"
+
+"Why ask?" replied the skipper.  "The moment we know where to go in
+search of your ship, that very moment we'll start and try to overhaul
+her.  You say you quitted her last night?"
+
+"Quitted her?  We were _thrown_ overboard, sir, by the black devils!"
+
+Captain Applegarth in reply said calmly, "Yes, yes, of course,"
+accepting the correction and trying by his manner to soothe the
+infuriated man.  "But what time was that?"
+
+"I can't say the exact hour," replied the American, whose vexed tone
+showed that the captain's methodical mode of setting to work did not
+quite harmonise with the excited state of his feelings.  "I think,
+however, it must have been nearly seven o'clock, as well, sir, as I can
+remember."
+
+Then I chimed in.  "Ah!"  I exclaimed quickly, "that was just the _very
+time_ that Masters and I heard the shooting in the distance to win'ard,
+and it was six bells in the second dog watch!"
+
+"So it were, Master Haldane; so it were," agreed the old boatswain,
+looking from me to the skipper and then at Colonel Vereker.  "Well, I'm
+blowed! and I'm glad, then, for that there ghost-ship wor a rael ship
+arter all said and done.  Now who was right, I'd like to know?"
+
+"Of course it was a real ship, you old dotard!" said the skipper gruffly
+and looking angrily at him.  "Of course it was," he added, while our new
+acquaintance looked at us, unable, naturally, to understand the mystical
+allusion; but Captain Applegarth soon turned his roving thoughts into
+another direction by asking him a second question.  "How long did you
+keep in sight of your vessel after leaving her, colonel, do you think?"
+
+"She was in full view of us at sunrise this morning," replied the
+American.  "The boat in which we were adrift kept near her all night as
+there was very little wind, if any.  A slight breeze sprang up shortly
+after the sun rose and she then steadily increased her distance from us
+as the day wore on, finally disappearing from my gaze about noon, and
+taking with her my little darling, my pet, my Elsie."
+
+The poor fellow broke down again at this point throwing up his hands
+passionately and burying his face in them, his whole frame convulsed
+with sobs, though not a man present thought his emotion a thing to be
+ashamed of, all of us being deeply interested in his narrative, and as
+anxious as himself for the skipper to start off in pursuit of the black
+mutineers and pirates.
+
+We were not long kept in suspense, the colonel's last words and violent
+burst of emotion apparently touching our "old man's" feelings deeply,
+and hastening his decision.
+
+"Cheer up, sir, cheer up," said he to the other, whose shoulders still
+shook with his deep hysterical sobs.  "And we'll find your little girl
+yet for you all right, and restore her to you, and we'll settle matters
+too, with those scoundrels, I promise.  Now tell me how far off do you
+think the ship must have drifted from us by now, Mr Fosset."
+
+"Between twenty and thirty miles, sir," replied the first mate.  "She
+was lighter than us, and of course she had the advantage of what wind
+there has been, though, thank goodness, that has been little enough!"
+
+"Away to the nor'-east, I suppose?"
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," said Mr Fosset.  "The breeze, what there was, has been
+from the sou'-east and the current trends in the same direction."
+
+"Then if we steer east-nor'-east we ought to pick her up soon?"
+
+"Not a doubt of it, sir.  We have four good hours of daylight left yet!"
+
+"Precisely my opinion," cried the skipper.  "Mr Stokes, will the
+engines stand full speed now, do you think?"
+
+"Oh, yes, sir," replied the old chief, who with the rest of us was all
+agog to be after the strange ship again, now that he had heard the
+colonel's explanation of her true character, "if you'll send some one
+below to tell Stoddart what you want.  I would go myself, but I'm rather
+shaky in getting down the hatchway as yet.  I twisted my arm just now
+when I went down."
+
+"That's all right.  Stoddart, I am sure, will excuse you," said the
+skipper kindly, and turning to me he added: "You, Haldane, run down and
+tell Stoddart we want all the steam we can get.  He won't spare the
+engines, I know, when he knows the circumstances of the case, and you
+will explain matters!"
+
+So saying, the skipper started off forwards in the direction of the
+bridge, while I dived down the engine-room hatchway, reaching the
+machinery-flat just as the "old man" sounded the gong to put on full
+speed ahead, the telegraph working quick as if he were in a great hurry!
+
+Ere I could tell my story Stoddart sent an answering blast up the steam
+pipe to let the skipper know his signal was being attended to; and then,
+pulling back the lever of the throttle valve, the piston began to go up
+and down, the cylinder oscillated from side to side and the crank shaft
+revolved at first slowly, but presently faster and faster until we were
+now going to the utmost of our pace.
+
+All this while I was yarning away, though I had to shout to the top of
+my voice in order to overcome the noise of the machinery, as I described
+all that had occurred.
+
+I did not speak to unheeding ears.
+
+"By Jove, Haldane!" cried Stoddart, who was a man of action if ever
+there was one.  "The cylinder is all right again and will bear any
+pressure now, and I tell you what it is, the old barquey shall steam
+along in pursuit of those demons faster than she ever went in her life
+since she was launched and engined!"
+
+"I am with you there, old fellow," said Grummet, our third engineer,
+hastening towards the stoke-hold.  "I'll go down and see the firemen and
+stir them up and put some more oilers to work in the screw well, to
+lubricate the shaft so as to prevent the bearings from overheating."
+
+"That's your sort, my hearty," said Stoddart.  "So you can return on
+deck, Haldane, and tell the skipper and Mr Stokes that everything shall
+be done down here by us to overhaul your `ghost-ship.'"
+
+He laughed as he uttered this little piece of chaff at my expense, the
+story being now the common property of everybody on board, and I
+laughed, too, as I ran up the hatchway with my clothes nearly dry again,
+even drying in the short space of time I had been in the hot atmosphere
+below, although, goodness knows, they had been wet enough when I had
+gone down, having had no time or opportunity to shift them after my dip
+overboard when taking the line to the drifting boat.
+
+On reaching the main deck I met Spokeshave.
+
+He was coming out from the saloon, and from his puffy face and corpulent
+appearance generally, he looked as if he had been making a haul on the
+steward's pantry, although he had not long had his dinner and it was a
+good way off tea time.
+
+"Hullo!" he cried out on seeing me.  "I say, that chap O'Neil is having
+a fine go of it playing at doctoring.  He has got a lot of ugly long
+knives and saws laid out on the cuddy table and I think he's going to
+cut off the chap's leg!"
+
+"Which chap do you mean?"  I asked; "not the colonel?"
+
+"Aye," said he.  "The chap with the moustache and long hair, like
+Hamlet, you know!"
+
+"My good chap," said I, "you seem to know a good deal about other chaps,
+or think you do, but I never heard before of Hamlet having a moustache
+like a life-guardsman!  Irving doesn't wear one when he takes the part,
+if I recollect right, my joker.  You think yourself mighty knowing!"
+
+"Quite so," replied Master Spokeshave, using his favourite phrase as
+usual.  "But you don't call Irving Shakespeare, Haldane, do ye?"
+
+"I don't know anything of the matter, old boy.  I am not so well
+informed as you are concerning the dramatic world, Spokeshave.  I know
+you're a regular authority or `toffer,' if you like, on the subject.
+Don't you think, however, you're a bit hard on poor Irving, who, I've no
+doubt, would take a word of advice from you if you spoke kindly to him
+and without that cruel sarcasm which you're apt to use?"
+
+The little beggar actually sniggered over this, being of the opinion
+that I was paying a just tribute to his histrionic acumen and judgement
+in things theatrical, on which he prided himself on account of his
+having appeared once behind the footlights in a theatre in Liverpool, as
+a "super," I believe, and in a part where he had nothing to say!
+
+"Quite so, Haldane; quite so," chuckled Spokeshave, as pleased as Punch
+at the imaginary compliment.  "_I do_ believe I could teach Irving a
+thing or two if I had the mind to!"
+
+"Yes, you donkey, if you _had_ the mind to," said I witheringly, by
+giving an emphasis he did not mean to his own words.  "`Very like a
+whale,' as our old friend Polonius says in the play, the real _Hamlet_,
+I mean, my boy, not your version of it.  `Very like a whale,' indeed!"
+
+"I'm sure, Mr Haldane," he answered loftily, cocking his long nose in
+the air with a supercilious sniff, "I don't know what ye mean."
+
+"And I've no time to waste telling you now," returned I.
+
+At that moment we emerged on the open deck from under the back of the
+poop, where we had been losing our time and talking nonsense; and,
+looking towards the bridge forward, I saw Colonel Vereker, the very
+person about whom we had been speaking, standing by the side of the
+skipper.
+
+"O, Lor', Spokeshave, what a crammer!"  I cried.  "You said not a moment
+ago that Garry O'Neil was about to cut off the colonel's leg, while
+there he is standing there, all right!"
+
+"I didn't say he had cut it off yet," he retorted; "I said he was going
+to cut it off.  O'Neil told me so himself."
+
+"Then," said I, "instead of cutting off the poor colonel's leg, he was
+only `pulling your leg,' my joker!"
+
+The cross-grained little beggar, however, did not seem to quite
+understand the term I employed thus in joke, though it was used at sea
+to express the fact of "taking a rise" out of any one, and a common
+enough saying.
+
+"I'm not the only fellow who tells crammers," he grimly muttered.  "How
+about that yarn of yours of the blessed `ghost-ship' you saw the other
+night, I'd like to know.  I believe, too, that the colonel, as you call
+him, is only an impostor and that the skipper is going on just such a
+wild-goose chase after this ship of his, which he says was captured by
+pirates, as he did that Friday hunting your _Flying Dutchman_! wasting
+our time with your idiotic story.  Pirates and niggers, indeed!  Why,
+this chap, I'll bet, is a nigger himself, and more of a pirate than any
+one we'll come across if we steam from here to the North Pole.  Put that
+in your pipe and smoke it, Dick Haldane; you and your confounded `ghost-
+ship' together!  Such utter humbug and nonsense, and thinking you take
+people in with such yarns in these days!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
+
+FULL SPEED AHEAD.
+
+I was so indignant at what the spiteful little brute said that I
+incontinently turned on my heel and left him without another word, going
+forwards towards the bridge to give the skipper Stoddart's message.
+
+Here, the sight of Colonel Vereker's grand figure--one that would be
+remarkable anywhere, towering above the rail and almost herculean in its
+massive proportions, coupled with the sad look in his noble face, and
+which reminded me somehow or other of one of the pictures of the old
+Cavaliers of the Stuart days, made me resent the more the baseless
+imputation of his being an imposter.
+
+The idea of such a thing being possible could only have occurred to an
+ignoble mind like that of Spokeshave; for one single glance at the
+distinguished-looking gentleman's speaking countenance, with its finely-
+chiselled features and lofty open brow, would have satisfied any
+unprejudiced person that his was a nature incompatible with deceit and
+meanness, even in the most remote degree.
+
+"Well, young Haldane!" exclaimed old Mr Stokes, whom I found with
+Captain Applegarth and the colonel when I reached the wheel-house.
+
+"What do those smart chaps of mine down below say, hey, my boy?"
+
+His face beamed as he spoke and he looked as if he would have liked to
+have rubbed his hands together in his old way when he felt particularly
+jolly, but unfortunately his crippled arm, which was still in a sling,
+prevented that!
+
+"Oh, that's all right, sir," I replied in an equally cheery tone, the
+old chief's genial address making me forget at once my anger at
+Spokeshave's contemptible nonsense.  "Mr Stoddart directed me to tell
+the cap'en that he may go on ahead as usual, as he likes, for everything
+has been made taut and secure below and there need be no fear of another
+mishap.  He says he intends driving the engines as they were never
+driven before, and he has put every fireman and oiler in the stoke-hold
+on the job."
+
+"Bravo!" cried the skipper, sounding the gong again and yelling down the
+voice-tube that led below like one possessed.  "Fire up, below there,
+and let her rip!"
+
+"Dear, dear," panted Mr Stokes, whose fears for his engines, which he
+regarded with the affection which a young mother might bestow on her
+first baby, began to overcome his interest in the chase after the black
+pirates.  "I hope you and Stoddart, between you, won't be rash, cap'en.
+I hope--I do hope you won't!"
+
+"Nonsense, Stokes, you old croker; just you shut up!" said the skipper.
+"Keep her steady, east-nor'-east, helmsman!  Now, my dear colonel, at
+last we really are after those infernal rascals in earnest; and, sir,
+between you and me and the binnacle, we'll be up to them before long
+before nightfall, I'll wager!"
+
+"I hope to heaven we will, Senor Applegarth," replied the other sadly,
+but eagerly.  "But, alas! the ocean is wide, and we may miss the ship.
+I cannot bear to think of it!"
+
+"Oh, but we won't miss her!" said the skipper confidently, and he was
+the last man to give up hope.  "Take my davy for that, sir.  She must be
+within a radius of from twenty to thirty miles of our present bearings
+on the chart, somewhere here away to the eastwards, sir; and if we make
+a long leg to leeward and then bear up to the north'ard and west'ard
+again, we'll overhaul her--I'm sure of it--yes, sure of it, in no time.
+Look, colonel, look how we're going now.  By George, ain't that a bow
+wave for you, sir, and just see our wake astern!"
+
+The old barquey was certainly steaming ahead at a great rate, the sea
+coming up before her in a high ridge that nearly topped the fo'c's'le,
+and welling under her counter on either hand in undulating furrows that
+spread out beneath her stern in the form of a broad arrow, widening
+their distance apart as she moved onward, while the space between was
+frosted as if with silver by the white foam churned up by the ever-
+whirling propeller blades, beating the water with their rhythmical
+iteration, thump-thump, thump-thump, thump-thump!
+
+There was no "racing" of the screw now, for Neptune was in one of his
+quiet moods and there were no big rollers to surmount, or deep wave
+valleys to descend into; consequently the old barquey had no excuse for
+giving way to any gambolling propensities in the water of pitching and
+tossing, steaming away on an even keel and using every inch of power of
+her engines, with not an ounce to waste in the way of mis-spent force!
+
+And so on we went, tearing through the water, a blue sky overhead
+unflecked by a single cloud, a blue sea around that sparkled in sunshine
+and reflected harmonies of azure and gold, save where the bright fresh
+western breeze rippled its surface with laughing wavelets that chuckled
+as they splashed the spray into each other's faces, or where we passed a
+stray scrap of gulf-weed with its long yellow filaments spread out like
+fingers vainly clutching at the wavelets, as if imploring them to be
+still, or where again the dense black smoke from our funnels made a
+canopy in the sky athwart our track, obscuring the shimmering surface of
+the deep with a grim path of shadow that checked the mirth of the
+lisping young wavelets and even awed the sunshine when it came in closer
+contact anon, as the wind waved it this way and that at its will.
+
+"Hi, bo'sun!" shouted out the skipper presently, after carrying on like
+this for a goodish spell, the deck working beneath our feet and the
+_Star of the North_ seeming to be flying through water and air alike by
+a series of leaps and bounds, quivering down to her very kelson with the
+sustained motion and the ever-driving impulse of her masterful engines
+spurring her onward.  "How is she going now, eh?"
+
+Old Masters was away aft on the poop hauling in the patent log, which
+had been hove over the side on our beginning the run, and the next
+minute, as soon as he was able to look at the index of the instrument,
+he answered the skipper's question.
+
+"Sixteen knots, sir!" he sang out, and then we could hear the old sea
+dog add his customary comment, whether of approval or discontent, "Well,
+I'm blowed!"
+
+"By George, colonel!" cried Captain Applegarth to our melancholy-looking
+guest at his side.  "We're going sixteen knots, sir; just think of that!
+I didn't believe the dear old barquey had it in her!"
+
+"It is a good, wonderful speed, captain," replied the other, who, I
+noticed, was looking even more exhausted now than when we removed him
+from the boat.  "Remember, though, sir, the _Saint Pierre_ is sailing on
+all this time before the wind, as she was this morning, and must be
+miles ahead of us!"
+
+"Aye, I know she's going; or at least, I suppose so, and I've made every
+allowance for that in my calculation of her whereabouts," returned our
+skipper, in nowise daunted by the colonel's argument.  "But if she had
+every rag set that she could carry, she couldn't go more than three or
+four knots at the most, in this light breeze; and for every foot she
+covers we're going five!"
+
+"That is true," said the American, with a very weary and absent look on
+his face.  "But--but I'm afraid we may be too late after all!  I--I'm--
+God protect--my--my--"
+
+"The fact is, my dear sir," cried the skipper abruptly, interrupting him
+as the other hesitated in his speech, turning a deadly white and
+clutching at the bridge rail in front of him, as if to save himself from
+falling or fainting.  "You're completely worn out and your nerves
+shaken!  Why, you can't have had much, if any, sleep the last three or
+four days--not since that rumpus broke out aboard your ship, eh?"
+
+"Heavens!" ejaculated the other.  "I don't think I have closed my eyes,
+senor, since Friday, excepting when I was drifting in the boat, part of
+which time I must have been senseless; for though I recollect seeing
+your vessel, and trying to signal her by holding up a piece of the
+bottom planking of the boat, as we hadn't oar or sail in her, I have no
+remembrance of seeing your vessel steaming up to help us, or of this
+brave young gentleman here jumping into the water and swimming to our
+assistance, as you tell me, captain, that he gallantly did.  Believe me,
+sir, I shall never forget you, and I shall be ever and eternally
+grateful to you for that noble act of yours!"
+
+He half-turned and bowed to me politely as he said this, but I was too
+much confused, by his exaggerated estimate of what I had done to say
+anything at the moment in reply.  And, after all, it was only a very
+simple thing to do, to swim with a line to a boat; any other fellow
+could have done the same, and would have done it under the same
+circumstances.
+
+The skipper, however, spoke for me.
+
+"Come, come, sir," he said.  "Haldane only did his duty, like the brave
+lad he is; and I'm sure you only make him uncomfortable by your thanks.
+I want you, colonel, to go below and have a little rest and some
+refreshment.  Besides, I promised Mr O'Neil to send you down to have
+your wounded leg dressed and seen to, more than half an hour ago, when
+he came up on deck after attending to that other poor chap, and yet here
+you are still, talking and exciting yourself.  How is your leg now,
+colonel?  Easier?"
+
+"Confound it!  No, no!" replied the other, with a writhe of torture as
+he changed his position so as to relieve the strain on the wounded limb,
+which I had quite forgotten about, the brave follow having stoically
+repressed all indication of pain while urging on the pursuit of the
+black mutineers.  "It's hurting me like the devil!  But, sir, I cannot
+rest or leave the deck till we come up to that accursed ship and save my
+poor child, my little darling--if we be not too late, too late!"
+
+"This is nonsense, sir," said the skipper bluntly, and rather angrily, I
+thought, and he continued:
+
+"The ship, we know, must be a goodish bit ahead of us still, and we
+can't possibly overhaul her for an hour or more at the earliest.  So
+come, cheer up, and come along with me and have your leg attended to at
+once.  I insist, colonel; come."
+
+"But," persisted Colonel Vereker, evidently trying to make out the time
+in arguing, and loth to leave the scene of action, though apparently
+ready to drop now from sheer pain and exhaustion combined, "Who will--
+who will--"
+
+"My first officer here, Mr Fosset, will remain on the bridge during our
+absence below," interposed Captain Applegarth, anticipating his last,
+unuttered objection.  "He's quite competent to take charge, and I'm sure
+will let us know the moment the ship comes in sight, if she appears
+before we return on deck."
+
+"Aye, that I will, sir," cried out Mr Fosset.  "I'll keep a sharp look-
+out, and I'll hail you, sir, sharp enough, as soon as she heaves in
+sight on the horizon."
+
+"There!" exclaimed the skipper in an exultant tone, taking hold of the
+colonel's reluctant arm and placing it within his own, so as to lead him
+away and to give him the benefit of his support down the bridge-ladder.
+"Won't that satisfy you now, sir, and you see you'll lose nothing by
+going below for a spell?  Come, come, my good friend, have the leg seen
+to and eat something, for you must require it.  Why, colonel, unless you
+keep up your strength and spur yourself up a bit, you won't be able to
+tackle those black scoundrels when we get up to the ship and catch them,
+and it comes to a fight, as I expect it will.  So come along, my hearty;
+rouse yourself and come!"
+
+This concluding remark of the old skipper affected more than all his
+previous persuasion, the colonel at once allowing himself to be helped
+down the laddering without further demur, and so along the gangway on
+the upper deck, towards the lower entrance to the saloon under the beak
+of the poop, I lending the aid of my shoulder for the crippled man to
+lean on as he limped painfully onward, having to pause at almost every
+step, his wounded leg dragging now so much, now that excitement no
+longer sustained his flagging frame; the skipper gave aid too, his arm
+propping him up on the other side.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
+
+DOCTOR AND PATIENT.
+
+"Faith, it's moighty glad I am, sor, to say you at last!" cried Garry
+O'Neil, starting up from his seat at the cuddy table, on our ultimately
+reaching the saloon, where the Irish mate was having a rather late lunch
+with Mr Stokes, who had preceded us below.  "I was jist comin' after ye
+ag'in, colonel, whin I had snatched a bit mouthful to kape the divvil
+out of me stomach, sure.  I want to inspict that game leg o' yours, sor,
+now that I've sittled your poor f'ind's h'id.  Begorrah, colonel,
+somebody gave him a tidy rap on the skull whin they were about it!"
+
+"It was done with a hand-spike," explained the other, groaning with pain
+as we assisted him to a seat at the further end of the table, where the
+skipper's armchair was drawn out for him to fix him up more comfortably.
+"One of those treacherous niggers came behind his back and dealt him a
+terrific blow that landed on the side of his head partly, nearly cutting
+his ear off!"
+
+"Aye, I saw that, sor, of course," put in Garry, pouring out some brandy
+into a tumbler which he proceeded to fill up with water--"_aqua pura_,"
+he called it.  "I've shtrapped it on ag'in now, and it looks as nate as
+ninepins.  But jist dhrink this, colonel, dear.  It'll warrm the cockles
+of your heart, sure, an' put frish loife into you!"
+
+The American took a sip first at the glass proffered him, and then
+drained off the contents with a deep sigh of satisfaction.
+
+"Ah!" he exclaimed, "I feel a little better.  But how is poor Captain
+Alphonse now?"
+
+"Bedad, he's gitting on illegantly," replied Garry, sniffing at a soup
+plate containing some steaming compound which Weston, the steward, had
+just brought in, and directing that worthy to place it in front of our
+poor invalid guest.  "There was a nasty paice of bone sphlinter sticking
+in the crayture's brainpan; but, first, I trepanned him an' raymoved the
+impiddimint, an' the poor chap's now slayping as swately as a babby,
+slayping in the cap'en's cot over yonder!  But come, colonel, I want ye
+to take some of this pay soup here afore I set to work carving ye about.
+Begorrah, it's foine stuff, an'll set ye up a bit to roights!"
+
+"Thank you a thousand times," returned he, taking a mouthful or two of
+the soup which Weston had placed before him, eating very sparingly at
+first like one who had been deprived of food for some time.  "I'm not
+afraid of your handling me, sir.  I have undergone too many operations
+for that!"
+
+"Faith, colonel," cried the Irishman, laughing in his usual good-
+tempered racy manner, "you'd best spake well of the craft or I'll be
+afther payin' you out, sure, alannah, whin I get your leg in me grip!
+Jist you stow some more o' that illigint soup inside your belt, sor,
+before I start on the job, an' while ye're aitin' I'll tell you how I
+once sarved out an old woman whom I was called in to docther, whin I was
+at ould Trinity, larnin' the profession, in faith!"
+
+"That's right, O'Neil," said the skipper, seeing his motive in trying to
+set our sad guest at his ease and to try and distract his thoughts from
+the awful anxiety and grief, under which he was labouring.  "Have I
+heard the yarn before, eh?"
+
+"Faith, not that I know of, cap'en," returned the doctor _pro tem_ in
+his free and easy manner.  "Begorrah, the joke's too much ag'inst
+meself, sor, for me to be afther tillin' the story too often!"
+
+"Never mind that; it will make it all the more interesting to us," said
+the skipper with a knowing wink to Mr Stokes, both of them knowing
+Garry's old stories only too well, but at such a time as this they would
+have listened to anything if it would only serve to distract the poor
+colonel's thoughts for a few minutes, and they chuckled in recollection
+of the many jokes against himself that Garry had perpetrated.  "Fire
+away with your yarn."
+
+"Bedad, then, here goes," began O'Neil with a grin.  "Ye must know,
+colonel, if you will have it, that I was only a `sucking sawbones,' so
+to spake, at the toime.  Faith, I was a medical studint in my first
+year, having barely mastered the bones."
+
+"The bones!" interrupted the skipper.  "What the deuce do you mean,
+man?"
+
+"Sure, the inthroductory study of anatomy, sor," explained Garry rather
+grandiloquently, going on with his yarn.  "Well, one foine day whin I
+an' another fellow who'd kept the same terms as mesilf were walking the
+hospital, wonderin' whin we'd be able to pass the college, sure the hall
+porter comes into the ward we were in an' axes if we knew where
+Professor Lancett, the house surgeon, was to be found, as he was wanted
+at once.
+
+"`Faix,' says Terence Mahony, my chum, the other medical studint who was
+with me.  `He's gone to say the Lord Lieutenant, who's been struck down
+with the maysles, an' the divvle only knows whin he'll get back from the
+castle, sure!  What's the matter, O'Dowd?  Who wants ould Lancett at
+this outlandish toime of day?'
+
+"The hall porter took Mahony's chaff, faith, in all sober sayriousness.
+`It's moighty sorry I am,' says he; `Master Lancett's gone to the
+castle, though proud I am for ould Trinity's sake, sayin' as how the
+Lord Lieutenant has for to send to us, sure, bekase them murtheren'
+'sassa docthers that he brought from over the say with him from Inkland
+ain't a patch on our chaps!  But, faix, sor, a poor woman as the
+professor knows is took moighty bad in her inside, some of her
+neighbours says, an' wants help at onst!'
+
+"`Who is it, O'Dowd?'  I asks.  `Do you know where she lives?'
+
+"`Mistress Flannagan's her name,' says the porter.  `She's Mistress
+Lancett's ould la'ndress, sor; a cantankerous ould woman, too, an' wid
+the divvle of a temper!  She lives jist out of Dame Strate, sure, in
+Abbey Lane.  Any one'll till ye the place, sure!'
+
+"`What say you to goin' to say the poor crayture?' says I to Terence
+Mahony.  `We'll lave word where we're gone, an' I'm sure Mr Lancett
+will be plaised to hear we're looking afther the ould lady!'
+
+"`Begorrah, that he will, sor,' agreed O'Dowd, the porter.  `It's
+moighty kind of you two young gintlemen going for to say her, an' I'll
+make a p'int of lettin' the docther know whin he comes back from the
+Lord Liftinnint!'
+
+"`All right, O'Dowd,' says I.  `Mind you till the professor, an' he can
+thin follow us up on his return to the college--that is, if he loikes!'
+
+"With that off the two of us wint on our errind of mercy, though it was
+lucky I lift that message with O'Dowd, as ye'll larn prisintly!
+
+"It didn't take us long to find the house where the sick woman was, for
+as we turned into the strate, a dirty ould hag, smoking a short pipe,
+came up to us with a smirk on her ugly phiz.
+
+"`God save Ireland!' says she, addressing Terence.  `Be yez the docther
+jintlemen from the hospital, avic?'
+
+"`Faix, we're that,' says my companion; `the pair of us!'
+
+"`Thin come along,' says she.  `Mistress Flannagan is dyin' to say you,
+sure.  The soight of yez is good for sore eyes!'
+
+"`Begorrah!' says Terence, `I wouldn't have come at all at all if she
+hadn't been dyin', the poor crayture!  Where is she?'
+
+"`In the corner there,' returns the old hag, removing her dirty little
+black dhudeen of a pipe for a minnit from between her teeth, in order to
+spake the bether.  `She's a-sottin' in that cheir there, as she hav'
+been since the mornin', widout sayin' a worrd to mortial saol afther she
+tould us to sind for the docther.  May the divvle fly away with me, but
+Peggy Flannagan can be obstinate in foith, whin she likes!'
+
+"Terence Mahony and I then poked our noses into the corner of the room,
+the old hag stirrin' the turf fire on the hearth to give us a bit of
+loight; an' then we saw the ould crayture, who looked as broad as she
+was long, sittin' in a big armchere, an' starin' at us with large, open
+eyes.  But though she was breythin' hard loike a grampus, she didn't
+spake nothin'!
+
+"`What's the mather, my good woman?' says Mahony, going up to her an'
+spaking kindly to the poor crayture.  `Let me feel your pulse.'
+
+"He caught hold of her hand, which hung down the side of the chere and
+fumbled at the wrist for some toime, the ould woman starin' an' sayin'
+nothin' at all at all!
+
+"`Faith, Garry O'Neil, I can't foind any pulse on her at all at all.
+She must be di'd, worse luck!'
+
+"`Och, you omahdaun; can't ye say her eyes open?' says I.  `Git out o'
+the way an' let me thry!'
+
+"Begorrah, though, I couldn't fale any pulse at all aythar.
+
+"`She's in a faint, I think,' says Terence, pretendin' for to know all
+about it.  `We had jist sich a case in hospital t'other day.  It's oine
+of suspended animation.'
+
+"`Blatheration, Terence,' I cried at hearing this.  `You'll be a case of
+suspended animation yoursilf by-and-bye.'
+
+"`Faith, how's that?' says he.  `What do you mean?'
+
+"`Why, whin you're hung, me bhoy! for your ignorance of your profession.
+Sure, one can say with half an eye the poor crayture is sufferin' from
+lumbago or peritonitas on the craynium, faith!'
+
+"As we were arguin' the p'int, the ould hag who had introduced us
+brought our discussion to an end jist as Terence made up his mind that
+the case was cholera or elephantiasis or something else equally
+ridiculous!
+
+"`Bad cess to the obstinate cantankerous ould crayture,' cried she,
+catching the poor sick woman by the scruff of the neck an' shakin' her
+violently backwards an' forrads, afther which she banged the poor thing
+violently on the sate of the chere.  `Will ye now spake to their
+honours, or will ye not?  Won't ye now?  She be that stubborn!' said
+she, turnin' to us; `did ye ivver see anythin' loike it afore?'
+
+"Mahony then tould her to put out her tongue, but the divvle a bit of
+her tongue saw we!  Nor would she say a worrd as to her ailment, to give
+us a clue, though I believe on me oath, colonel, we mintioned ivery
+complaint known in the Pharmacopaia, Terence even axin' civilly if she
+had chilblames in the throat, for it was the depth of winter at the
+toime, to prevent her talkin'!
+
+"But our coaxin' was all in vain, loike the ould hag's shaking!
+
+"Faith, not a worrd moved our patient.  She was that in all conscience,
+sure.
+
+"`Begorrah, I'll sind a bucket of could wather over her an' say if
+that'll tach her manners!' said the ould hag, who tould us her own name
+was Biddy Flynne, on our giving her an odd sixthpence for a dhrop of
+drink.  `It's a shame to bring yez honours out for nothin'!'
+
+"She was jist going to do what she had threatened, sure enough whin,
+providentially, in walked the professor from the college.
+
+"He'd been listenin' outside the door, I believe, all the toime Terence
+an' mesilf were talkin' an' arguin' about the ould dame's complaint,
+puzzlin' our brains to find out what was the mather with her, for the
+baste of a man had a broad grin on his face, loike that you say on a
+mealy petaty whin the jacket pales off of it, whin he toorned round to
+us afther examinin' poor Mistress Flannagan, now all a heap on her
+chere.
+
+"`Faith, I must complimint you, jintlemin, on the profound skill an'
+knowledge you have shown in your profession,' says he.  `I don't think I
+ivver heard a more ignorant or illeterate diagnosis of a case since I've
+been professor at Trinity College!'
+
+"He was a moighty polite man was Professor Lancett.  Terence an' I both
+agrayed on his sayin' this, an' thought our fortunes were made an' we'd
+git our diplomas at once, without any examination, sure!
+
+"But his nixt remark purty soon took the consate out of both of us.
+
+"`It's lucky for you two dunder-headed ignoramases!' he went on to say
+in a nasty sneerin' way the baste had with him whin he was angry and was
+any way put out.  `Preshous lucky for you, Misther Terence Mahony, an'
+you, too, Garry O'Neil, that I chanced to come afther you, thinkin' ye'd
+be up to some mischief, or else ye'd have put your foot in it with a
+vengeance an' murthered between you this poor, harmless ould woman lying
+here.  I am ashamed and disgusted with you!'
+
+"He thin prosayded to till what the poor crayture was sufferin' from,
+an' what d'ye think her complaint was, colonel?  Jist give a guess, now,
+jist to oblige me, sure."
+
+"Great Scot!" cried the American, smiling at O'Neil's naive manner and
+the happy and roguish expression on his face, our guest's appearance
+having been much improved, by the food of which he had partaken as well
+as the stimulant, which had put some little colour into his pale cheeks.
+"I'm sure I can't guess.  But what was it, sir, for you have excited my
+curiosity?"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
+
+A BLACK BUSINESS.
+
+"Be jabers, sor!" exclaimed the Irishman in his very broadest brogue and
+with a comical grin on his face that certainly must have eclipsed that
+of which he complained in the professor of his college who had caught
+him and his fellow-student trespassing on his medical preserves.  "To
+till the truth an' shame the divvle, colonel, the poor ould crayture,
+whose complaint we couldn't underconstumble at all at all, sure, was
+sufferin' from a fit of apoplexy--a thing aisy enough to recognise by
+any docther of experience, though, faith, it moight have been Grake to
+us!"
+
+We were all very much amused and had a good laugh at this naive
+confession, even Colonel Vereker sharing in the general mirth, in spite
+of his profound melancholy and the pain he felt from his wounded leg,
+which made him wince every now and again, I noticed, during the
+narration of the story Garry O'Neil had thus told, with the utmost good
+humour, it must be confessed, at his own expense, as, indeed, he had
+made us understand beforehand that it would be.
+
+"By George!" cried the skipper, after having his laugh out, "you'll be
+the death of me some day with your queer yarns, if you can't manage to
+do for me with your professional skill, or by the aid of your drugs and
+lotions, poisons, most of 'em, and all your murderous-looking
+instruments, besides!"
+
+"No fear of that, cap'en; you're too tough a customer," rejoined the
+doctor with a knowing look in the direction of Mr Stokes, who had made
+himself purple in the face and was panting and puffing on his seat,
+trying to recover his breath.  "Faith, though, sor, talkin' of medical
+skill, the sooner I say afther that leg of our fri'nd here, the better,
+I'm thinkin'."
+
+"With the best of wills," assented the colonel, who had finished his
+luncheon by this time and certainly presented a much improved appearance
+to that he had worn when entering the saloon.  "I am quite at your
+service, doctor, and promise to be as quiet as that first patient of
+yours of whom you've just told us!"
+
+"Belay that, colonel; none o' your chaff about the ould leddy, if you
+love me, sure!" growled Garry, pretending to be indignant as he knelt
+down on the cabin floor and slit up the leg of the colonel's trousers so
+as to inspect the wound.  His nonsensical, quizzing manner changed
+instantly, however, on seeing the serious state of the injured limb, and
+he ejaculated in a subdued tone of voice, "Holy Moses!"
+
+"Why, sir," said the patient quietly, "what's the matter now?"
+
+"Ah, an' ye are axin' what's the mather?" cried Garry in a still more
+astonished tone.  "Faith, it's wantin' to know I am how the divvle
+you've iver been able to move about at all, at all, colonel, with that
+thing there.  Look at it now, an' till me what ye think of it yoursilf,
+me darlint.  May the saints presairve us, but did any one iver say such
+a leg?"
+
+It was, in truth, a fearful-looking object, being swollen to the most
+abnormal proportions from the ankle joint to the thigh, while the skin
+was of a dark hue, save where some extravasated blood clustered about a
+small punctured orifice just above the knee.
+
+Colonel Vereker laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"The fortune of war," he explained.  "One of those brutes shot me where
+that mark is, but I think the bullet travelled all round my thigh and
+lodged somewhere in the groin, I fancy, for I feel a lump there."
+
+"Sure, I wonder you can fale anythin'!" cried Garry, who was probing for
+the missile all the time.  "A man that can walk about, faith, loike an
+opera dancer, with a blue-mouldy leg loike that, can't have much faling
+at all, at all, I'm thinkin'!"
+
+"Ah!" groaned his patient at last, on his touching the obnoxious bullet
+near the spot the colonel had indicated.  "Whew! that hurts at any rate,
+doctor!"
+
+"Just be aisy a minnit, me darlint," said the other soothingly,
+exchanging his probe for a pair of forceps and proceeding deftly to
+extract the leaden messenger.  "An' if ye can't be aisy, faith, try an'
+be as aisy as ye can!"
+
+In another second he had it out with a triumphant and gleeful shout.
+
+"Ah!" ejaculated the colonel, the excessive pain causing him to clench
+his teeth with an audible snap.
+
+"Faith, you may say `ah' now as much as you please," said Garry, as he
+held out the villainous-looking bullet gripped in his forceps.  "For
+there's the baste that did you all the damage, an' we'll soon pull you
+up, alannah, with that ugly paice of mischief out of the way, sure!"
+
+"Oh! dear me!" the poor colonel exclaimed as the doctor went on dressing
+the wound and afterwards set-to to bandage the whole leg, swathing it
+round like a mummy with lint, and then saturating it with some liniment
+to allay the swelling.  "Would to God all the mischief could be as
+easily made good!  Oh, my little Elsie, my darling little girl!"
+
+"Cheer up, colonel, cheer up," whispered the skipper, coming in from the
+state room on the starboard side of the saloon, whither he had gone to
+hunt up some special cigars while Garry O'Neil was accomplishing his
+surgical operation.  "We're going ahead as fast as steam and a good ship
+can carry us, and we'll rescue your child, I'll wager, before nightfall.
+Have a smoke now, my friend; and while you're trying one of the
+Havanah's, which never paid duty and are none the worse for that, you
+can tell us how it all happened from the beginning to the end.  I should
+like to hear the account of your voyage right through, colonel, and how
+those blacks came to board you."
+
+"Certainly!" said Colonel Vereker, leaning back in his easy chair when
+Garry O'Neil had made an end of bandaging his leg, and accepting one of
+the choice cigars the skipper offered him.  "I will tell you willingly,
+captain, and you, gentlemen, turning round and bowing to us, the sad
+story of our thrice ill-fated voyage."
+
+"Thrice ill-fated?" repeated Mr Stokes inquiringly, the chief being
+rather argumentative by nature and possessing what he called a strictly
+logical turn of mind.  "But how's that, sir?"
+
+The colonel had his answer quite ready.
+
+"I said `thrice ill-fated' advisedly, sir," he replied, removing his
+cigar from his lips to emit a cloud of perfumed smoke, and then
+restoring the fragrant roll of tobacco to the mouth again.  "In the
+first place, sir, from my having been unlucky enough ever to start upon
+the voyage at all.  Secondly, from the fact of a calm delaying us when
+passing between Puerto Rico and San Domingo, thereby enabling those
+treacherous negro scoundrels to see our ship in time to put out for us
+from the shore; and thirdly, because Captain Alphonse would not take my
+advice and use strong measures when the mutiny originally broke out,
+which might have prevented the terrible events that afterwards occurred!
+But, sir, if you will allow me, I shall get along better by telling you
+what happened, just in my own way!"
+
+"Certainly, sir," immediately replied Mr Stokes, profuse in his
+apologies.  "Pray pardon my interruption!"
+
+The colonel bowed in token of his forgiveness and then resumed his yarn.
+
+"Our ship, the _Saint Pierre_, of Marseilles, Jacques Alphonse master
+and part owner, sailed from La Guayra on October 25, barely a fortnight
+ago!" said he.  "In addition to her captain, of course, she carried two
+mates and a crew of twenty-five hands all told, and she was bound for
+Liverpool, with a general cargo of cocoa, coffee and hides, besides a
+mixed assortment of indigo, orris root, sarsaparilla and other raw drugs
+for the English market."
+
+"Were you and your little daughter the only passengers?"
+
+"No, Senor Applegarth," replied the other.  "There were also on board
+Monsieur and Madame Boisson, from Caracas, returning home to Europe
+after a lengthened residence in the Venezuelan capital, where they had
+carried on a large millinery business, supplying the dusky _senoritas_
+of the hybrid Spanish and native republic with the latest Parisian
+modes; Don Miguel, the proprietor of an extensive estancia in the
+interior; and little Mr Johnson, a Britisher, of not much account in
+your country, I guess, not a gentleman--at all events, in my humble
+opinion.  He was travelling for some mercantile house in London
+connected with the manufactory of chocolates or sweets, or something of
+that sort.  I cannot say I cared much for the lot, as they were not
+people of my class, so I did not allow my Elsie, my darling, my pet, to
+associate with them more than could be helped, save with Madame Boisson,
+who was a kind, good-natured sort of woman, though decidedly vulgar.  Oh
+dear me!  It was a thousand pities we ever started on that disastrous
+voyage.  It was unlucky from the very first!"
+
+"Faith!" interposed Garry O'Neil.  "But how was that, sor?"
+
+"We were too late in reaching La Guayra in the first instance," replied
+Colonel Vereker.  "I had planned, my friend, to take the French steamer
+for Brest, but on arriving at the port I found she had already left, and
+while deliberating about what I should do under the circumstances--for
+there would not be another mail boat for a fortnight at least--I met
+Captain Alphonse.  He was an old friend of mine, a friend of long
+standing, so, on his telling me that his vessel was going to sail on the
+following day, and would probably convey me to Brest, where he said he
+would have to report himself prior to proceeding to Liverpool with his
+cargo, quite as soon as I should arrive if I waited for the next
+steamer, I made up my mind to accompany him."
+
+"But, colonel," suggested Captain Applegarth, "you might have gone
+direct to England by one of the West India mail steamers which touch at
+La Guayra on their route homeward from Colon."
+
+"I know that, my friend," said the other.  "I could have caught one of
+them the following week.  This would not have suited my purpose,
+however, sir.  I wished to proceed direct to Brest, for I could get
+easily on to Paris, where I intended placing my little Elsie at school
+in the convent of L'enfant Jesu, at Neuilly, under the guardianship of
+some good nuns, by whom her poor mother was educated and brought up.  It
+was a promise, my friend, to the dead."
+
+"I see, colonel," rejoined the skipper apologetically, lighting his
+cigar again, having allowed it to go out while listening to the other;
+"I see, sir.  Go on; I'm all attention."
+
+"Well, then," continued the colonel, "these preliminaries being all
+arranged, Elsie and I went aboard the _Saint Pierre_, a full-rigged
+sailing ship of some eight hundred tons, the morning of the twenty-
+eighth of last month; and on the evening of the same day, as I have
+already told you, we made sail and quitted the anchorage where the ship
+had been loading--abreast of San Miguel, a port that guards the
+roadstead to the eastward, where it is open to the sea."
+
+"Aye, I know La Guayra well, colonel," put in the skipper at this point,
+showing that he was following every detail.  "I was in the Royal Mail
+Line when I was a nipper, before joining my present company."
+
+"I recollect the night we sailed," resumed the other, paying no
+attention to Captain Applegarth's remark, but speaking with his eyes
+fixed, as if in a dream and seeing mentally before him the scenes he
+described.  "The moon was shining brightly when we got under way,
+lighting up the Trinchera bastion and making the mountains in the
+background seem higher than they were, from the deep shadows they cast
+over the town lying below.  This latter lay embosomed amid a mass of
+tall cocoanut trees and gorgeous palms, with other tropical foliage, and
+had a shining beach of white sand immediately in its front, stretching
+round the curling bay, on which the surf broke in the moonlight, with a
+phosphorescent glow and a hollow sound as if beating over a grave.
+Heavens!  It was the grave of all my dearest hopes and plans, for that,
+sir, was one of the few last peaceful nights I have of late known, and
+very probably ever shall know again!"
+
+"Faith, don't say that now, sir," cried out Garry at this.  "You'll have
+a peaceful one to-night, sure, or I'm no prophet.  Begorrah, though, I
+niver was, so far as that goes!"
+
+The skipper grinned at this sympathetic interpolation, and the colonel's
+sombre face lighted up a bit as he turned his pathetic eyes on the
+speaker, as if wishing to share his hopefulness.
+
+"Ah, doctor, you do not know what grief and anguish are like!" he said
+mournfully.  "But to go on with my story.  I may tell you that, had our
+voyage progressed like our start, I should have nothing to deplore, for,
+the land breeze filling our sails, we bore away buoyantly from the
+Venezuelan coast, the ship shaping a course north by west towards the
+Mona passage, as the channel way is called, from a rock in its centre,
+lying between Hayti and Puerto Rico.  This route is held to be the best,
+I believe, for passing out into the open Atlantic from the labyrinthine
+groups of islands and innumerable islets that gem the blue waters of the
+Caribbean Sea.  It is a course, too, which by its directness and the
+northerly current and westerly wind there to be met, saves a lot of
+useless tacking about and beating to windward, as you, no doubt,
+captain, very well know."
+
+The skipper nodded his head.
+
+"You're quite a sailor, colonel," he said approvingly.  "Where did you
+manage to pick up your knowledge of navigation and sea-faring matters,
+if I may ask the question, sir?"
+
+"In the many voyages I have made during a somewhat adventurous life,"
+replied the other.  "I have invariably kept my ears and eyes open,
+captain.  There are many things thus to be learnt, I have found out from
+experience, which, although seemingly unimportant in themselves,
+frequently turn out afterwards to be of very great use to us, sometimes,
+indeed, almost unexpectedly so!"
+
+"Aye, aye, colonel.  My opinion, sir, right down to the ground," said
+the skipper, looking towards me.  "Just you put that in your pipe, Dick
+Haldane, and smoke it!"
+
+"Yes, young sir," added Colonel Vereker, emphasising this piece of
+advice.  "That rule of life has stood me in good stead on more than one
+occasion, both on land and on shipboard.  Had I not learnt something of
+the ways of your sailors, for instance, I might not have thought of
+lashing the _Saint Pierre's_ helm amidships on the breaking out of the
+mutiny, and so prevented all our going to the bottom subsequently, when
+it came on to blow; for all of us were then fighting for our lives and
+no one had time to attend to the ship, save in the way of letting go
+what ropes were handiest."
+
+"Aye, that may be well enough, colonel," observed the skipper in his dry
+fashion.  "But your argument cuts both ways.  If your helm hadn't been
+lashed down, remember, the ship would have been yawing about and
+drifting in this direction and that, and we should probably have come
+across her long ago, like that boat from which we picked you up, instead
+of her bearing away right before the wind and our having to go in chase
+of her, sir, as we are now doing."
+
+"It is true!  I did not think of that!" returned the colonel
+impulsively, half-starting from his seat in his excitement.  "We must be
+near her now, captain, though, surely.  We must find them, and I must
+see my little girl again!"
+
+"Kape aisy, me darlint; kape aisy," here interposed Garry O'Neil, before
+Captain Applegarth could answer the question.  "Sure, Mr Fosset
+promised to give us the worrd whin she hove in sight, an' you're only
+distarbin' yoursilf for nothing, colonel!  More's the pity, too,
+mabruchal, whin your leg is progressin' so illigantly an' the swillin'
+goin' down as swately as possible.  Now kape aisy, if only to oblige me.
+Faith, colonel, me profissional reputation's at shtake!"
+
+The Irishman, all the time he was talking, was carefully attending to
+the injured limb, loosening a bandage here, tightening another there,
+and keeping the lint dressing moist the while with a lotion which he
+applied gently to the surface by means of a sponge.  So, impressed alike
+by his tender solicitude thus practically shown on his behalf as much as
+by his opportune admonition, the colonel was forced to remain quiet.
+
+"I wish he'd be quick about it!" he muttered to himself.  "Well, doctor,
+as you will not let me move, I suppose you will let me go on with my
+tale; that is, if it interests you!"
+
+"Aye, aye; I want to hear everything," said the skipper.  "And fire
+away, colonel; there's plenty of time for you to reel off your yarn
+before we overhaul the chase."
+
+"All right,--then, I will proceed," replied the other.  "All went well
+with us on the voyage until the afternoon of the third day after sailing
+from La Guayra, when, unfortunately, the weather changed and the
+westerly wind, which had favoured us so far, suddenly failed us after
+wafting us through the Mona Passage, and we became becalmed off Cap San
+Engano, to the northward of Hayti."
+
+"Hayti!" exclaimed old Mr Stokes, waking up from a short nap he had
+been having on the sly, and pretending to be keenly alive to the
+conversation.  "That's the famous black republic, ain't it?"
+
+"Famous black pandemonium, you mean!" retorted the colonel fiercely, his
+eyes flashing at once with fire.  "Excuse me, sir, but I have seen so
+much of these negro brutes, who ape the airs of civilisation and yet
+after a century of freedom are more uncivilised in their habits and mode
+of life than the African slaves, their forefathers whom Toussaint-
+L'Overture, as he styled himself, their leader, freed from the yoke of
+their French masters a hundred years ago, that I feel the glorious name
+`republic' to be dishonoured when associated with such vile wretches,
+wretches a thousand times worse than the Fantees of the West Coast, from
+whom they originally sprang!"
+
+"My dear sir," said Mr Stokes, aghast at the tempest he had raised by
+his innocent remark, "you surprise me!"
+
+"Heavens! you would be surprised, sir, if you knew these Haytians as I
+know them to be," continued the colonel, his indignation still
+struggling for the mastery--"a race of devil worshippers and cannibals,
+who confound liberty with license, and have added all the vices of
+civilisation to the inherent savagery of their innate animal nature.
+Ah, sir, I should like to tell you a great deal more, but have not the
+time now.  I am afraid I am forgetting myself.  Where was I?"
+
+"Becalmed off Cape San Engano," promptly replied the skipper, sailor
+fashion--"at least, so you said, colonel; but I fancy you must have had
+a little rougher weather in that latitude than you mentioned at first!"
+
+"We had," said Colonel Vereker meaningly.  "Towards nightfall we drifted
+with the current more inshore, Captain Alphonse not dropping our anchor,
+as we expected the land breeze would spring up at sunset.  This did not
+come for an hour later, however, for already darkness had begun to
+surround us and we could see the fireflies illuminating the brush beyond
+the beach.  But this wasn't all observed, sir.  Just as our sails filled
+again and the ship slowly drew out into the offing, we heard the splash
+of oars in the water astern.  It was a boat coming after us, propelled
+by a dozen oars at least, pulling as hard as those handling them knew
+how, a shot or two from the shore and the sound of musket balls ripping
+the water explaining, in some way, the reason for their anxiety to get
+beyond the range of the firing, on which account they sought the shelter
+of the _Saint Pierre_, of course--at least, so we thought!
+
+"`Who goes there?' shouted out Captain Alphonse, who was standing alone
+with me, close to the taffrail.  `Poor devils! there is probably another
+insurrection at Port au Prince, and President Salomon up or down again.
+He is always one or the other every year or so, and these poor fellows
+may be flying to save their miserable necks.  Who goes there?  Who goes
+there?'  But, whether wanting all their energy for their oars or for
+some other reason known to themselves, those in the boat made no reply
+to our hail, and the next moment, ere the ship gathered way sufficient
+to gain on them, they were alongside, their long unwieldy craft grating
+against the ship's timbers beneath her counter.
+
+"`Look-out there, forrads!' cried Captain Alphonse, seeing the boat
+making apparently for our bows, but before a hand could be raised to
+prevent them, without asking permission in any way or offering the
+slightest apology or excuse in advance for their conduct, a number of
+negroes jumped out of her and began climbing aboard the _Saint Pierre_.
+
+"Heavens! gentlemen, clad in little beyond Nature's own covering, as the
+majority of the intruders were, and looking in the dim light as black as
+the ace of spades, they seemed like so many demons, come to take
+possession of our unfortunate ship--as indeed they were.  Oh dear me!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER NINETEEN.
+
+THE "MARQUIS DE POMME-ROSE."
+
+"A pretty kettle of fish that!" exclaimed the skipper, pitching the
+butt-end of his cigar through one of the stern ports as he got up from
+his seat and began to pace up and down the saloon in his usual quarter-
+deck fashion.  "You must have been mad, colonel, to let them come aboard
+so quietly and in such a manner, too!"
+
+"Stay, you have not heard all," said the other.  "As the black rascals
+tumbled over the side, one of them called out something in the French
+tongue.  This, sir, at once disarmed Captain Alphonse, who had prevented
+me from teaching them good manners, which I otherwise should have done,
+for I had my six-shooter ready, with the barrels all loaded, being
+always prepared for any such little unpleasantness by my experiences in
+Venezuela, where a man often carries his life in his own hands!
+
+"But Captain Alphonse would not let me fire, though, by heavens!  I
+would have accounted for half a dozen of them, I know, before they had
+advanced beyond the precincts of the ship!
+
+"`No, no, be quiet!' cried he, knocking my arm up to prevent my taking
+aim at the leader of the gang, whom I had spotted dead in the eye.
+`These are my countrymen!'
+
+"It was no use my talking after that, sir.  The sound of the French
+tongue, which these blacks of Hayti speak with a better accent than the
+gamins of Paris, gained over Captain Alphonse; while Madame Boisson
+declared the whole episode truly charming, her fat husband, who was
+entirely under her thumb, shrugging his shoulders and giving them both
+encouragement and a welcome.
+
+"These charming compatriots of theirs, therefore, being allowed to take
+us by storm without let or hindrance, now advanced aft, when their
+ringleader, a plausible scoundrel who described himself as the `Marquis
+de Pomme-Rose,' or some other similar shoddy title belonging to the
+black peerage of Hayti, to which I did not give heed at the time, beyond
+in my own mind thinking it ridiculous and that it was probably a name
+made up for the occasion, this man came up to Captain Alphonse with a
+smile on his black face and told a wonderful story which he had
+calculated would excite our pity while allaying our fears.
+
+"There had been another revolution at Port au Prince, he said, as
+Captain Alphonse had surmised.  A band of patriots, of whom he, the
+speaker, had the honour to be the chief, had attempted to depose the
+reigning despot Salomon from his post of president, but that that astute
+gentleman got wind of the conspiracy in time, and as he had a very
+efficacious mode of quickly dealing with those opposed to him in
+political matters, the nigger marquis and his fellow-plotters thought it
+best to seek refuge in flight.
+
+"Salomon, of course, at once despatched his myrmidons after them, but
+having a few hours' start of the pursuers the runaway revolutionists
+contrived to clear off from Port au Prince, concealing themselves in the
+mountain fastnesses at the eastern end of the island.
+
+"Here, while in hiding, they saw the _Saint Pierre_ rounding Cape San
+Engano.  Subsequently observing that she was becalmed, they waited for
+nightfall, when they stole a boat that lay on the shore and pulled out
+towards our ship, just avoiding capture in the nick of time; the
+regiment of black soldiers Salomon had sent after them having hit upon
+their trail and being so close up behind that they were able to open
+fire on them ere the boat got into deep water, two of the fugitive
+patriots being struck by the bullets that came whistling in their rear.
+
+"The `marquis' was of the belief that we were bound for Cuba, so he
+declared at all events at the moment, and he asked Captain Alphonse with
+the utmost indifference to give him and his companions a passage
+thither, assuring him that he would be handsomely rewarded for so doing
+by some of their friends belonging to the Haytian revolutionary party,
+who had established their headquarters at Havana.
+
+"In reply to this request Captain Alphonse declared he was `desolated,'
+but that, unfortunately, the _Saint Pierre_ was bound for Europe and not
+to the greater Antilles; but, strange to say, for I was watching him
+keenly the while, our friend the `marquis' did not appear either
+surprised or dismayed at his supposition as to our destination turning
+out to be so erroneous, as he would have been, so I thought, had he been
+speaking the truth in his original narrative, and acting in good faith
+towards us!
+
+"From that moment, sir, something in my mind seemed to warn me against
+the black villain, though I had been previously rather prepossessed in
+his favour by his manner and bearing, in spite of a strong antipathy to
+republicans of his complexion!"
+
+"Ah, colonel," whispered the skipper.  "I suppose it comes from living
+amongst them too much, but I see you don't like negroes."
+
+"No; you mistake my meaning greatly if you think that, Senor Applegarth.
+Black, white or yellow, the colour makes no difference to me, providing
+the individual I may have to deal with be a man in the true sense of the
+word!  In the old days, before our war, I had a good deal to do with
+niggers, for my father and his father before him owned a large
+plantation in Louisiana, and long before President Lincoln issued his
+proclamation of emancipation every hand on our estate was a free man;
+so, you see, sir, I do not advocate slavery at all events.  But between
+slavery and unbridled liberty there is, Senor Applegarth, a wide margin;
+and though I do not look upon a nigger in the abstract as either a brute
+beast or a human chattel, still I do not consider him quite fit to
+govern himself, nor do I regard him in the light of my brother, sir, nor
+even as my equal in any way!"
+
+The skipper laughed.
+
+"`What's bred in the bone,' colonel--you know the rest!" said he.  "Your
+old experience in the Southern States prejudices you against the race."
+
+"Pardon me," rejoined Colonel Vereker warmly, "I don't dislike them at
+all.  On the contrary, I have found some negroes more faithful than any
+white man of my acquaintance, being true to the death; and I know that
+if I came across, to-morrow, any of the old hands on our Louisianian
+plantation whom my father made free, I should be as glad to see them as
+they would be to meet me.  But, sir, at the same time, allowing all
+this, I cannot admit the negro to be on an equality with the white
+races.  They are inferior, I am certain, alike in intelligence,
+disposition and nature, and I hold him as little qualified for self-
+government on the European system as a child is fit to be entrusted with
+a case of razors for playthings.  Hayti is an illustration of this,
+sir!"
+
+"All right, my dear sir," said the skipper good-humouredly, glad to see
+the colonel taken out of himself and forgetting his grief about his
+little daughter for the moment in the discussion.  "Carry on; we're
+listening to you!"
+
+His enthusiasm, however, did not last very long.
+
+"Heavens!  Senor Applegarth, and you, too, gentlemen," he went on in a
+changed tone.  "I have cause to love those Haytian scoundrels well, I
+tell you!  Well, sirs, to proceed with my story, the terrible end of
+which I have nearly reached, this dog of a black rascal, the so-called
+marquis, seemed quite content, much to my surprise, when Captain
+Alphonse told him we were not bound for Cuba, but for Liverpool.
+
+"It was all the same to him, he said, and as they were going the longer
+voyage, perhaps Captain Alphonse would allow him and his companions to
+work out their passage by assisting the crew in the navigation of the
+ship.
+
+"Captain Alphonse was delighted at this, for we had only half a dozen
+good seamen on board, the rest of the hands being a lot of half-bred
+mulattoes and niggers--some of the scourings of South America whom he
+had picked up at La Guayra, most of whom knew how to handle a cutlass
+better than a rope--so the proposed addition to the strength of our
+ship's company was a very acceptable one, particularly as the `Marquis'
+pointed out two of his companions as being expert sailors and qualified
+pilots and navigators."
+
+"Ha!  You kept your eye on those gentry, colonel, I bet you did?"
+
+"Yes, sir.  They were the first I spotted when the row began; but I'm
+anticipating matters."
+
+"The divvle a bit, sor," interposed Garry O'Neil.  "Let me jist change
+the dressin' of your leg, an' ye can polish off the rist of the rascals
+as soon as ye plaize."
+
+"A thousand thanks," returned the other, shifting his position to allow
+his leg to be attended to.  "They did not disclose their purpose,
+though, or `show their hand,' as they say at the game of monte, all at
+once; for, moved by their voluntary offer to help work the ship, Captain
+Alphonse promised the `marquis,' who when making this offer had urged a
+request to that effect, calculating on the captain's generosity to put
+in and leave the lot at Bermuda, should they make a fair passage up to
+the parallel of that island, but in the event of their being delayed by
+foul winds or the voyage appearing as if it must be a long one, the
+Haytians must be contented to cross the ocean.
+
+"The bargain was struck at once, this proviso being accepted with
+alacrity as it just suited their purpose, and never saw I men work as
+those Haytians worked in the way of tumbling up at all hours and pulling
+and hauling, shaking out reefs and setting fresh sail, the next day or
+two when the weather was contrary, and we had to tack about a good deal
+to windward in getting out into the open Atlantic.
+
+"Heavens!  How they exerted themselves; so much so that I quite shared
+Captain Alphonse's admiration for them, but, unlike him, I watched them,
+and I noticed that they and the coloured men of our crew who had been
+picked up at La Guayra seemed on a more friendly footing than was
+altogether warranted by the short time they had been on board.  Captain
+Alphonse and the other passengers, however, would not see this.
+
+"But, sir, I had an old negro servant on board with me, who had followed
+my fortunes from the States to Venezuela after the war, Louisiana then
+being no longer a fit place for a white man to live in.  Poor old Cato;
+he was the most faithful soul the Almighty ever put breath into!
+
+"Him I acquainted with my suspicions, and sent amongst the blacks, to
+gather what information he could of their designs, for I was confident,
+sirs, they had not boarded us for nothing, and were hatching some deep
+plot with a view, very probably, of getting possession of our ship in
+order the better to further the interests of the revolutionary party, to
+which they belonged, that was opposed to Salomon, the president in
+power.
+
+"Whatever their object might be, however, I distrusted them in every
+way, believing them, indeed, actuated by other motives than such as
+might be prompted by their political aspirations, my suspicions being
+confirmed by the looks and bearing of the gang, who seemed capable of
+any atrocity, judging them by their villainous faces and generally hang-
+dog appearance, besides which they were continually whispering together
+amongst themselves, and consorting and confabbing with the mulattoes and
+other coloured men belonging to the crew.
+
+"In addition to that, Senor Applegarth, and you too, gentlemen, I
+noticed that our friend `the marquis,' although he gave himself great
+airs, on account of the aristocratic blood and descent to which he lay
+claim, pretending to think himself much superior in position to both
+Captain Alphonse and myself, and regarding poor Cato, my servant, as
+mere dirt under his feet, albeit the faithful negro was of a like colour
+to himself--did not esteem it beneath his high dignity to associate with
+the scum of the forecastle and bandy ribald obscenities, when he
+believed himself unobserved, with his fellow scoundrels.
+
+"Aye, I watched my gentleman carefully, and so, too, did my poor
+faithful Cato!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY.
+
+THE SEVENTH OF NOVEMBER.
+
+"My faithful negro, however," continued the colonel, pausing at this
+point to puff out another cloud of smoke from his fragrant
+cigar,--"well, he was unable to learn anything of the Haytians, though
+he tried to make friends of them, for they always stopped their talk
+amongst themselves on his approach, and would only reply to his
+overtures in monosyllables expressive of distrust, accompanied by
+contemptuous gestures that angered poor Cato greatly, for, as he
+considered that he belonged to me, he felt the insult to be directed not
+only at himself but at the whole family.
+
+"`Golly, massa!' he said to me after a couple or so of attempts that
+proved fruitless to ingratiate himself into the confidence of the gang,
+`you just wait; I catch dem black raskils nappin' by-an'-bye, you see,
+massa.  You see, "speshly dat tarn markiss!"'
+
+"He managed this sooner than he thought, and pretty smartly too, for the
+very next day he caught the noble scoundrel, who was his particular
+aversion, walking off with a pair of pistols from Captain Alphonse's
+cabin.  On Cato coming up and stopping him in the very act, the
+`marquis' put down the pistols quickly, saying in his off-hand manner
+that he was merely examining the locks, remarking how well they were
+made.  `But,' said Cato, `guess he no bamboozle dis chile!'
+
+"The following day, sirs, was the seventh of November, last Friday, that
+awful, that terrible day!
+
+"Cato, who had been away forward early in the morning to see about our
+breakfast, came back aft with a terrified face.
+
+"`Yay, massa,' said he, `guess dose tam niggars up to sumfin'!  I'se
+hear um say dey smell de lan' an' de time was 'rive to settle de white
+trash, dat what dey say, an' take ship.  One ob de tam raskel see me
+come out of gully, an' say cut um tongue out if I'se tell youse, massa!'
+
+"Of course on hearing this I put Captain Alphonse immediately on his
+guard, and we locked up all the spare arms and ammunition until we
+should require the same, excepting our own revolvers and three other
+pistols, which we served out to the two mates and the boatswain, all of
+whom were good men and brave Frenchmen.  Monsieur Boisson, when he was
+asked if he would have one, shrugged his shoulders and said he was a
+simple passenger, he did not understand fighting--it was not his affair;
+while little Mr Johnson said he was an Englishman and preferred using
+his fists.  Don Miguel had a pistol of his own.
+
+"Jingo!  The emergency we dreaded came soon enough, sir; indeed, sooner
+than we expected, and it was fortunate we had been forewarned!
+
+"It was just after the noontide hour, I recollect that well, for Captain
+Alphonse had just taken the altitude of the sun to ascertain our
+position, when, as he came up from his cabin where he had gone to
+consult his chronometers and work out `the reckoning,' as you sailors
+call it, that that black devil the `marquis' mounted the poop with a
+simpering and fawning air.
+
+"`Ah well, captain,' said he, with a very polite bow, `where do you make
+us out to be, monsieur?  Near the Bermudas yet?'
+
+"`My word, yes,' replied Captain Alphonse.  `We are some ten leagues or
+so the westward of the islands, but we're bearing up now, as you see, to
+reach them.'
+
+"`And what time, monsieur,' said the `marquis,' speaking louder so that
+some of the other niggers who were on the deck below could hear what he
+said.  `Do you think it will be possible for us to land?  My companions
+and myself, monsieur, as you can well imagine, are most anxious to get
+ashore as soon as possible, so that we may procure a ship to take us on
+to Havana.'
+
+"`But, yes, your anxiety is natural enough,' responded poor Captain
+Alphonse, suspecting nothing from this.  `I hope to approach near enough
+to Port Saint George to put you ashore some time in the afternoon.'
+
+"`_Ohe_, below there!' cried out the Haytian in reply to this,
+addressing his companions in the waist, who, I noticed, were gradually
+edging themselves more and more aft.  `Do you hear that, my brave boys?
+We are going to land at last.  Get the boat ready!'
+
+"This was evidently a signal, for he shouted out the last words in a
+still higher key than that in which he had been speaking.
+
+"`You need not hurry, my friend!' said the captain, surprised at this
+order and smiling at the Haytian's impulsiveness, as he thought it.
+`There will be plenty of time for lowering the boat when we come in
+sight of land.'
+
+"`I think differently, monsieur,' rejoined the other, scowling and
+assuming an arrogant tone for the first time.  `I say the time is
+_Now_!'
+
+"This he yelled out at the top of his voice.
+
+"Instantly the gang of blacks made a rush at the poop on both sides at
+once, and Captain Alphonse clutched at his revolver, which he had in his
+pocket, but was unable to get it out in time.
+
+"Mine, however, was in my hand and ready cocked."
+
+"Houly Moses!" ejaculated Garry O'Neil, his Irish blood making him all
+attention now at the mere mention of fighting.  "I hope ye let 'em have
+it hot, sor!
+
+"Guess I did!" replied Colonel Vereker grimly, dropping unconsciously
+into his native vernacular, which up to now he had almost seemed to have
+forgotten from his long residence amongst a Spanish-speaking race.  "You
+may bet your bottom dollar on that, sir!  I aimed at that scoundrel the
+`marquis,' but he jumped backward in his fright and his foot catching in
+one of the ringbolts, he tumbled right over the poop-rail on to the deck
+below; the shot I had intended for him dropping the black pilot, his
+constant companion, and who was invariably behind him.  _He_ dropped
+down as dead as a herring!
+
+"Don Miguel, who luckily had just come up from the saloon, being handy
+with his revolver from the rough times he had experienced, like myself,
+in Venezuela, settled another darkie; while little Johnson, the
+Englishman, caught up a long hand-spike, bigger than himself, and with
+it knocked down two of the Haytians to his own cheek.
+
+"Madame Boisson, meanwhile, was screaming for her husband, her brave
+Hercules, to come to the rescue; but the `brave Hercules' had locked
+himself in his cabin, as my little Elsie told me afterwards; for
+fortunately the poor child was not feeling well and I had desired her to
+remain below during the hot noontide heat of the sun; and, she also
+said, she could hear him crying and sobbing and calling down
+imprecations on everybody, including `my wife' and himself for both
+being in such a position, Madame Boisson hammering at the door all the
+time, and, after finding he would not reopen to her appeal for help,
+apostrophising him as a coward! a pig!
+
+"During this time we were pretty busy on deck, the second mate,
+Basseterre, and another French seaman, who was with him in the crossjack
+yard, having come down from aloft to our assistance.  Captain Alphonse
+got his revolver out, when he and Don Miguel and I giving them a volley
+altogether, and the others supporting us with what weapons they had, we
+rushed the rascals off the poop quicker than they came up, the lot
+returning to the forecastle along with the `marquis,' who, I was very
+glad to see, had cut his face considerably by his tumble.
+
+"Captain Alphonse thereupon, seeing the coast clear, sang out for Housi,
+his second officer, and the boatswain, who he thought were away forward,
+to come up aft and join us, so that we might all be together, but
+instead of these men, Cato, my own black servant ran up the poop-ladder
+and told us in much trepidation that Monsieur Housi, with the boatswain
+Rigault and one of the French sailors, were imprisoned in the forepeak,
+while the two white sailors and the steward were hard and fast in the
+main hold, whither they had descended to get some provisions, the
+mutineers slipping on the hatchway cover over them, on the `marquis,'
+that devil, giving the signal!"
+
+"Ah, my poor fellows!" cried Captain Alphonse.  "That, then, means there
+are only ourselves left.  Good heavens!  What shall we do?"
+
+"Why, hoist a signal of distress," I suggested at once.  "We are near
+Bermuda, on the cruising ground of the English men-of-war; and as these
+scoundrels have no friends or assistance, I daresay we'll be able to
+hold out here until some vessel bears up to our aid!"
+
+"`Good, my friend,' replied Captain Alphonse, who with Basseterre, the
+second mate, and Don Miguel, remained to keep guard with their
+revolvers, both seated on top of the skylight hatchway, which commanded
+the approaches to the poop by way of the ladders, while I, with the last
+of the white sailors, ran aft.  Then I called out, `Hoist the French
+flag!'
+
+"I knew that the locker with the flags was in the wheel-house, close to
+the taffrail, and there being no one to interfere with us, the negro who
+had been attending the helm having bolted the moment I pulled out my
+revolver at the first alarm, the traitor flying to join the other
+mutineers, my sailor and I soon ferretted out an old ensign, the
+Tricolour; when, binding it on to the signal halliards, we hoisted it
+about half-way up the peak of our spanker, whence it could best be seen
+by a passing ship."
+
+"Did you know what that signal meant, colonel?" said Captain Applegarth
+in an inquiring tone, "that you had a death aboard, eh?"
+
+"Si, senor.  Oh yes, of course," repeated the colonel, correcting
+himself almost as soon as he spoke for his lapse again into the Spanish
+tongue.  "There were half a dozen dead Haytians there, whom, by the way,
+Captain Alphonse and I presently pitched over the side!  But, beyond
+that, sir, I believe all sailors regard a flag hoisted in that way,
+`half-mast high,' as it is termed, to be a signal of distress!
+
+"Without doubt, sir," answered the skipper.  "I was only testing your
+nautical experience, that's all!"
+
+"I am glad then, I did not make a blunder about it, as I thought I had
+done from your question," returned Colonel Vereker, quite seriously, not
+noticing that the skipper was only poking fun at him in his way and did
+not mean anything beyond a bit of chaff.  "Well, sir, after hoisting the
+flag the French sailor and I seized the opportunity to lash the helm
+amidships so as to keep the _Saint Pierre_ on her course, for we could
+not spare him to do the steering, and Captain Alphonse and Don Miguel,
+with the plucky little Englishman and myself, had all our work to do
+watching the mutineers with our revolvers!
+
+"After a time, as the rascals kept pretty quiet in their part of the
+ship, and as my poor little daughter Elsie had been a long time now shut
+up below, I thought she might come up on the poop to get a breath of
+fresh air while it was still light; there being no fear of the blacks
+assailing us again so long as they knew we could see to shoot straight
+and had our weapons handy!
+
+"So I sent Cato down to fetch her on deck, and she came up the next
+moment, all full of curiosity and alarm, as you may imagine, the little
+one wanting to know what had occurred; for the reports of my revolver
+and the subsequent stillness had occasioned her great fright, Madame
+Boisson and her husband, the `brave Hercules,' being but poor
+comforters.
+
+"All at once, while I was explaining to her about the flag, telling her
+that we had hoisted it in order to summon any passing ship to our
+assistance, she suddenly went to the side and looked over the bulwarks
+towards the north.
+
+"The next moment she gave vent to a cry of joy.
+
+"`Oh, my father,' she suddenly exclaimed.  `You have only just hoisted
+the flag in time.  There's a big steamer!  Look, look! there it is, and
+coming up to help us!'
+
+"`Where? where?  Where is it?  I cannot see it.  Nonsense, Elsie; you
+are dreaming, my child!'  I said, looking out eagerly to where she
+pointed, but could see nothing.  `There's no ship there, little one!'
+and I felt angry at the false alarm.
+
+"`But, my father, you are wrong,' still insisted the child, as positive
+as you please.  `I can see the vessel there in the distance quite
+plainly.  See how the black smoke comes puffing out of the chimneys.'
+
+"I laughed at this.
+
+"`Little darling,' said I, `there was no ship, and there are no
+"chimneys" on board ships at sea.  Sailors call them funnels, my dearest
+one.'
+
+"She pretended to pout on my thus catching her tripping in her talk.
+
+"`Well, my father,' said she, with a shrug of her shoulders, as is her
+habit sometimes, `I may be wrong about the chimneys, but I am not wrong
+about seeing a ship.  Why, my father, there she is now, coming closer
+and closer, and quite near; so near that I can see--yes, I can see--I am
+quite sure--a big boy there.  Look, look, father, dear!  There he is in
+front of the smoke.  He has quite a pleasant face.'
+
+"Elsie turned in my direction as she spoke, and, though I was still
+gazing all the while, I could see nothing, and I was vexed, very vexed
+with my little girl for her persistency in the matter.
+
+"`Why, it has gone--quite disappeared!' she cried out the instant after,
+on rushing to the side and looking over.  `What does it mean?  Why did
+she not come and help if she saw the flag?'
+
+"`You have dreamt it, little one,' I replied shortly, as I had done
+before.  `It's a freak of the imagination, and you fancied it, you funny
+little woman.'
+
+"But it was a curious incident, though, sir, was it not, at such a time,
+with our hearts all full of expectancy and hope?"
+
+Captain Applegarth was greatly excited by the narrative, and so, it may
+readily be believed, was I.
+
+He asked abruptly, "When did this happen?  Tell me, colonel, at once.
+It is strange--very so!"
+
+The other looked up with surprise, while Mr Stokes stared at him with
+wonder, and the Irishman opened his big blue eyes wide to the full.
+
+"I have already told you, sir," replied Colonel Vereker very quickly.
+"As I told you before, it was the seventh of November--last Friday."
+
+"Yes; but I mean what time of the day, sir?"
+
+"Oh, I should think about five o'clock in the afternoon.  Perhaps a
+little later, as the sun was going down, I recollect, at the time."
+
+I could not restrain my astonishment at this.
+
+"It must be the very ship I saw!"  I thought to myself.
+
+"Is the young lady slight in figure, and has she long golden-coloured
+hair hanging loose about her head, sir?"  I eagerly asked, almost
+breathless in my excitement.  "And, tell me too, did she have a large
+black Newfoundland or retriever dog by her side that same evening, sir?"
+
+Colonel Vereker seemed even more astonished by this question of mine
+than I had been by his reply to Captain Applegarth the moment before.
+
+"My brave young sir," said he, using this somewhat grandiloquent form of
+addressing me, I suppose, in remembrance of the slight service I had
+done him by swimming with the line to the drifting boat when we picked
+up him and his companion.  "My little Elsie is tall and slight for her
+age, and her hair is assuredly of a golden hue, ah, yes! like liquid
+sunshine; though, how you, my good young gentleman, who, to my
+knowledge, can _never_ have seen her face to face in this life, can know
+the colour of her hair or what she is like, I must confess that passes
+my comprehension!"
+
+"But the dog, sir?"
+
+"That is stranger still," remarked Colonel Vereker.  "I had forgotten to
+mention that I brought with me on board the _Saint Pierre_ from my old
+home at Caracas a splendid Russian wolf-hound, as faithful a creature as
+my poor negro servant Cato.  His name is Ivan, and he is now, I
+sincerely hope and trust, guarding my little darling girl, as I would
+have done if I had remained with her, for not a living soul would dare
+to touch her with him there.  Ivan would tear them limb from limb first.
+He is a large greyish-black dog, with a rough shaggy coat, and in reply
+to your enquiry, I must tell you he _was_ on the poop of the ship, by
+the side of my child, at the very time that she declared she saw that
+steamer, which I, myself, could not see anywhere!"
+
+For the moment I was unable to speak.  I was so overcome at this
+unexpected confirmation of the sight I had seen on that eventful Friday
+night, though I had afterwards been inclined to disbelieve the evidence
+of my own senses, as everybody else had done, even the skipper at last
+joining in with the opinion of Mr Fosset and all the rest, save the
+boatswain, old Masters.  Yes, yes; every one them imagined that I had
+dreamt of "the ghost-ship" as they called my vision, and that I had not
+seen it at all!
+
+But this statement from the colonel absolutely staggered the skipper,
+and he looked from me to the American and back again at me in the most
+bewildering manner possible; the old chief, Mr Stokes, and Garry O'Neil
+staring at the pair of us with equal amazement.
+
+"By George, the girl and the dog, the girl and the dog.  Why, it's the
+very same ship, as you say, Haldane; it must be so, and, by George, my
+boy, you were right after all!  By George, you were!" at length
+exclaimed the skipper in a voice, the genuineness of whose astonishment
+could not be doubted.  "Colonel Vereker, I would not have credited this
+had any one told it me and sworn to the truth of it on oath, but the
+proof is so strong that I cannot possibly disbelieve it, sir, though it
+is to my mind a downright impossibility according to every argument of
+common sense.  It is certainly the most wonderful thing that has ever
+happened to me, and the most wonderful thing that I have ever heard of
+since I have been at sea!"
+
+"Heavens!" cried the other.  "But why?  You surprise me, sir."
+
+"Aye, colonel," rejoined the skipper.  "But I am going to surprise you
+more.  Now don't laugh at me, and don't think me an idiot and gone off
+my head, sir, when I tell you that this lad, Dick Haldane, here, whether
+by reason of some mirage or other I cannot tell, for it's beyond my
+understanding altogether, distinctly saw your ship with her signal of
+distress, and says he saw your little daughter with the dog by her side,
+aboard her, last Friday night at sunset.  More than that, sir, he
+described to me at the time, exactly as you have done now, colonel,
+everything he saw, even to the very hue of the young girl's hair and the
+colour and texture of the dog's coat!  It is altogether marvellous and,
+indeed, incredible!"
+
+"Well, but--" said Colonel Vereker slowly, and pausing between every
+word as if trying to comprehend it all.  "Why, how is that, sir?"
+
+"Your ship, colonel, must have been more than five hundred miles away
+from ours at the time--that is all!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.
+
+BUTCHERED.
+
+"Dios!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker.  "Are you--certain of this, sir?"
+
+Captain Applegarth shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Ask Mr Stokes here and your doctor there, Mr O'Neil, whether they did
+not hear Haldane's yarn about your ship five days ago, sir, before we
+ever clapped eyes on you," said he in a slightly aggrieved tone, as if
+he thought his word was being doubted.  "Why, colonel, this poor lad was
+becoming the butt for everybody's chaff on board on account of it!"
+
+"Gracious!" cried the other.  "This is indeed really wonderful!"
+
+"Aye, colonel, and more than that!  But for the lad seeing this mirage,
+or whatever else it was, and telling me about it, we would not have gone
+off our course in search of you to render what assistance we could--
+yours being the `ship in distress' Haldane reported having sighted to
+the southward.  This divergence from our track, sir, took us into the
+very teeth of the gale which we encountered later on, that same evening,
+and conduced to our breaking down."
+
+"Faith," put in Garry O'Neil, "that's thrue for sure, sor!"
+
+"This breakdown of ours, colonel, led to our drifting to the southward
+into the trail of the Gulf Stream," continued the skipper, following up
+the strange sequence of events as they occurred, one by one.  "Your
+ship--the real ship, I mean--was drifting north and east meanwhile,
+carried along by the same current, and then it came about that, although
+apparently going in opposite directions and acted on by different
+causes, our tracks _crossed each other on the chart last night_--at
+least, that is my opinion."
+
+"I see, I see," cried Colonel Vereker quickly, interrupting him, and in
+a state of great excitement.  "Thank God!  But for that you would never
+have sighted our drifting boat and picked up myself and poor Captain
+Alphonse!  Thank God, Senor Haldane saw us in that mysterious way.  It
+seems to have been an interposition of heaven to warn you of our peril
+and bring you to our aid!"
+
+"Just so, colonel; that's what I think myself now," said the skipper
+impressively, taking off his cap and looking upward with a grave
+reflective air.  "Aye, and I thank God, too, for putting us in the way
+of helping you, with all my heart, sir!"
+
+"Ah!" observed old Mr Stokes, who had remained silent the while.  "The
+ways of Providence are as wonderful as they are mysterious!"
+
+There was a pause after this in our conversation which no one seemed
+anxious to break till Garry O'Neil spoke.
+
+"Faith, sor, you haven't tould us yit how ye come by this wound in your
+leg, an' about that poor chap in yander," he said to the colonel,
+nodding his head in the direction of Captain Applegarth's inner state
+cabin, where the French captain was lying in his cot.  "Sure, we're
+dyin' to hear the end of your scrimmage with those black divvles!"
+
+Colonel Vereker heaved a sigh.
+
+"Well, I ought not to doubt that the good God is watching over my
+little, darling daughter after what I have just learnt, my friends,"
+said he in a more hopeful tone than his depressed manner indicated,
+looking round at us with his large, melancholy, dark eyes.  "I ought not
+to despair!"
+
+"Certainly not, sir; I dare say we'll soon overhaul the ship now, for
+we're more than an hour and a half in chase of her at full speed,"
+remarked the skipper, recovering himself from his fit of abstraction and
+looking at his watch to see the time.  "Go on, colonel; go on, please,
+and tell us the end of your story."
+
+"There is little more for you to hear, sir," replied the other, settling
+himself back in his seat again, after Mr O'Neil had once more dressed
+the wound in his leg.  "Before it was dark that terrible night I sent
+Elsie below, while Captain Alphonse with myself stayed up on the poop
+for the first watch, each of us with a loaded revolver, besides having a
+box of cartridges handy on the skylight near by, should we want to
+replenish our ammunition.  But the Haytians, sir, had evidently had
+enough of us for that evening, making no further attempts to attack us
+as the hours wore on.
+
+"They were as watchful as ourselves, though, for as Cato, anon, trying
+to creep forwards so as to release the French sailors confined under the
+main hatchway, had a narrow escape of his life, a heavy spar being
+suddenly let down by the run almost on top of his head when he ventured
+out on the exposed deck.  This was at midnight, when the second mate,
+Basseterre, and Don Miguel, with the French sailor Duval, relieved
+Captain Alphonse and me, taking the middle watch.
+
+"Next morning, however, soon after Captain Alphonse and I, with the
+little Englishman, had resumed charge of the poop and the others were
+resting--alas, my friends, without my knowledge or sanction, poor Cato
+made another attempt to reach the hatchway, which, unfortunately
+resulted in his death!
+
+"Hearing Ivan growl and my little daughter cry out as if something had
+frightened her, I had gone down to the cabin shortly after daylight to
+see what was the matter, cautioning Captain Alphonse, who hardly needed
+my caution, not to leave his post for a moment, and not thinking of
+Cato, who had disappeared from the top of the companion-way and had gone
+below to Elsie--heard her cry, I thought, and gone to her even before
+myself.
+
+"He was not in the cabin, however; nor did I find anything much the
+matter with my child, who had evidently unconsciously cried out in some
+dream she had, Ivan, of course, gushing in sympathy and waking her up.
+So, telling Elsie to compose herself and go off to sleep again, as
+everything was going on all right and there was nothing to be alarmed
+about, beyond the snoring of Monsieur and Madame Boisson at the further
+end of the cabin, I, feeling greatly relieved, returned on deck.
+
+"I looked round for Cato at once, naturally, for our forces were not so
+strong that one would not be missed, especially such a one as he!
+
+"But my faithful negro was nowhere in sight!  Captain Alphonse said,
+too, he had not seen him during my absence below, nor indeed, for some
+time prior to my going down to the cabin.
+
+"I then searched the wheel-house aft without discovering him.
+
+"`Cato!'  I called out, `where are you?  Come here immediately!'
+
+"My poor servant did not answer, but that black fiend, the pseudo
+`marquis' advanced from the forepart of the deck, sheltering himself,
+you may be sure, from my aim in the rear of the windlass bitts, which
+were in a line between us.
+
+"`You will have to call louder,' he cried with a mocking laugh like that
+of a hyena, and full of devilish glee.  `I assure you, much louder, my
+friend, before that spy slave of yours will ever be able to answer you
+again!'
+
+"Heavens!  I feared the worst then.  Poor Cato!  They had caught him
+reconnoitring.
+
+"`What have you done with him, you son of Satan?'  I yelled out, full of
+rage and anger, and with a terrible foreboding.  `If you have hurt a
+hair of his head I will make you pay dearly for it, I can tell you, you
+fiend!'
+
+"The malicious, murdering wretch only replied to my threat with another
+mocking laugh, which his companions echoed, as if enjoying a joke, while
+I noticed them dragging at a shapeless mass from the forecastle
+forwards.
+
+"`Kick the carrion aft!'  I heard the inhuman brute say to his
+followers.  `Let the "white trash" see the dog's carcass!  He will then
+believe what I have said, Name of God! and know what is in store for
+himself!'
+
+"My God!  Senor Applegarth and you, gentlemen, I can hardly tell you
+what followed.  It is all too horrible.
+
+"The sight of what I saw will haunt me to my grave!
+
+"For the shapeless mass I had observed slowly raised itself up from the
+deck, and I saw that it was my poor Cato.  The savages had hacked the
+unfortunate man to pieces with their knives!
+
+"He recognised me, poor creature, and appeared to try to speak, but only
+made an inarticulate noise between a sob and a groan that rings in my
+ears now, while the blood gushed from his mouth as he fell forwards,
+facing me, dead, huddled up in a heap again upon the deck!
+
+"Those devils incarnate, besides mutilating his limbs, had, would you
+believe it, cut out his tongue as they had before threatened, for
+warning us of their treachery!"
+
+"God in heaven!" exclaimed Captain Applegarth, stopping in his quick
+walk up and down the saloon and bringing his fist down on the table with
+a bang that made the glasses in the swinging tray above jump and rattle,
+two of them indeed falling over and smashing into fragments on the
+floor.  "The infernal demons!  Can such things be?  It is dreadful!"
+
+All of us were equally horror stricken and indignant at the colonel's
+terrible recital, even old Mr Stokes waking up and stretching out his
+hand to the skipper, as if pledging himself to what he wished to urge
+before he spoke.
+
+"Horrible, horrible, sir!" he panted out, his anger taking away his
+breath and affecting his voice.  "But we'll avenge the poor fellow and
+kill the rascals when we come up with them, won't we, sir?  There's my
+hand on it, anyway!"
+
+I did not and could not say anything; no, I couldn't; but you can pretty
+well imagine the oath I mentally registered.
+
+Not so Garry O'Neil, though.
+
+The Irishman's face flamed with rage and anger.  "Kill them, sor!" cried
+he, springing to his feet from the chair in which he had been seated
+alongside the colonel, whose injured limb he had been carefully
+attending to again all the while, his reddish beard and moustache
+bristling, and his steel-blue eyes flashing out veritable sparks, it
+seemed of fire.  "Faith, killin's too good for 'em, sure, the haythen
+miscreants!  I'd boil 'em alive, sor, or roast 'em in the stoke-hold,
+begorrah, if I had me own way with 'em.  I would, sor, so hilp me Moses,
+if all the howly saints, whose names be praised, an' the blessed ould
+Pope, too, prayed me to spare 'em.  Och, the murtherin' bastes, the
+daymans, the divvles!"
+
+He was almost beside himself in his rage and passionate invective.  So
+much so, indeed, that Mr Stokes, despite his own hearty sympathy with
+the like cause, looked at the infuriated Irishman in great trepidation,
+for his face was flushed, and his hair seemed actually to stand on end,
+while his words tumbled out of his mouth pell-mell, jostling each other
+in their eagerness to find utterance.
+
+The chief really fancied, I believe, that he had suddenly gone mad, as
+he literally fumed with fury.
+
+After a few moments, however, Garry cooled down a bit, restraining
+himself by a violent effort, and he turned to his whilom patient with an
+apologetic air.
+
+"Faith, sor, I fancied I had that divvle, your fri'nd, the markiss,
+sure, be the throat," said he, with a feeble attempt at a grin and
+biting his lips to keep in his feelings while he dropped his arms, which
+he had been whirling round his head like a maniac only just before.  "By
+the powers, wouldn't I throttle the baste swately, if I had hould of him
+once in these two hands of mine!"
+
+Colonel Vereker stretched out both his impulsively, and gripped those of
+Garry O'Neil.
+
+"Heavens!" he cried, with tears in his eyes.  "You are a white man, sir.
+I can't say more than that, and I am proud to know you!"
+
+"Och, niver moind that, colonel," said the Irishman, putting aside the
+compliment, the highest the colonel thought he could give.  "Till us
+what you did, sure, afther the poor maimed crayture was murthered by
+that Haytian divvle.  Faith, I loathe the baste.  I hate him like pizen,
+though I haven't sane him yit, more's the pity; but it'll be a bad job
+for him when I do clap my peepers on him!"
+
+"I could not do much," said the other, proceeding with his account of
+the struggle with the mutineers on board the _Saint Pierre_, "but
+Captain Alphonse and myself emptied our revolvers at the scoundrels and
+floored three of them before they retreated back into the forecastle;
+but the `marquis,' the greatest scoundrel of the whole lot, escaped scot
+free, though I fired four shots at him point blank as he dodged behind
+the mainmast and windlass bits, keeping well under cover, and mocking my
+efforts to get a straight aim.  The villain, I think, bears a charmed
+life!"
+
+"Niver you fear, sor," put in Garry, in answer to this remark.  "His
+father, ould Nick, is keepin' him for somethin' warm whin I git hould of
+him.  Faith, sor, you can bet your boots on that, sure!"
+
+Colonel Vereker smiled sadly at the impulsive Irishman's remark.  He
+could see that he had moved every fibre of his feeling heart and warm
+nature and that he was following every incident of his terrible story of
+atrocities and sufferings with an all-engrossing interest.
+
+"I rushed to the poop-ladder to make for the mocking brute, intending to
+grip him by the neck, as you have suggested, sir," said he, "when, by
+heavens, I would have choked the life out of his vile carcass!
+
+"But Captain Alphonse prevented me.
+
+"`My God! dear friend,' he cried, catching hold of me round the body in
+his powerful arms, so that I could not move a step.  `Remember the
+little one, your little daughter, who would have no one to protect her
+should these rabble kill you.  Besides, my friend, the good Cato is dead
+now, and the useless sacrifice of your life, of both our lives probably,
+if you go forwards, and perhaps too the life of the little one, who
+cannot even help herself, will never bring back the breath to the brave
+lad's body!  No, no, colonel, I promise you,' said he, at the same time
+kissing the tips of his fingers and elevating his shoulders, in his
+French fashion, `We will do something better than that.  Only wait; be
+patient.  We will avenge him, you will see, but I pray you do nothing
+rash, for the sake of the little one.'"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY TWO.
+
+ALL ADRIFT.
+
+"Aye, colonel," sang out the skipper, as if in response to these words
+of the French captain, "to avenge him; that's what all of us here have
+sworn to do, I know, for I can answer for them as if I were speaking for
+myself.  Yes, and so we will, too.  We'll avenge him--the poor fellow
+whom they butchered.  We will, by George!"
+
+"Begorrah!" exclaimed Garry O'Neil.  "You can count on me for one on
+that job, as I tould ye before, and I don't care how soon we begin it,
+cap'en!"
+
+"And me too," put in old Mr Stokes, again becoming very enthusiastic.
+"The whole lot must be punished, sir, when we catch them!"
+
+"I thought so," said the skipper, looking round at us and then turning
+to the colonel with a proud air.  "You see, sir, we're all unanimous;
+for I can answer for this lad Haldane, here, though the poor chap's too
+bashful to speak for himself!"
+
+"I know what the gallant youth can do already," said the other, looking
+at me kindly as I held up my head like the rest, but with a very red
+face.  "Thank you, gentlemen all, for your promises.  Well, then, on my
+friend Captain Alphonse putting the matter in the way he did, to make an
+end of my story, I held back, and all that day--it was last Saturday--we
+remained on the defensive, we five holding the after part of the ship,
+and the Haytians and mutineers of our crew the forecastle.  All of us,
+though, kept on the watch; they looking out for land, we for help in
+response to our signal flag half-mast high.
+
+"But neither party saw what they looked out and longed for; no corner of
+land on the horizon gratified the desire of their eyes, no ship hove in
+sight to bless ours with the promise of relief!
+
+"The next morning, Sunday, it came on to blow, and our vessel was taken
+aback and nearly foundered.  Fortunately, though, the mutineers not
+interfering, most of them being seasick forwards, Captain Alphonse and
+Basseterre started down into the waist to cast off all the sheets and
+halliards they could reach, letting everything fly; whereupon we drove
+before the wind and so escaped any mishap from this source, at all
+events!
+
+"Probably on account of their prostration from the effects of sea-
+sickness, our enemies did not molest us in any way throughout the day;
+but towards the morning my little Elsie came up the companion-way in a
+state of great terror, saying she heard a sort of scratching in the hold
+below, and that Ivan, her dog, was growling as if he smelt somebody
+trying to get in, though we could not hear the dog on deck from the
+noise of the wind and sea, and a lot of loose ropes and swinging spars
+which were making a terrible row aloft.
+
+"I went down at once with her, and without even taking the trouble to
+listen I could clearly distinguish the sound of tapping beneath the
+cabin deck, despite the confused jabbering of Monsieur Boisson, and the
+shrill tones of his wife.
+
+"I knelt down then and put my ear to the planking, Monsieur Boisson
+watching me with his bottle-brush sort of hair standing straight up on
+end with fright, and Madame, who I thought had more courage than he,
+though such, evidently, I now saw was not the case--well, she was
+rolling on one of the saloon settees in a fit of hysterics, screaming
+and yelling at the top of her voice.
+
+"`Who's there?'  I called out in French.  `Are you one of those
+Haytians, or a friend and one of us?  Answer!  I will know who it is
+when you speak!'
+
+"`I am a friend!' came back instantly in Spanish.  `Let me out, sir; I
+am nearly stifled down here.  The three of us who were locked in the
+main hatch have worked through the cargo and broken the after bulkhead,
+making our way here, but we can't get out of this, for the trap is
+fastened down, sir!'
+
+"It was Pedro Gomez, the steward, who had gone down into the hold with
+two of the white sailors just before the outbreak of the mutiny to
+obtain some salt pork and other food for the use of the very scoundrels
+who had imprisoned them, and who, probably, believed they had all three
+died by this time, like poor Cato, only through suffocation, instead of
+being murdered as he was!
+
+"Needless to say, I immediately drew back the bolts of the hatchway
+cover leading down into the after-hold, which was just under the
+flooring of little Elsie's cabin, and released the three, overjoyed not
+only at finding alive those whom we had thought dead, but doubly so at
+having such a welcome addition to our small force of five--I couldn't
+rely upon that coward Boisson--opposed as we were to the thirty, whom
+the enemy still mustered, after deducting those we shot.
+
+"Why, with this adventitious aid, we could now attack the cursed
+wretches in their stronghold, instead of our merely remaining on the
+defensive, waiting for them to assail us, as we had been forced to do
+all along!
+
+"I thought it best, however, not to let the Haytian scoundrels know of
+this increase to our strength until the morrow, believing that if we
+waited till daylight we might be able to take them more completely then
+by surprise and ensure a victory; for in the dark we might get mixed up
+and, firing at random, hit our friends as well as our foes.  So I went
+up above and spoke to Captain Alphonse, who agreed with me about it, and
+we planned a pleasant little fete for the morning.
+
+"This broke auspiciously enough, the sun rising on a tolerably calm sea,
+while the strong wind of the previous evening had graduated down to a
+gentle breeze from the south-west.
+
+"But hardly had we made all our arrangements as to the distribution of
+arms and settling our form of attack, when our plans were upset by the
+villainous `marquis' advancing aft with a pistol in his hand, supported
+by another of the scoundrels, a negro like himself from Port au Prince,
+and black as a coal, but a regular giant in size, and who likewise held
+a revolver.
+
+"Heavens!  They had previously been without firearms, wherein lay our
+superiority in spite of numbers; but these weapons now put us almost on
+level terms, notwithstanding the reinforcement we had received.
+
+"`Where could they have got 'em, sir?' said little Mr Johnson to me, he
+and Captain Alphonse and myself being in counsel together at the time,
+it being the watch below of Don Miguel and Basseterre and the sailor
+Duval, all three of whom were asleep in the wheel-house, recruiting for
+their night duty.  `They didn't have no firearms yesterday, colonel,
+I'll swear.  Do you think they've murdered the mate and bo'sun forrads,
+and robbed 'em?'
+
+"As a similar idea flashed through my mind, that devil, the `marquis,'
+answered the little Englishman's question as I, too, had feared!
+
+"`Oh! my friend,' he called out, as I covered him with my revolver from
+my rampart behind the poop-rail on the top of the ladder, where a roll
+of tarpaulin served us for shelter.  `Don't be too handy with your
+pistol.  We have got firearms too, now.  Stop a minute.  I have got
+something to say to you.'
+
+"`You had better make haste with your speech, then,' said I.  `My finger
+is itching to pull the trigger, and you know, to your cost, I'm a dead
+shot!'
+
+"`You will not do much good by killing me,' he retorted with that
+mocking hyena laugh of his, which always exasperated me so much.  `I
+want to tell you that we know you have got three more men with you now
+than you had yesterday, for we searched the hold this morning and found
+the nest empty and the birds flown.  But recollect, my friend, we can
+get to you aft through the cargo, in the same way as those white-livered
+wretches have done!'
+
+"`Bah!  I'm not afraid of your threats, you black devil,' I replied,
+although my heart went down to my boots at the thought of my darling
+child being caught unawares and being left to the mercy of such demons.
+`We have scuttled the after part of the ship, and at the least noise
+being heard in the hold we will let in the water and drown you all like
+rats in a hole, and see how you like that!'
+
+"This idea, which occurred to me on the spur of the instant, evidently
+impressed the scoundrel, for I could see a change come over his ugly
+face.
+
+"`Let us make a compromise,' he suggested after a pause, during which he
+whispered to his companion, the giant negro, both keeping much behind
+the mainmast.  `You can take that boat you have there at the stern, the
+lot of you, if you like, and leave us the ship.'
+
+"`My word, that's a very good proposal, marquis,' said Captain Alphonse,
+coming to my side.  `You won't interfere with us, I suppose, if we go
+away and give you absolute power to do what you please with the _Saint
+Pierre_, eh?'
+
+"`Assuredly not, my friend; we promise that,' eagerly replied the
+scoundrel, deceived by the manner of my poor friend.  `You can take
+anything you like of your personal effects too; you and the other
+whites.'
+
+"`Ah, but my friend, you are too good!' said Captain Alphonse, firing
+quickly as he spoke at the `marquis,' who had incautiously exposed
+himself, thinking we had been gulled by his proposal and were ready to
+fall into the trap he had cunningly prepared for us.  `Take that, you
+pig, for my answer!'
+
+"His revolver gave out a sharp crack, and simultaneously with the
+report, the other's pistol fell from his hand, the scoundrel's elbow
+being shattered by the shot.
+
+"Ere I could send a shot in the same direction to finish him off, the
+big negro, who had accompanied him to the front, instantly dragged back
+the `marquis,' howling with rage and pain, behind the shelter of the
+mainmast; and then, picking up his revolver for him, the two of them
+blazed amongst us pretty securely from that retreat, without, however,
+doing any damage to our side.  A bullet of mine, though, flattened the
+big negro's nose a little more than Nature had already done for him, and
+which did not improve his beauty, as you can well believe.
+
+"We kept on popping away at them whenever we saw we had a shot, the
+whole of this day; well, that was only yesterday, but appears ages ago
+to me, sirs!  We kept on firing without materially diminishing their
+strength, but they only replied feebly to our fire, with an occasional
+shot fired at intervals, making up by their shouting and demoniacal
+yells for their failure to harm us more effectively.
+
+"From this we became convinced that they were obliged to husband their
+ammunition, having no more cartridges beyond those still remaining in
+the chambers of the revolvers they were using, which had been loaded
+when served out to Monsieur Henri and the boatswain, to whom the weapons
+originally belonged.  There was, likewise, little doubt but that the
+mutineers had robbed those poor fellows, after murdering them like poor
+Cato, in the forecastle, as the little Englishman had surmised.
+
+"Towards sunset, later on in the afternoon--last night that was--Senor
+Applegarth, remember, we sighted your vessel in the distance.
+
+"Heavens!  She looked to us in our desperate strait as an angel of mercy
+might appear to the spirits of the damned in hell; and, at once, the
+thought of abandoning our accursed ship, which that fiend of a black
+`marquis' unwillingly suggested, rapidly matured itself into a resolve.
+
+"But our intentions in carrying out this determination were very
+different to his, for we believed that, with your help, we should the
+sooner be able to overcome the rascally gang, and re-conquer the vessel
+we might be compelled, ere long, to surrender, all of us now being
+pretty well worn out with the struggle!
+
+"`This is grand! this is magnificent!' cried Captain Alphonse, when I
+unfolded this scheme to him; for, sirs, I may say with pardonable pride,
+it was my plan entirely.  `It is good tactique to beat the retreat
+sometimes in war.  They retreat that they may the more easily advance!'
+
+"Don Miguel was also of a like opinion, and so was the little
+Englishman, Mr Johnson, whose snobbishness had by this time been
+completely put in the shade by his manly pluck and straightforwardness;
+while, as for Basseterre, the mate, and the French sailors, they
+implicitly believed all that Captain Alphonse approved of must
+infallibly be right!
+
+"Our first idea was to attract your attention without letting the
+Haytians see what we were up to, as, to the best of our belief, they had
+no inkling of your proximity; so we were puzzling our brains how to let
+you learn our need in some quiet way, when little Mr Johnson suggested
+our burning a devil, composed of wet gunpowder piled up in the form of a
+cone.  This was accordingly done, and the `devil,' when lit, placed on
+the top of the wheel-house, all the rest of those around discharging
+their revolvers in rapid succession at the rascals on the forecastle to
+take off their attention while the firework fizzed and flared up.
+
+"This signal, however, sirs, did not appear to be observed by your
+vessel."
+
+"It was, though," interposed the skipper.  "We thought you were burning
+a blue light to let us read your name astern, but you were too far off
+for that!"
+
+"Ah! we did not know that, and the failure discouraged us," replied the
+colonel.  "Still, whether we were observed or not, we noticed your
+steamer was lying-to, and we made up our minds to try and reach her if
+possible, should we be able to get out of the _Saint Pierre_ before
+those rascally blacks got wind of our scheme and tried to prevent our
+leaving.
+
+"So we set about our preparations forthwith.
+
+"The four French sailors were ordered to prepare the boat which hung
+from the stern davits and to get it ready for lowering, it being now
+dark enough to conceal their movements, while Captain Alphonse and
+Basseterre kept guard over the approach to the poop on our side, and Don
+Miguel and the Englishman defended the other ladder leading up from the
+lower deck.
+
+"Leaving these at their respective stations, I went down into the
+saloon, accompanied by Pedro Gomez, the steward, to procure some tinned
+meats and biscuits, with some barricoes of water and other things to
+provision the boat, intending also to warn Monsieur and Madame Boisson
+of our contemplated departure; not forgetting also, you may be sure, to
+make every arrangement for the safety of my child, who, with the dog,
+her constant companion, had remained below with the ex-milliner and her
+husband, though these two had retired to their cabin, whence I could not
+get them to stir, either by threat of being left behind or any entreaty.
+No, they were both as obstinate as mules in their cowardice and foolish
+fears!
+
+"Madame declared they had been `betrayed,' and asserted they could `die
+but once'; while monsieur, `le brave Hercule,' on his part, said he
+`washed his hands of all responsibility.'  It was not his affair, he
+considered himself perfectly satisfied, and gave me to understand he
+would not interfere on either side, except, I expect, the victorious
+one!
+
+"Finding all remonstrances in vain, I was just going to force them away
+against their will, when suddenly there came a loud shout from the deck
+above, and the hasty tramp of feet overhead, which was at once responded
+to by Madame Boisson with a shriek at the top of her voice, while
+monsieur cursed everybody in a whining voice.
+
+"Telling Elsie to stop where she was until I returned for her, I rushed
+up the companion-way, followed by Pedro Gomez, only to find everything
+all but lost!
+
+"The French sailors, it seems, so Mr Johnson told me afterwards in a
+few hurried words of explanation, had `got into a fog' over the falls of
+the boat they had been sent to lower, and seeing the clumsy way they
+were setting to work at the job, both Basseterre and Captain Alphonse
+thoughtlessly left their post to show the men the proper way to do the
+task ordered.  Alas! though, in a second, while the whole lot of them
+all had their backs turned to the Haytians, these demons, grasping the
+opportunity in a moment, rushed up on the poop by the port-ladder way,
+now unguarded!
+
+"Captain Alphonse, hearing the noise of their approach, faced about,
+fronting his foes like a tiger at bay, and drew his revolver from his
+belt.
+
+"But, sir, he was too late!
+
+"Ere he could put up his hand to guard himself, for I could see it all
+in an instant, as I emerged from the companion-hatchway, the giant
+negro, who had abandoned his pistol for a hand-spike, brought down this
+fearful weapon with a tremendous thwack on the side of my poor friend's
+head with the result you have seen."
+
+"Aye, faith," said Garry O'Neil.  "It must have been a terrible blow,
+sure, sor!"
+
+"It was," replied the colonel grimly.  "It knocked him down like a
+bullock, and then, before I could interfere, the big brute took up
+Captain Alphonse, all bleeding and senseless as he was, but still
+breathing, and chucked him into the sea.
+
+"That was the negro's last act, however; for, as he broke into a huge
+guffaw of triumph over the ghastly deed, I fired my revolver, the barrel
+of which I shoved almost into his mouth and blew his brains out!"
+
+"Hooray!" exclaimed the impulsive Garry O'Neil on hearing this.  "Faith,
+I ounly wish, colonel, I had been there with ye.  Begorrah, I'd have
+made 'em hop at it, sure, I bet, sor!
+
+"After that," continued the narrator, we had some stiff work for five
+minutes or so, but by keeping the skylight between us, the continuous
+fire of our four revolvers at such short range proved too much for them,
+and we succeeded in driving the blacks off the poop.  The whole lot of
+them retreated back to the forecastle, leaving five of their number dead
+about the decks, besides half a dozen or so of the others badly wounded;
+all of us, fortunately, escaping with only a few slight bruises from
+blows from the Haytian's clubs and hand-spikes--the only weapons they
+used.
+
+"All save poor Captain Alphonse, that is; for it was only when the coast
+was clear of the scoundrels and the poop safe again that I had time to
+think of him.
+
+"Pedro Gomez, remaining with Basseterre and one of the sailors, to guard
+the port-ladder way with their six-shooters loaded and levelled in
+front, commanding all approach aft, in the same way as the mate and poor
+Captain Alphonse had done in the first instance, I went off with all
+haste to the stern gallery to see what had become of my unfortunate
+friend, taking the other three sailors with me, for though taking part
+in the general scrimmage when the blacks invaded the poop so
+unexpectedly, Don Miguel and Johnson had stuck valiantly to their post
+by the starboard rail, and so I had no fear of another surprise on now
+proceeding aft.
+
+"It was still light enough to distinguish objects near, and as I looked
+over the side, what was my astonishment to see his body yet afloat, not
+far from the ship.  Aye, sir, there he was; and, stranger still, as my
+eye caught sight of him, the poor fellow, unconsciously, no doubt,
+raised one hand out of the dark water with a quick, convulsive action,
+just as though he were beckoning to me and imploring me to save him!
+
+"On noticing this--a fact, of course, which showed plainly enough that he
+was still alive--without thinking of what I was doing, I jumped on a
+projecting bollard and dived from the deck of the ship into the sea.
+
+"I soon rose to the surface, when, swimming up to the almost lifeless
+body in a few strokes, I caught hold of a portion of the poor fellow's
+clothing and commenced turning it towards the stern of the vessel just
+underneath the davits, whence the boat we had been preparing for our
+flight was suspended all ready for lowering, and with the French sailors
+standing by above.
+
+"`Look sharp!'  I sang out to them from the water.  `Look sharp, there!
+Lower away!'
+
+"In their haste and flurry, however, the men mistook my order, and
+thinking I had said `cut away,' instead of `lower away,' one of the
+fools, who held a cutlass he had caught up to defend himself with when
+those infernal niggers rushed at us, the confounded idiot made a
+sweeping cut at the falls from which the boat hung, severing them at one
+blow!
+
+"Down came the little craft at once with a splash, almost on the top of
+me; and though she managed to ship some water through her sudden
+immersion, she quickly righted herself on an even keel, right side up."
+
+"By George, I'd have keel-hauled 'em wrong side down!" cried the
+skipper, out of all patience at hearing of this piece of gross
+stupidity.  "The damned awkward lubbers!"
+
+"Yes, sir; French sailors are not like English ones, nor do they
+resemble our American shellbacks, who do know a thing or two!" replied
+the colonel.  "Well, gentlemen, to make an end of my story, I may tell
+you that I had some difficulty in lifting the body of poor Captain
+Alphonse into the boat when I had clutched hold of the gunwale; but
+after a time I succeeded in getting him into the bows, rolling him over
+the side anyhow.
+
+"Then I tried to get in myself by the stern, and had just flung one of
+my legs over when that villain the black `marquis,' catching sight of me
+from the forecastle, ahead of which the boat somehow or other had
+drifted by this time, fired at me with probably the last cartridge he
+had left in his pistol, and which the devil no doubt had reserved for
+me."
+
+"Be jabers!" exclaimed Garry O'Neil, unable to keep silent any longer.
+"The baste!  An', sure, that's how you came by that wound in the groin,
+faith?"
+
+"Yes, sir, doctor.  The shot struck me when I was all of a heap, and
+where it went heaven only knows, till you probed the wound and extracted
+the bullet.
+
+"I must have tumbled into the boat while in a state of insensibility,
+like poor Captain Alphonse, for I do not recollect anything that
+occurred immediately after I felt the sting of the shot as I was hit,
+and when I came to myself again I was horrified to find I was far away
+from the ship, which I could only dimly discern in the distance.
+
+"But this did not daunt me at first, for I thought I should be able to
+row alongside again and get taken aboard through one of the stern ports;
+but, will you believe it, when I came to search the boat for the oars,
+which Basseterre had expressly told those clumsy sailors in my hearing
+to be sure to put into the boat the very first thing of all, can you
+credit it? lo and behold, not a scull nor oar was in her; not a stick of
+any sort or kind whatever!"
+
+"The lubbers!" said Captain Applegarth, indignant again as he paced
+backwards and forwards impatiently, casting an occasional hurried glance
+at the "tell-tale" suspended from the deck above the saloon table, the
+shifting dial of which showed we were now changing course to the
+westward.  "The damned lubbers; the damn--"
+
+The colonel here broke in with-- "This discovery, I think, broke my
+heart," cried he, heaving a heavy sigh.  "It took the last flickering
+gleam of hope away from me, and I sank back again to the bottom of the
+boat, appalled and terrified in my mind by the reflections and thoughts,
+of what might happen to my darling child and those others whom I had
+left on board the _Saint Pierre_, deprived at one fell blow of both
+Captain Alphonse and myself.
+
+"When daylight dawned after a night that seemed a century long, so full
+of pain and awful thought it was to me, I saw the _Saint Pierre_ low
+down on the horizon, to the westward of where I and my poor friend,
+Captain Alphonse, were drifting on the desert sea.  The sight of the
+ship again, even in the distance, and the warmth of the sun's bright
+beams, which made the stagnant blood circulate in my veins once more,
+gave me hope and renewed courage, for I recollected and thought that
+after all, there were eight white men still left on board the ill-fated
+vessel to keep possession of her and defend my little one--eight good
+men and true, not counting that dastardly coward Boisson, who was
+skulking below!
+
+"But, sir, the wind and tide wafted the _Saint Pierre_ away beyond my
+vision; and--and--sirs, the--the end of it all you all know better than
+I can tell you!"
+
+"Aye," put in the skipper, "we saw your boat adrift--at least, old
+Masters did--I'll give him the credit for that.  Then we picked you up,
+and here you are!"
+
+Hardly had the skipper uttered these words, completing the colonel's
+story, when Mr Fosset suddenly poked his head through the skylight over
+the after end of the saloon, the hatch of which opened out on the deck
+of the poop above.
+
+Nor was the first mate merely satisfied with the abrupt intrusion of his
+figurehead into our midst, for he rattled the glass of the skylight in
+no very gentle fashion at the same time, the better, I suppose, to
+attract our attention, though we were all staring open-mouthed at him
+already, all startled by his unexpected appearance on the scene.
+
+But he rattled the glass all the same as he looked down upon us, none
+the less; aye, all the more, rattled it with a will, frightening us all!
+
+"Hi!  Cap'en, Cap'en Applegarth!" he sang out at the very top of his
+voice, as excited as you please.  "That ship's in sight! the ship's in
+sight, at last, sir.  She's hull down to leeward about seven miles off!
+But we're overhauling her fast now, sir, hand over hand!"
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.
+
+WITHIN HAIL.
+
+"By George! is that so?" ejaculated the skipper, starting off with a mad
+clutch at his cap, which he had thrown off on to a locker close by in
+the heat of his excitement during the colonel's yarn.  "I'll be on the
+bridge in a jiffey!  Thank God for that news!"
+
+"Hooray!" shouted Garry O'Neil, as we all immediately jumped from our
+seats on hearing this joyful intelligence, long though it had been in
+coming, even the poor colonel, sliding his bandaged leg off its
+supporting chair and standing on his feet, prepared to follow the
+skipper on deck without a moment's delay.  "Be the powers!  I knew we'd
+overhaul them divvles before sundown!  Faith, an' I tould ye so,
+colonel; I tould ye so, you know I did!"
+
+But just then an unexpected interruption arrested us as we all moved
+towards the companion-way to regain the deck above.
+
+"Look here, colonel," cried a voice from the skipper's state room aft,
+where the commander of the _Saint Pierre_ was supposed to be reposing in
+an almost insensible condition.  "Get out of here! you are not worth
+being angry with."
+
+"Begorrah, it's your poor fri'nd in there!" said Garry O'Neil to the
+colonel.  "What's the poor crayture parleyvooing about, instid of
+slaypin' loike a Christian whin he's got the chance?  Sure, I'll have to
+stop his jaundering there, or he'll niver git betther!"
+
+"Stay a moment; he's beginning again, poor fellow," remarked the
+colonel, holding up his hand.
+
+"Listen!"
+
+"You villains! take that!" called out the Frenchman in a louder key and
+in a tone of anger, as if battling with the blacks on board the _Saint
+Pierre_ over again; and then, after a pause we heard a piteous cry.  "My
+God! they are going to shoot me!  Look!  Look!  To the rescue, colonel,
+quickly, quickly, to the rescue."
+
+"Bedad, he's in a bad way entoirely!" said Garry, as he and the colonel,
+with myself at their heels, entered the after cabin, where we saw
+Captain Alphonse sitting up in the skipper's cot, and gesticulating
+frantically.  "What can he be after sayin' now, sor?"
+
+"He is going over the boat scene on the poop of our unfortunate vessel,
+when the Haytian blacks, as I told you, made at him and the other sailor
+before I rushed up from below, too late to save him, poor fellow!"
+explained the colonel.  "He's calling out for help, as I suppose he did
+then, though I didn't hear him!"
+
+"It sounds moighty queer, anyhow," continued the Irishman.  "Whisht!
+There, he's at it again!  What does that extraordinary lingo mean now?
+I can't make h'id nor tale of it, sor!"
+
+"Hoist the flag immediately!  Close furl the main topsail!" exclaimed
+the poor wounded man in short jerky sentences, as he sat up there in the
+swinging cot, with his hands tearing at the bandage that was bound round
+his head, looking as if he had just risen from the dead, and reminding
+me of a picture I once saw depicting the raising of Lazarus.  His eyes
+were rolling, too, in wild delirium, and after gazing at us fixedly for
+a second or two without a sign of recognition on his pallid face, he
+fell back prostrate again on the mattress, crying out in a pitiful wail,
+"Alas, for the ship!  Too late, too late, too late."
+
+"Heavens!" said the colonel, turning to Garry.  "Can't you do anything
+for him?"
+
+"I'll put somethin' coolin' on the dressin', an' that'll make the poor
+chap's h'id aisier," replied the other, suiting the action to the word.
+"Ice, sure, 'ud be betther; but, faith, there isn't a morsel aboard!"
+
+Whatever he did apply, however, had a quieting influence, and presently,
+after tossing from side to side convulsively, Captain Alphonse closed
+his great staring eyes and began to snore stertorously.
+
+"Heaven be praised!" cried Colonel Vereker.  "He's sleeping again, now!"
+
+"Faith, an' a good job, too, for him, poor crayture," said Garry.  "He's
+in a bad way, I till you, sor! an' he'd betther die aisy whin he's about
+it, sure, than kickin' up a row that won't help him."
+
+"What!" returned the colonel.  "Do you think he's going to die?"
+
+"Begorrah, all the docthers in the worrld wouldn't save him!"
+
+"My poor friend, my poor friend!" cried the colonel.  "I will stay with
+him then, to the end, so as to soothe his last moments!"
+
+There was evidently a struggle going on in Colonel Vereker's mind
+between his desire to do his duty, as he thought, to the dying man, and
+his natural anxiety to be on deck participating in all the excitement of
+the chase after the runaway ship and the coming fight with the Haytians,
+when the black rascals would be called to a final account for all the
+misery and bloodshed they had caused.
+
+Garry O'Neil saw this, and pooh-poohed the idea of the colonel remaining
+below.
+
+"Faith, there ain't the laste bit of good, sor, in yer stoppin' down
+here at all, at all," said he in his brisk, energetic way.  "The poor
+chap won't be afther stirrin' ag'in for the next two hours or more; an'
+if he does, bedad, he won't ricognise ye, or any one ilse for that
+matther!"
+
+"But, sir doctor--"
+
+"Houly Moses!  I till you, colonel, there ain't no use in your stoppin'
+another minnit!" impatiently cried the good-natured Irishman,
+interrupting his half-hearted expostulator.  "Jist you clear out of this
+at once, an' go on deck an' say the foightin' with those murtherin'
+bleyguards.  I'll moind my paychant now till that old thaife Weston's
+finished all the schraps lift in the plates an' bottles from lunch; an'
+thin, faith, he shall take charge of him an' I'll come up too, to say
+the foon.  Now, be off wid ye, colonel, dear; you'll say the poor chap
+ag'in afther the rumpus is over.  Dick Haldane, me darlint, hind the
+colonel the loan of yer arrum, alannah.  There, now off ye both go.
+Away wid ye!"
+
+So saying, he fairly pushed us out of the cabin; and, the colonel
+limping by my side and using my shoulder as a crutch, as he had
+previously done, we both went up the companion-ladder, and gained the
+poop.
+
+The scene here presented a striking contrast to that we had just left,
+the fresh air, bright sun, and sparkling sea all speaking of life and
+movement, in exchange for the stuffy atmosphere of the darkened saloon
+and its association of illness and approaching death.
+
+A stiff breeze was blowing now from the southward, and running, as we
+were, to the northward, right before it, the skipper had ordered all our
+square sails forward to be set so as to take every advantage of the
+wind, in addition to our steam-power, the old barquey prancing away full
+speed ahead, with her topsails and fore canvas bellied out to their
+utmost extent, their leech lifting occasionally with a flicker as she
+outran the breeze and the clew-gallant blocks rattling as the sheets
+slackened and grew taut again, while the wind hummed through the canvas
+aloft like a thousand bees buzzing about the rigging.
+
+The black smoke, too, was rushing up the funnel and whirling in the air
+overhead, uncertain which direction to take, from the speed of the
+vessel inclining it to trail away aft, while the stiff southerly breeze
+blew it forwards; so we carried it all along with us, hung up above our
+dog vane like an awning as we careered onwards, raising a deep furrow of
+swelling water on either side as we cut through the dancing sunlit
+waves, and leaving a long white wake astern that shone through the blue,
+far away behind in the distance, to where sea and sky melted into one,
+far away on the horizon line.
+
+Old Masters, the boatswain, was on the poop when the colonel and I came
+up from below, in the very act of hauling in the patent log to ascertain
+our speed.
+
+"Well," said I, as he looked at the index of the ungainly thing, which
+is something of a cross between a shark hook and a miniature screw
+propeller.  "What's she doing, bo'sun?"
+
+"Doing?  Wot she's a-doing on, sir?" he replied, repeating my own words
+and mouthing them over with much gusto.  "Why, sir, she's going sixteen
+knots still, and the bloomin' old grampus has been keeping it up since
+four bells.  She carries the wind with her, too; for jist as we bore up
+north awhile ago, astern the chase, I'm blessed if the breeze didn't
+shift round likewise to the south'ard, keepin' astern of us as before!"
+
+"Where is the chase?"  I asked, not being able to see forwards on
+account of the swelling foresail and other intervening objects.  "I
+suppose she's right ahead, eh?"
+
+"No, sir.  Jist come here alongside o' me at the taffrail," said he.
+"Now foller my finger, sir.  Look, there she is, two points off our
+starboard bow.  She was hull down jist now, but we're rising her fast,
+sir.  See, there she be right under the foreyard there!"
+
+I looked in the direction he indicated, and could very faintly in the
+distance see something white like a sail, almost out of sight on the
+ocean ahead.
+
+"But, Masters," said I, having no glass with me to bring her nearer, and
+seeing she was too far off for me to distinguish her with the naked eye,
+"are you certain she's the same craft?"
+
+"As sartin, Master Haldane," he answered solemnly, "aye, as sartin as
+that when we goes aboard her, as go aboard her we must, we shall both be
+a-goin' to our death!  That's the `ghost-ship,' Master Haldane, as you
+and I've seed three times afore.  May I die this minute if she ain't!"
+
+"Die! don't talk such nonsense, Masters."
+
+"It ain't no nonsense, Master Haldane," he retorted, and looking the
+picture of misery and unhappiness.  "That there ship means no good to
+you nor me, nor to none of them as seed her afore, I knows.  It's her,
+sure enuff.  No mortal ship could sail on like that continually since
+Friday, right afore the wind, and still allers be a-crossin' our hawser,
+though her canvas be tore to ribbings and never a man aboard, as we've
+seed.  It ain't nat'ral, nohow.  Aye, she be the `ghost-ship' and no
+mistake,--and God help us all!"
+
+I noticed at the moment a telescope lying on the top of the saloon
+skylight, which Mr Fosset must have left behind him in his haste, when
+he came from the bridge to hail the skipper and then hurried back to his
+post; so, quickly catching up the glass, I scanned the distant sail,
+which grew more perceptible every minute.
+
+Yes, there was no doubt about it.
+
+She was a full-rigged ship running before the wind, but going a bit
+every now and then off her course as if under no proper guidance or
+management, while all her sails were torn and hanging anyhow, and her
+spars and rigging apparently at sixes and sevens, as though she had been
+terribly mauled by the weather.
+
+"For Heaven's sake, tell me!" cried the colonel, who had approached me
+unobserved while I was looking through the telescope.  "Tell me, is she
+there?  Can you see her?"
+
+"Yes, sir," said I.  "I can see her, and it's the same ship I saw the
+other night.  It is the _Saint Pierre_!"
+
+"Ha!" he exclaimed, his black eyes flashing into a passion that made him
+forget his lameness, as he strode to the side of the vessel, where,
+resting one hand on the rail, he shook the other menacingly at the ill-
+fated craft, now with her hull well above the horizon.  "Ah, you black
+devils, we'll settle you at last!"
+
+Meanwhile, the skipper, who had gone up to join Mr Fosset on the bridge
+after leaving us below so suddenly, was making his way aft again; and on
+the colonel turning round from the rail he found him at his back,
+looking over his shoulder at the ship we were approaching.
+
+The skipper was all agog with excitement.
+
+"By George!" he exclaimed.  "We're closing on her fast now, colonel!"
+
+"How soon, Senor Applegarth, do you think we'll be before we're
+alongside her?"
+
+"In about half an hour at the outside, sir, unless something gives way.
+We would have been up to her before if she had been lying-to; but she's
+going ahead too, like ourselves, and not making bad way either,
+considering the state she's in aloft, and her yawing this way and that.
+It is wonderful how she keeps on!"
+
+"Oh dear! oh dear! she's possessed, as your companion here said just now
+to the young Senor Haldane."
+
+"Oh, you mustn't mind what the bo'sun says," observed the skipper.
+"He's chock full of the old superstitions of the sea, and makes
+mountains out of molehills."
+
+"The deuce! he's not far wrong about the _Saint Pierre_, though, for if
+ever a ship had the devil aboard, I'm sure she has, in the shape of that
+villainous black `marquis'!"
+
+"Then the sooner the better for us to see about `Scotching' your de'il,"
+cried the skipper with a laugh that meant business, I knew.  "I'm now
+going to call the hands aft and prepare for the fight, and they shall
+have it hot, I can tell you," said he.
+
+"Have you got arms enough for them, sir?  Those rascals will make a
+stubborn resistance, and there's a big lot of them still left in the
+ship, remember!"
+
+The skipper laughed outright at this.
+
+"Lord bless you, colonel!" said he, "the steamers of our line are fitted
+out in their way very like men-of-war; and I have enough rifles and
+cutlasses in the arm chest below to rig out more than twice the number
+of the crew we carry, besides revolvers for all the officers.  This,
+however, will be short and sharp work, as we're going to run your black
+devils by the beard; so I shall only serve out cutlasses."
+
+"But you'll spare me a revolver, Senor Applegarth?  I left mine, as you
+are aware, behind me," said he with a smile, "and I should like to have
+another shot or two at my friend, the `marquis'!"
+
+"Aye, aye, colonel, you shall have one, and a good one too, and so shall
+all those who know how to use a pistol properly; but, for close hand-to-
+hand fighting, I prefer cold steel myself."
+
+Colonel Vereker joined in the skipper's grim chuckle, which suited his
+mood well.
+
+"Yes, sir, that's true," he rejoined; "but a revolver isn't to be
+sneezed at, all the same!"
+
+"No colonel, your leg'll bear witness to that," said the skipper as he
+turned to me.  "Run down quickly, Haldane, to the arm chest in my state
+room--here are the keys--and pick out a dozen or so cutlasses and
+boarding-pikes, with a revolver apiece for all on the quarter-deck, and
+half a dozen rounds of ammunition.  You can get Weston to help you to
+bring the lot up here.  Look smart; I want to serve them out at once, as
+we're now coming up with the chase, and there's no time to lose."
+
+Down I scuttled into the saloon with the skipper's bunch of keys; and,
+calling the steward to help me, went into the after cabin, where Garry
+O'Neil still remained, wetting the bandage round the head of the French
+captain, and doing it too with greater delicacy of touch than the most
+experienced and flippant of hospital nurses.
+
+Garry was delighted when I told him what I came about.
+
+"Houly Moses!" he ejaculated; "why that's the virry job for me, sure.
+Here, Weston, you ugly thaife of a son of a gun, come here!  There's
+going to be some rare foightin' on deck prisintly; an' as I know ye
+don't loike to be afther spoilin' that beautiful mug o' yours, you jist
+sit down there, alannah, an' moind this poor chap here till I come below
+ag'in, whilst I help Musther Haldane, too, with thim murtherin' arms
+that give one a could chill, faith, to look at, bad cess to 'em."
+
+He gave me a sly wink as he said this, which was unperceived by Weston,
+who accepted the proposed change of duty with an alacrity that showed he
+had no stomach for warfare procedure, and Garry and I very speedily took
+up a bundle of weapons each on to the poop, laying them down close
+beside the skipper, who stood against the rail.
+
+"Ah, doctor," said the colonel, who was sitting down near by on the
+skylight hatchway, resting himself before the battle should begin, on
+seeing Garry come up the companion, "how's my poor friend now?"
+
+"Faith, he's still unconshus," replied he, handing him a big revolver
+with a cartridge belt attached; "ah, sure, I 'spect he'll remain so,
+too, colonel, till you've had toime to polish off the rest of thim
+schoindrels we're afther.  Indade, it's going off loike that the poor
+crayture will be, I'm afeard, whin it comes to the ind.  I don't think
+he'll ayther spake or move ag'in in this loife."
+
+But Garry was mistaken in this diagnosis of his, as events turned out;
+but, ere he could say another word, just then as the colonel was going
+to make a reply to him, the skipper hammered on the deck with a marling-
+spike to attract attention and give a hail at the very top of his voice
+that made us all jump, it was so loud and unexpected.
+
+"Ahoy there, forrad!" he shouted in stentorian tones that rang fore and
+aft like a trumpet.  "Bo'sun, send the hands aft."
+
+"Say, cap'en," sang out Mr Fosset from the bridge, "shall I call up the
+fellows down below in the stoke-hold, sir?"
+
+"Aye.  Ring the engine-room gong.  I want every man-jack on deck that
+Mr Stokes can spare; tell him so."
+
+While old Masters was sounding his boatswain's pipe and while busy feet
+were tramping aft, the men were beginning to cluster in the waist
+immediately below the back of the poop.  And here Captain Applegarth
+stood stern and erect like an old lion, his cap off and his wavy grey
+hair fluffed out over his head by the wind.  While this was happening we
+could hear the distant sound of the engine-room bell, and then there
+came a hail from Mr Fosset.
+
+"Mr Stokes is sending up every one from below, sir," yelled out the
+first mate.  "He says he can manage by himself now that we're nearly up
+to the chase, with the help of a couple of the other firemen; and the
+engineers and stokers, the whole lot of them in a batch, have
+volunteered to come on deck and join the boarding party."
+
+"That's your sort, my hearty," cried the skipper enthusiastically,
+looking down at the sea of excited faces below gazing up expectantly at
+his, awaiting the stirring words they knew to be coming, all having got
+wind of the approaching fray.  "Now, men, I have summoned the lot of you
+aft because--well, because I've got something to say to you."
+
+"Bully for you, old man," exclaimed one of the men, amidst a grand roar,
+while I could distinguish, distinctly above the other voices of the
+crew, Accra Prout, the mulatto cook's laugh as he called out
+approvingly, "Golly, dat so, sonny!"
+
+"Heavens!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker, seemingly, like myself, to
+recognise the voice at once, "who's that?" said he sharply.
+
+Accra Prout, who stood a head taller than any other of the men clustered
+round him, caught sight of the colonel as the latter cast his eyes
+downwards, rising from his seat and coming to the side of the skipper;
+and the mulatto's eyes grew as large as saucers, while his eyeballs
+rolled in delight and his wide mouth extended itself from ear to ear.
+
+"Bress de Lor'!" he cried out, with all a darkey's emphatic enthusiasm,
+breaking into a huge guffaw that was almost hysterical--"bress de Lor'!
+it's de massa; it's Mass' Vereker from de plantation, for surh!"
+
+"Yes, it's me, myself, sure enough, Prout; and I'm right glad to see
+you," said the colonel, equally delighted.  "There, Senor Applegarth,
+didn't I tell you any of my old Louisianian hands would like to see me
+again, in spite of what I said about those infernal niggers who seized
+our ship?"
+
+"Aye, you did, colonel, you did," replied the skipper, waving his hand
+in the air; "but never mind that now--I'm going to speak to the crew."
+
+"Now, me bhoys, altogether," cried Garry O'Neil, looking over the top of
+the booby-hatch over the companion-way, "three cheers for the cap'en,
+horray!"
+
+"Horray!" roared the lot below with a kindred enthusiasm, "Horray!
+Horray!"
+
+"We're almost within hail now of the chase, sir," sang out Mr Fosset
+from the bridge when the echo of the last deafening cheer had died away;
+"I'm going to slow down, so that we can sheer up alongside."
+
+"That's just what I was waiting for," said the skipper in answer to
+this.  "Now, men, you see that ship ahead of us?"
+
+"Aye," called out the foremost hand, who had before spoken--the usual
+leader, and the wit of the fo'c's'le--"the ghost-ship, cap'en."
+
+"Well, ghost-ship, devil-ship, or whatever she may be, my lads, we're
+going to board her and rescue a young lady, a child in age, the daughter
+of my friend, Colonel Vereker here, and a lot of white men like
+yourselves, who are now at the mercy of a gang of black demons who have
+murdered the rest of the passengers and crew and taken possession of the
+vessel.  Are you going to stand by me, lads?"
+
+His answer was another deafening cheer, heartier and louder even than
+the first.
+
+"Ah, I thought I could reckon on your help," cried the skipper in a tone
+of proud satisfaction, glancing round at the colonel.  "I have got your
+tools handy for you, too, my lads; and if you will come up to the poop
+in single file by the port-ladder, going down again by the starboard
+gangway, each shall be supplied in turn.  Mr O'Neil, please serve out
+the cutlasses and boarding-pikes.  Now, my men, way aloft there!  Single
+file, and no crushing, mind, and we'll get the job done all the
+quicker!"
+
+Ere he had finished speaking the arming of the men had already begun,
+and within a very few minutes the cutlasses and long boarding-pikes had
+all been distributed, every man having some weapon.
+
+"Now, bo'sun, pipe the men to their stations," sang out the skipper, who
+appeared to have already matured his plan of action.  "Starboard watch
+forrad, port watch aft, and all the stokers and firemen amidships, under
+the bridge.  Have a couple of hands, too, in the forechains, with a
+hawser and grapnel, ready to make fast to the ship when we come
+alongside her."
+
+"Aye, aye, sir," hailed back Masters.  "Starboard watch ahoy!  Away
+forrads with you along o' me!"
+
+Our engines had already slackened speed; and, the helm being put down,
+we came up to the wind, to leeward of the ship and not a half cable's
+length away from her, broadside-on.
+
+"Stand by there, forrad," shouted the skipper.  "Ship ahoy there!
+Surrender, or we'll run you aboard."
+
+A wild savage yell came back in reply from a number of half-naked
+negroes who were mustered on the after part of the vessel, as well as on
+the forecastle, not a single white man being visible, while her
+Tricolour flag--so conspicuous before, and which I fancied having seen
+but half an hour or so previously when looking at her through the
+telescope--was now no longer to be seen.
+
+Could our worst fears have been realised?
+
+Another savage yell almost confirmed the thought.  "Heavens!" exclaimed
+Colonel Vereker, rendered almost frantic with grief and excitement, and
+noticing the appalling evidences of the Haytians' triumph, while we
+stared aghast at each other.  "My poor darling child, and those brave
+fellows I left behind, where are they all; where are they?  For God's
+sake find them!  Alas! alas! those black devils have murdered them all."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.
+
+A FREE FIGHT.
+
+But hardly had the colonel given vent to his despairing exclamation,
+expressive alike of his own dismay and ours also, when the bitter
+feeling of disappointment at being too late, that had for the moment
+weighed down upon us, crushing our enthusiasm, was suddenly banished and
+the hearts of all filled with renewed hope and fierce determination.
+
+We were not too late after all!
+
+No.
+
+For as we gazed in blank surprise at the howling mob of Haytians, who
+appeared to have gained complete possession of the _Saint Pierre_, and
+were dancing about and gesticulating in their wild, devilish fashion,
+calling out to us with wild derisive cries, as if mocking at our efforts
+to save those whom they had already butchered, a bright flame of fire
+flashed out from the skylight hatch of the doomed ship, followed by the
+sharp crack of a revolver; and at the same instant one of the half-naked
+devils massed on the poop leaped into the air and then fell on his face
+flat on the deck, uttering a yell of agony as he writhed his limbs in
+the throes of death.
+
+An exulting cheer broke from all of us in the _Star of the North_ on
+seeing this, every man gripping his weapon tightly, and setting his
+teeth hard, ready for action, as the two vessels sidled up nearer and
+nearer.
+
+Then if word were wanted to spur us on, the skipper gave that word with
+a vengeance!
+
+"By George! my lads, we're in time yet to save the child and our other
+white comrades!" he cried out loudly, at the same time jumping into the
+mizzen rigging, where he hung on the shrouds with one hand, while in the
+other he held a cutlass which he had hastily clutched up, whirling it
+round his lionlike old grey head.  "See, men, they've retreated to the
+cabin below, where they're fighting for their lives to the last.  Tumble
+up, my lads, and save them, like the British sailors that you are!
+Boarders, away!"
+
+As he said this, Mr Fosset, who was still on the bridge conning the old
+barquey, having at once ported our helm, on the skipper holding up his
+cutlass, taking this for a signal, we came broadside-on, slap against
+the hull of the other ship with a jolt that shook her down to her very
+kelson, rolling a lot of the darkies, who were grouped aft, off their
+legs like so many ninepins.  At the same moment, before the two craft
+had time to glide apart, both having way upon them, old Masters forward,
+and Parrell, the quartermaster, who was stationed in the waist of our
+vessel, just under the break of the poop, hooked on grapnels, with
+hawsers attached, to the weather rigging of the _Saint Pierre_; and ere
+the skipper's rallying cry and our answering cheer had died away,
+drowned by the voice of our escaping steam rushing up the funnels on the
+engines coming to a stop, now that their duty for the nonce was done,
+there we were moored hard and fast together, alongside the whilom
+dreaded "ghost-ship!"
+
+Then with another wild hurrah that made the ringbolts in the deck
+jingle, and swamped the sound of the rushing steam and everything, the
+men, closing up behind the skipper, who led us so gallantly over the
+side, far in advance, brave-hearted old sea dog that he was, bounded
+across the intervening bulwarks, and were the next instant engaged in
+all the maddening excitement of a hand-to-hand tussle with the black
+villains, pistol shot, sword cut and pike thrust coming in turn into
+play, amid a babel of hoarse shouts of rage and cheers and savage
+yells--mingled with the swish of blows from capstan bars, the loud
+reports of revolvers fired off at close range and the heavy thud of
+falling bodies as they tumbled headlong on the deck ever and anon,
+accompanied by some cry of agony or groan of pain too deep for
+utterance.
+
+Aye, it was a discord of devilry that must have appeared a veritable
+pandemonium to the spirits of the air, were any such looking down on the
+wrathful, sanguinary scene from the clear blue heavens above, all
+radiant now with a golden glow that came from the west, where the
+declining sun was just beginning to sink below the horizon!
+
+"Fuaghaballah, may the divvle take the hindmost!" cried Garry O'Neil,
+leaping after the skipper on to the poop of the _Saint Pierre_, a
+revolver in his right fist and a cutlass in his left, laying about him
+with a will amongst the mass of infuriated negroes who tried to resist
+his rush, clutching at his legs and arms in vain, for he seemed
+bewitched.  "Come on wid ye, me darlints, an' let us make mincemate of
+'em, faith!"
+
+I followed in his wake, but a crowd of our men, some of whom had served
+in the navy and were accustomed to the work, pushed me on one side,
+going into the thick of the fight themselves, and all was such a jumble
+of confusion that I hardly knew where I was until "a pretty tidy tap on
+the top of my head," as Garry would have said, brought back my
+recollection in a very effective manner, when I found myself right in
+front of an extremely ugly-looking negro, whose appearance was not
+improved by a slice having been taken off the side of his face, and from
+which blood was streaming down all over his black body, and that
+destitute of clothing.
+
+I noticed that this gentleman had a long piece of wood like a boat
+stretcher in his hands, with which he had evidently given me the gentle
+reminder I have mentioned, being brought to this conclusion by the fact
+that the rascal had it raised ready to deal another blow.
+
+Putting up my arm instinctively to ward off the impending stroke that I
+saw coming, I cocked and levelled my revolver at him in an instant.
+
+Before I could fire, however, some one behind me shoved me aside again,
+and crash came a heavy capstan bar down upon the negro's skull, which I
+heard crack like a walnut shell as he dropped dead on his face.
+
+"Golly, Mass' Hald'n," exclaimed Accra Prout, our stalwart mulatto cook,
+whose sinuous arm had thus incontinently settled the dispute between my
+sable opponent and myself.  "I'se guess dis chile gib dat black debble
+goss, noh ow!"
+
+But ere I could say a word to him for his timely aid, Accra Prout had
+bounded onward in front, and I then saw he was following Colonel
+Vereker, who had managed somehow or other, in spite of his lameness, to
+gain the deck of his old ship along with the rest of us.
+
+Crack, crack, crack, went his revolver with venomous iteration from the
+other side of the vessel, where he was standing by the bulwarks, close
+to the hatchway of the companion-ladder leading to the cabin below,
+which he was apparently endeavouring to reach, while a crowd of Haytians
+barred his further progress towards those imprisoned in the cabin, whom
+they thus prevented his releasing, a fresh foe starting up for every one
+he disposed of, and a rough and terrible fight going on all round him
+all the time.
+
+"'Top a minnit, Mass' V'reker!" shouted Accra Prout, darting into the
+middle of the throng, clearing a pathway for himself with the capstan
+bar.  "I'se here; I'se come help you soon!"
+
+"A thousand devils!" hissed a tall black near by--a man with a large,
+crinkly, ink-black moustache, and certainly with the most satanic visage
+I had ever beheld before.  "A thousand devils!" repeated he, giving him
+a thrust with a large knife that pierced poor Accra's arm, and making
+him drop the capstan bar.  "Take care of yourself--beast!"
+
+A cry from the colonel told me who this was.
+
+"Ah, villain, villain!" he sang out, looking him full in the face and
+grinding his teeth and trying with all his might, but vainly, to get at
+him through the press of struggling figures by whom he was surrounded.
+"I've been looking for you, _Marquis des Coupgorges_!"
+
+The black scoundrel gave out a shrill laugh like that of a hyena, as
+Colonel Vereker had described it to us when telling his yarn.
+
+"Pardon me, sir, I am here," he yelled out mockingly.  "I am here.  I do
+not run away like your white trash!  Why don't you come and fight me?
+Bah!  I spit on you, my fine plantation colonel.  When I get at you I
+will serve you just as I did your sly slave the other day, whom you sent
+to betray us, though you, yourself, were too great a coward to come
+amongst us, yes, to come amongst us yourself.  Aha! colonel."
+
+He said this in plain English, which language he spoke as fluently as he
+did French, the native language of Hayti, uttering his abusive threats
+loud enough for us to hear every syllable; but though I aimed at him
+while he was speaking twice point blank, and my revolver spoke out quite
+as loudly as he, while the colonel likewise shot at him and the skipper
+made a slash in his direction with his cutlass, the miscreant escaped
+all our attacks without a single wound, dodging away from us amongst his
+dusky compatriots, who were now pretty thickly mixed up with our men in
+a fierce _melee_, at the further end of the poop, overlooking the waist
+below.
+
+In the midst of this awful scrimmage there came a wild rush aft of all
+the remaining blacks who had been engaged with some of the hands
+amidships, pursued by our second boarding party, led by Mr Fosset and
+Stoddart, who had made their way over the bows and cleared the
+fo'c's'le, fighting onward step by step along the upper deck; and hemmed
+in fast thus, between two fires, the black desperadoes made a last
+stand, refusing to surrender, or throw down their arms in spite of all
+promises of quarter on our part.
+
+All of them could see for themselves how completely overmatched they
+were, and must have known the utter uselessness of attempting any
+further resistance to us; but the mutineers of the negro portion of the
+_Saint Pierre's_ crew, who were now in the majority, feared to give in
+owing to the fact of their believing they would be ultimately hanged if
+taken alive after the atrocities they had committed; so being of the
+opinion they were bound to be killed in any case, they determined
+apparently, if die they must, they would die fighting.
+
+Whatever might be their motive or conviction, I will give them the
+credit of being plucky, and must say that they fought bravely, though
+with a ferocity that was more than savage, to the bitter end, their last
+rally on the break of the poop being the fiercest episode of the fray,
+several hand-to-hand combats going on at one and the same time with hand
+pikes and capstan bars whirling about over the heads of those engaged,
+where cutlass cuts were met with knife-thrusts from the formidable long-
+bladed weapons the negroes carried in their hands only to sheathe them
+in the bodies of their white antagonists.
+
+My brain got dizzy as I watched the mad turmoil and my blood was at
+fever heat, taking part in the fight too, you may be sure, whenever I
+saw an opening, and dealing a blow here or parrying one there, as chance
+arose, with the best of them, young though I was, and totally
+inexperienced in such matters!
+
+It was coming near to the finish, being too warm work to continue much
+longer, and I think all of us had had pretty well enough of it, when,
+looking round for Colonel Vereker, whom I suddenly missed from among the
+combatants, I saw him struggling with one of the blacks in a regular
+rough and tumble tussle on the deck.
+
+The two were rolling about close to the after skylight from whence we
+had observed the flash of the pistol shot as we approached the ship, and
+which the colonel had been trying to get near to ever since he boarded
+her, but had been prevented from reaching by one obstacle or another
+until now, when this negro clutched hold of him and forced him back
+again.
+
+He and the Haytian were tightly locked in a deadly embrace, the negro
+gripping him with both arms round the body, and the colonel endeavouring
+to release his revolver hand, the two rolling over and over on the deck
+towards the rail forward.
+
+"Ha!" muttered the colonel, who was hard pressed, through his set teeth.
+"Only let me get free."
+
+Strangely enough, the glass of the skylight above the spot where the
+pair were struggling was instantly shattered from within, as if in
+response to his muttered cry; and with a loud bark that could have been
+heard a mile off, a big dog burst forth from the opening, making
+straight for the colonel and his relentless foe.
+
+Then there came a startled yell from the negro, who, releasing his late
+antagonist, staggered to his feet.
+
+"Holy name of--" he screamed out in wild affright, but he had not time
+to reach the concluding word of his sentence--the name of his patron
+saint, no doubt--"the devil!"
+
+For before he could get so far, giving a fierce growl, the dog at once
+sprang up at him, his fangs meeting in the Haytian's throat, whereupon
+the latter, toppling backwards over the poop-rail, fell into the waist
+below, with the dog hanging on to him; and I noticed presently that both
+were dead, the brave animal who had come so opportunely to the rescue of
+the colonel, his master, being stabbed to the heart by a knife which the
+negro still held in his lifeless hand, while his own neck had been torn
+to pieces by the dog whom death could not force to relinquish his grip!
+
+Immediately running up to the colonel, who was feebly trying to rise,
+his wrestle with the black having crippled his wounded leg and arm, I
+helped him to his feet as quickly as I could, while others clustered
+round to shelter us.
+
+"Poor Ivan, true as steel in death as in life!" he faintly muttered,
+glancing from the break of the poop on the two bodies huddled together
+below, the blood of the faithful dog flowing with that of his ruthless
+foe into a crimson pool that was gradually extending its borders from
+the middle of the deck to the lee scuppers.  "He has defended my little
+Elsie, I am sure, to the last, likewise, even as he defended me.  I hope
+and trust my child is still safe in the cabin.  Help me aft, my lad, to
+see; quick, quick!"
+
+Of course I assisted him as well as I could under the circumstances, but
+as he limped along towards the companion-hatchway, the leader of the
+desperadoes, that villainous "marquis," who I thought had met with his
+just deserts long since, not having seen him for some little time among
+the other fighters, most unexpectedly jumped from the rigging in front
+of the colonel and aimed a vindictive blow at him with a marline-spike.
+
+This must have settled the colonel if it had fallen on his uncovered
+head.  Fortunately though, dropping quickly the colonel's arm, I fended
+off the blow with the revolver I held in my hand, while at the same time
+I gave the scoundrel a drive in the face that must have astonished his
+black lordship a good deal, for my clenched fist met him square on the
+mouth and shook his teeth, making them rattle, as well as disarranging
+the twist of his crinkly moustache!
+
+He came at me with a snarl like an angry tiger, and then, hugging me
+tight, with his hideous black face thrust close against mine, and his
+muscular arms pressed tightly around my ribs, he squeezed every ounce of
+breath out of my body.
+
+I thought my last hour had come.
+
+But help came to my aid from a most unlooked-for quarter.
+
+"Ah! you blackguard," cried a voice that sounded dimly in my ears, my
+head at the time seeming to be whirling round like the arms of a
+windmill from the sense of suffocation and the rush of blood to the
+brain.  "Coward! miscreant! you are here again."
+
+Breathless though I was, I was so surprised, and indeed frightened at
+the voice and accent of the speaker, which I immediately recognised,
+that I at once came to myself and opened wide my half-closed eyes.
+
+Good heavens!  Shall I ever forget the sight?  Yes; it was Captain
+Alphonse, whom I had last seen only half an hour or so previously in the
+skipper's cot on board the _Star of the North_, when Garry O'Neil said
+he would probably never wake to consciousness again in this life, or
+move out of the skipper's state room!
+
+Here he was though, all the same, looking like an apparition from the
+dead, wild, ghastly, awful, but quite sufficiently in his senses to
+recognise his terrible enemy, the pseudo "marquis."
+
+It is a scene I shall never forget, as I remarked before.
+
+Like poor Ivan, and with equal ferocity, the Frenchman sprang at the
+ugly villain's throat, the whole lot of us tumbling headlong on the deck
+together, which caused the wretch to release me in order to protect
+himself from Captain Alphonse, who, kneeling on the top of him, hammered
+him against the bulwarks as though trying to beat the life out of him.
+
+Making a last desperate effort, the Haytian "marquis" gripped his
+antagonist round the waist as he previously gripped me, dragging him
+down beside him again; and then, as the two came with all their might
+against the side of the ship where the port flap was loose, the whole of
+the planking gave way, and poor Captain Alphonse, with that scoundrel
+the black "marquis," crashed through the splintering wood together,
+falling with a heavy splash overboard into the sea beneath, going to the
+bottom locked in each other's arms--a terrible ending to the terrible
+episode of this, their last meeting.
+
+For the minute the colonel seemed overwhelmed with grief at this awful
+and sudden termination of poor Captain Alphonse's life, and we would all
+sooner have seen him die unconsciously if not quietly, in his bed; but
+such are the ways of Providence, and we cannot control them!
+
+But this day certainly witnessed a series of surprises, so it seemed to
+me, the most wonderful things happening every moment.
+
+Colonel Vereker had dragged himself as well as he could, up to where I
+lay on the deck, after being set free from the bearlike hug of the
+negro, helping me up on my legs in the same Good Samaritan way in the
+which I had saved him shortly before; and we were both looking over the
+side, talking excitedly of the dreadful catastrophe that had just
+happened, and wondering whether the poor captain's body would rise to
+the surface again, when all of a sudden, something bright crossing the
+deck caught my eye like a flash of light, and I heard the sound of light
+and hurried footsteps.
+
+Wheeling round hastily I was amazed at the beautiful object that met my
+gaze, for I saw standing there, only a pace or two off, a lovely young
+girl, with a profusion of long silky hair of a bright golden hue, that
+streamed in a tangled mass over her shoulders, and reaching down almost
+to her feet.
+
+"My father, my dear father!" she exclaimed in broken and ecstatic tones,
+her voice sounding to me like the soft cooing of a dove, as she flew and
+nestled herself into the outstretched arms of the colonel, who had also
+turned round at her approach, some sympathetic feeling having warned him
+of her coming, telling him who it was even before he saw her.
+
+"Oh, my father! my father!  At last, at last!"
+
+And then, unable to control herself longer, she burst into a passion of
+tears and sobs.
+
+Colonel Vereker, on his part, was equally overcome.
+
+"God be thanked!" cried he, raising his face to heaven, clasping her at
+the same time fondly to his heart and kissing her trembling lips again
+and again.  "My darling one, my own little daughter, whom I thought I
+had lost for ever, but whom the good God has preserved to be the delight
+of my eyes again, my little one, my precious!"
+
+For a few minutes I too had a lump in my throat, but turned aside, and
+then, not wishing to appear to be observing them, I left them alone and
+went off to another part of the ship.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
+
+HORS DE COMBAT.
+
+A grand hurrah just then burst forth from the deck below us, where the
+skipper and most of the men were massed, telling as plainly as
+triumphant cheer could tell, that the fight was ended, and that victory
+had crowned our arms with success.  I rushed back to tell the colonel.
+
+On hearing my footsteps, however, little Elsie turned round and caught
+sight of me.
+
+"Oh, my father!" said she, untwining herself from the colonel's embrace,
+though she still nestled up close to him, as she stared at me shyly,
+with a puzzled look on her mignonne face.  "Why, who is this young sir,
+my father?  I seem to know him, and yet I do not remember having ever
+seen him before!"
+
+"Look at him again, darling one," said her father, petting her
+caressingly, while another hearty cheer went up from the hands in the
+waist.  "He is Senor Dick Haldane, a gallant young gentleman whom you
+must thank, my little daughter, for having saved my life."
+
+At this the graceful young girl advanced a step or two towards me, and
+catching hold of my hand, before I could prevent her, kissed it, greatly
+to my confusion; as albeit it was an act expressive amongst the Spanish,
+with whom she had been brought up, of deferential courtesy and
+gratitude, but it made me blush up to my eyes and feel hot all over.
+
+"A thousand thanks, sir," she began; but as she raised her eyes to my
+face in thus giving utterance to her thanks for having, as the colonel
+had told her, saved her father's life, a flood of recollection seemed to
+come upon her, and she exclaimed:
+
+"Ah, I remember now!  My father, yes, he is like the gentleman whom I
+saw on the deck of the steamer that awful night when the negroes rose up
+against us--last Friday, was it not?  But it seems so long ago to me!
+You, you naughty papa, would not believe that your little girl had seen
+anything at all, not even a ship, but that I only fancied it in my
+foolishness.  However, there is the same steamer that I saw (pointing
+with her finger to the _Star of the North_), and here is the same, for I
+am sure he is the same, the very same young officer.  Am I not right?"
+And looking up at her father, she exclaimed, "Your little girl told the
+truth after all."
+
+"And you, young lady," said I, smiling at her recognition of me, strange
+coincidence as it was, corroborating my own experience of the same
+eventful night, "yes; you are the same little girl I saw on board the
+`ghost-ship,' as all the men here called your vessel, not believing,
+likewise, my story that I had seen her or you either.  Yes, I would have
+known you anywhere.  You are the girl whom I saw with the dog!"
+
+The next moment I could have bitten my tongue out, though, for my
+thoughtlessness in alluding to the poor dog; for at the bare mention of
+him Elsie's face, which had a sort of absent, wandering look about it
+still, at once lighted up, and she glanced round in all directions.
+
+"Ah, I declare I had quite forgotten Ivan in the joy and happiness of
+seeing you again, my father," she exclaimed excitedly.  "Where is he,
+the brave fellow?  Ivan, Ivan, you dear old dog.  Come here; come here,
+sir, directly!"
+
+She looked round again, with a half smile playing about the corners of
+her pretty rosebud of a mouth and a joyous light in her eyes, expecting
+her faithful friend and companion would come bounding up to her side;
+but she now waited and watched and listened in vain, there being no
+response to her summons either by bark or bound or wag of poor Ivan's
+bushy tail.
+
+Nor would there be any more, for his ringing bark was hushed, his body
+and tail alike stiff and cold, while his noble heart which only throbbed
+with affection for those whom he loved when living, had stopped beating
+for aye.
+
+"My dear child, poor Ivan is dead!" said Colonel Vereker tenderly after
+a short pause, drawing the young girl up to him so that she might not
+see the gruesome sight on the deck below.  "The brave dog sacrificed his
+life for mine, and but for his help, little one, I should not now be by
+your side."
+
+This account of the poor animal's heroic end, however, did not comfort
+little Elsie, who gave a startled glance at her father's face; where,
+seeing something there that made her comprehend her loss, she buried her
+golden head on his breast, sobbing as though her heart would break.
+
+"Poor, poor, dear Ivan; he never left me once, never, my father, since
+you--you went out of the cabin that last night and told him to watch
+me!" she exclaimed presently, in halting accents between her convulsive
+sobs, neither the colonel or myself dry-eyed as we listened to her tale,
+you may be sure.  "But--but all at once, after all the noise and that
+dreadful firing that seems now to go through my ears, I--I heard your
+voice quite distinctly on the deck; and so, too, did poor Ivan, for I
+saw him instantly put up his ears, while he whined and looked
+beseechingly at us."
+
+"Well, after that, my child," said the colonel, on her stopping for the
+moment, overcome with emotion, "what happened next?"
+
+"He made a dash at the cabin table and jumped up on it, and then the
+poor fellow growled savagely at some one outside.  Then--then before I
+could hold him back he made a most desperate spring and sprung right up
+through the glass roof on the top of the sky--skylight, and he must have
+cut himself very very much.  Poor, poor doggie!  And now you say my poor
+Ivan is dead, and that I shall never see the dear good faithful creature
+again.  Oh, my father!"
+
+At this point the young girl again broke down.
+
+Nor were her tears a mere passing tribute of grief.  For, though dead,
+Ivan is not forgotten, like some people, the remembrance of whom is as
+evanescent as the scent of the flowers that hypocritical mourners may
+ostentatiously scatter upon their graves; his little mistress, little no
+longer, preserving his memory yet green in her heart of hearts, close to
+which she wears always a small locket containing likenesses of her
+father and mother, together with a miniature of Ivan--her father's
+preserver--with a tiny lock added from the brave dog's curly black coat.
+
+Some ultra-sanctimonious persons may feel inclined to cavil with this
+association on Elsie's part of "immortal beings," as they would style
+her parents, and the recollection she cherishes of a "dead brute,"
+because, forsooth, they hold that her four-footed favourite had no soul;
+but were these gentry to broach the subject before her, being a somewhat
+outspoken young lady from her foreign bringing up, which puts her beyond
+the pale of boarding-school punctiliousness, she would probably urge
+that she estimated poor Ivan's sagacious instinct combined with his
+courage and noble self-sacrifice, at a far higher level than the paltry
+apology for a soul that passes current for the genuine article with
+matter-of-fact religionists of the stamp of her questioner.
+
+But Elsie was "little Elsie" still, at the time of which I am speaking,
+and too young, perhaps, for such thoughts to occur to her mind, which at
+the moment was too full of her loss.
+
+The cheering that had followed the last tussle of our men with the black
+mutineers had now ceased, and all these things happening, you must
+understand, much more rapidly than I can talk or attempt to chronicle
+them, the skipper, with Mr Fosset and Garry O'Neil, came hurriedly up
+on the poop.
+
+Both expressed their unbounded delight at seeing the child was safe and
+in the care of her father.
+
+Sure, an' what's the little colleen cryin' for? eagerly inquired Garry,
+his smoke-begrimed face, which bore ample evidence of the desperate
+struggle in which he had been so gallantly engaged, wearing a look of
+deep commiseration as he gazed from her father to me, and then again at
+her.  "Faith, I hope she's not been hurt or frightened?"
+
+"No, thank God!" replied the colonel huskily.  "Grieving for her poor
+dog Ivan, who--"
+
+"Och yes, I saw the noble baste," interrupted Garry in his quick,
+enthusiastic way.  "Begorrah, colonel, he fought betther than any two-
+legged Christian amongst us, an' I can't say more than that for him,
+sure, paice to his name!"
+
+Before he could say anything further, and you know he was a rare one to
+talk when once he commenced, the skipper advanced again, holding out his
+hand to the colonel exclaiming-- "Yes, thank God you are all right and
+that your little child is safe, and escaped any harm from those
+scoundrels, except her nerves probably being much shaken, but that she
+will soon recover at her age--and I told you she should be restored to
+you, you know.  By George!  Though, we've paid them out at last for
+demon's work aboard here!"
+
+"The devils!" ejaculated Colonel Vereker savagely, his mood changing as
+he recollected all he had seen and suffered at their hands.  "Have you
+killed them all?"
+
+"All but half a dozen of the rascals, whom we had a rare hunt after
+through the hold and fo'c's'le before we could collar them.  They are
+fast bound now, though, lashed head and feet to the mainmast bitts; and
+it will puzzle them to wriggle themselves loose from old Masters' double
+hitches, I know.  Besides which, two of our men are guarding there, with
+boarding-pikes in their hands and orders to run 'em through the gizzard
+if they offer to stir."
+
+"Faith," observed Garry O'Neil reflectively, "It was as purty a bit of
+foighting as I ivver took a hand in, whilst it lasted!"
+
+"But let us go and see what has become of all those chaps below--all
+those you mentioned as belonging to the French crew, whom you left on
+board with your daughter," went on the skipper.  "We saw the flash of a
+pistol, you remember, when we came up alongside, and somebody must have
+prevented those villains from getting into the cabin, or else--"
+
+He stopped here and looked meaningly at Elsie.
+
+"Heavens!" exclaimed the colonel, attempting to rise, but falling back
+on the hen-coop along the side of the bulwarks he had been using for a
+temporary seat, he seemed so utterly exhausted.  "Ah, those brave
+fellows, I was almost forgetting them; but I can't move, Senor
+Applegarth, or I should have gone down before this to see what had
+become of my old comrades; but I'm helpless, as you see."
+
+Elsie now lifted her head, looked up and turned towards the skipper.
+
+"They are all wounded," said she, clasping her hands together and with a
+look of fright on her face.  "Two of the men--the French sailors, I
+mean--and the English gentleman."
+
+"That's the little Britisher I told you about, who was so plucky,"
+explained the colonel--"Mr Johnson."
+
+"Well, my father," continued the young girl, "these three rushed down
+the stairs into the cabin, shortly before the steamer thumped against
+the side of our ship, when I thought we were all going down to the
+bottom of the sea."
+
+"Yes, my child," said the colonel encouragingly, "go on and tell us what
+happened next."
+
+"The English gentleman spoke to me and said that the terrible negroes
+had conquered them all on deck, but that he and the two Frenchmen had
+escaped from them in time, and were going to barricade the doorway
+leading down from above to prevent the black men from coming below and
+murdering us all.
+
+"He told me, though, did the kind English gentleman, that I must not be
+frightened and all would come right in the end, for that they had seen a
+very large steamer approaching, coming quite close to us, and that they
+would be able, he thought, to hold out until we were all rescued.  They
+then piled up heaps and heaps of things against the door at the foot of
+the stairs where the sailors remained; then the Englishman stood on the
+table, under the skylight, to keep the negroes from getting through
+there.  It was the Englishman who fired at them through the glass, for
+he was the only one who had a pistol, and he made a hole and then
+through that we heard all the shrieks and the noise of the pistols; and
+your voice, my father, Ivan heard, and then he jumped up through the
+hole, making a much bigger one, and ran to your rescue, my dear, dear
+father."
+
+"But what has become of Monsieur Boisson, and Madame all this time;
+where were they?" asked the colonel, on Elsie thus concluding the
+account of what had occurred under her immediate notice, a little sob
+escaping her involuntarily at the mention of her poor dog's name, and at
+the recollection of what she had just witnessed.  "Did they do anything,
+my dear child to help themselves, or you?"
+
+"No, my father," she replied, apparently surprised at the question.
+"They are still in the big cabin at the end of the saloon where you left
+them when you went away, and, I'm afraid they are very ill indeed, for
+all the time the firing was going on overhead Madame was screeching and
+screaming, and I am sure I heard Monsieur groaning a good deal.  He was
+doing so again just now, before I found my way upstairs to you, to find
+you, and to see what had happened, everything had become so suddenly
+still after all the noise, and--and--those--awful horrible yells of the
+negroes--oh!  I--I--can hear them still!"
+
+She turned quite pale when uttering the last words, words spoken with
+visible effort, shuddering all over and hiding her face again on her
+father's shoulder.
+
+"Faith, sor, don't ask her any more questions," cried Garry, "but we'd
+betther be sayin' afther those poor fellows ourselves, an' at once,
+too!"
+
+"Do quickly, sir doctor," said the colonel, "and I only wish I could
+come with you! but--"
+
+"Now jist you shtop where ye are, me friend," rejoined Garry, putting
+out his hand to prevent his stirring from his seat.  "Sure the cap'en
+an' me, with Dick Haldane here, will be enough to look afther 'em all."
+
+With this he made for the companion-way and descended the "stairs," as
+Elsie, ignorant of nautical nomenclature, called the ladder, the skipper
+following close behind him.
+
+On getting to the bottom we found the panels of the door smashed in,
+though of hard oak, strengthened with cross battens of the same stout
+wood, which showed to what fierce assault it had been subjected, the
+furniture piled up against it from within having duly prevented the
+negroes from finally forcing an entrance, as well, no doubt, as our
+appearance on the scene.
+
+This barricade had, however, been now partly removed, probably to allow
+of little Elsie's exit, and, quickly pitching the remaining obstacles
+aside, the three of us managed to squeeze ourselves inside the cabin,
+which was in such a state of confusion, with the long table overturned
+to serve as a breastwork for the gallant defenders and the settees and
+lockers turned away from the deck, as well as the glass of the skylight
+all smashed, that it looked like a veritable "Hurrah's vest" as we
+sailors say.
+
+On a pile of cushions belonging to the lounge aft--the only piece of
+furniture that was left intact in the place, I believe--lay the brave
+men who had stubbornly held the ship to the last against the mutineers.
+
+All were covered with blood and blackened by powder and so utterly worn
+out from fatigue in battling throughout the night and day that had
+almost elapsed since the colonel had left them, besides being crippled
+by the injuries they had received in the fray, that they hardly moved on
+our entrance, though one--a little chap whom I judged to be the
+Englishman spoken of by the colonel and Elsie--brightened up as we bent
+over him, a look of satisfaction and content stealing over his drawn and
+haggard face, as we cauld see from the rays of the setting sun streaming
+down through the broken skylight, exposing the utter desolation around.
+
+He was the first to speak.
+
+"I'm afeard you've come too late for us, sirs," said he slowly, with a
+deep groan of pain.  "Those damned niggers have done for me, one of them
+giving me a dig of his knife in the ribs--did it through the doorway
+just now, when the fight were nearly over.  You might do summat, though,
+for my companions here, who stood up to the darkies like Britons, in
+spite of them being only Frenchmen, though that ain't their fault.  But
+how's the little girl?  I hope she's all right.  Tell her father, if
+he's alive--and I feel almost sure I heard his voice awhile ago up on
+deck--tell him that I kept my word, sirs, and fought for her to the
+last.  I think I'm dying now, and--I--must--leave--off.  But listen
+while I've a little breath, for I want to say something.  My name is
+Robert Johnson, and my old mother, God bless her, lives at Camberwell,
+near London.  You'll find all my papers in my pocket and a letter with
+the address, and if any of you chances to be going back to England as I
+were, worse luck, you'd be doing a favour by seein' her and letting her
+know why I didn't turn up home this Christmas as I promised her.  I know
+you will.  I'm going now, I'm so tired.  Good-night to you all--good-
+night--good--"
+
+As he said this he gradually fell back on the cushion he was resting
+against, and his eyes closed.
+
+Captain Applegarth and I both thought him dead.
+
+Not so, however, Garry O'Neil.
+
+"Sure, he's ounly fainted," exclaimed the Irishman; "run, Dick, me bhoy,
+an' say if there's sich a thing as a stooard's pantry knockin' about
+anywheres in those latituodes, wid a dhrop of water convanient.  That
+an' a taste of this _aqua vitae_ here, which, the saints be praised, I
+took the precawshin to put in me pocket afore we shtarted on this
+blissid and excoitin' skermoish, this will very soon fetch back a little
+loife into the plucky little beggar ag'in!"
+
+I had no difficulty in finding the steward's pantry and a breaker of
+water, with a tin dipper attached, speedily carrying some back and, by
+our joint ministrations, and with it bathing his face and hands and
+pouring some between his lips, little Mr Johnson at last opened his
+eyes and began to breathe.
+
+After a time and a certain amount of patience he opened his eyes wider,
+and became conscious, and later on was induced to swallow down a mixture
+out of his own special bottle that Garry carried, and we were at last
+delighted to see quite a broad grin spread over his round good-natured
+and somewhat comical face.
+
+"By Jingo, sir!" said he, after a pause and rather long silence, and
+after he had drained off the last drop of the elixir, with a sigh of
+gratitude that evidently came from his heart, "you've saved my life this
+time, and no mistake.  I never thought I should taste a drop of good
+brandy again in this world."
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.
+
+WE PART COMPANY.
+
+While Garry O'Neil and I were attending to the two French sailors who,
+though they had been a good bit knocked about in the course of the
+protracted struggle, were not seemingly very seriously hurt, suffering
+more, indeed, from want of proper food and rest than from the slight
+wounds they had received, we heard loud cries and a sort of dull moaning
+that appeared to proceed from the after part of the saloon.
+
+Going thither at once, Captain Applegarth knocked with his knuckles on
+the panel of the closed door of one of the larger state rooms, running
+athwart the ship from whence the sounds proceeded.
+
+"Hullo, within there!" he shouted, "what's the matter?  What's the row?
+Come out!"
+
+A shrill scream was the only response to his inquiries.
+
+"What's the matter?" repeated the skipper, speaking in a gentler tone.
+"You have nothing to fear.  We're all friends here!"
+
+The cries and confused noises continued, however, and the skipper
+thereupon resumed his knocking, this time more forcibly, and with his
+fists aided by a kick from his heavy boot against the lower part of the
+still closed door.
+
+At this imperative summons the shrieking ceased, and we heard a feeble
+voice within, calling out in French-- "Mercy! for the love of God!" we
+could distinguish amidst a plentitude of sobs and violent groans in a
+deeper key.  "Ah! brave Haytians!  Have pity, and spare our lives!"
+
+"Hang it all, you cowards, we're _not_ those cursed Haytians, and I wish
+you could have been left to their mercy!  It is only what you deserve!"
+roared the skipper, infuriated and out of all patience at the
+Frenchwoman's mistake and her appealing in such terms to the murderous
+scoundrels, of whom we had made so summary an end.  "We're Englishmen;
+we're your friends, I tell you, true-hearted British sailors, who have
+come to rescue you, so open the door!"
+
+But Madame Boisson, who, of course, was his interlocutrice behind the
+door, remained obdurate.
+
+"Ah! the false English," she cried, "down with the pigs!"
+
+At this the skipper laughed grimly, and all standing near him were much
+amused.
+
+"She's a good specimen of her race," cried the captain.  "They always
+abuse other nations and cry out that they are betrayed when ill luck
+comes to them, instead of trying to help themselves, as we perfidious
+Englishmen do."
+
+Finding it impossible to persuade her, though, to open the door of the
+cabin, which was bolted and barred within, the skipper sang out to me to
+go on deck and ask Elsie Vereker to come down and try what she could do,
+thinking that the obstinate prisoner would doubtless recognise the
+girl's voice and so, through her means, be made more amenable to reason.
+
+No sooner said than done.
+
+Up I went and down the companion-way.  I returned anon accompanied not
+only by Miss Elsie, but by the colonel as well, Garry O'Neil, who
+hurried up the ladder after me with that intent, insisting on his coming
+below so that he could the better attend to his wounded leg, which had
+broken out again and needed fresh dressing, and after some little
+difficulty Garry got him down in safety.
+
+Thanks to Elsie's pleadings, Madame Boisson at length capitulated,
+promising to come out of her retreat as soon as she had had time, "to
+make her toilet."
+
+"By George!" exclaimed the skipper, overhearing this and turning with an
+ironical grin to the colonel, who had his leg upon a chair, and Garry
+bustling about him, busy with bandages, "she's a true Frenchwoman, as I
+said at the first.  Fancy, after being imprisoned there in that stuffy
+cabin for four and twenty hours and imagining herself and husband might
+be murdered every minute by a lot of pirate scoundrels, thinking of
+nothing but titifying herself, instead of thanking God for their escape
+and rushing out at the very first opportunity, eager to be free.
+Strange creatures!"
+
+"Heavens!" exclaimed the colonel, smiling at the other's outburst.  "It
+is true, but they're all alike, and I've seen a good many of them, my
+friend."
+
+Presently out sailed Madame Boisson, who I noticed was a middle-aged and
+well-preserved woman, attired in an elaborate dressing gown with a
+profusion of bows and ribbons fluttering about it, and with a good deal
+of pearl powder or some other cosmetic of that sort on her face, and her
+cheeks tinted here and there with--well, colour.
+
+Despite her screams and hysterics, however, there was no trace of a tear
+in her twinkling black eyes, although her fat little husband, who ambled
+meekly in her train, betrayed signs of great emotion, his red face all
+swollen from crying, and otherwise looking like a whipped cur.
+
+Madame made a most gracious salute to us all, and, glancing at me with a
+spice of coquetry, to which she was evidently not unaccustomed, was
+pleased to observe, that I was "_un beau garcon_."
+
+In returning the skipper's polite bow she happened to notice the poor
+wounded sailors lying on the cushions by the companion, and the blood
+all sprinkled about--a sight at which she turned up her nose, declaring
+very volubly that the place was like a "pigsty," unfit for any lady to
+enter, and expressing her surprise at those "common seamen" being
+attended to and allowed to remain in the saloon, she having always
+understood that that apartment was only for "the use of the first-class
+passengers."
+
+The skipper, who understood her well enough, as I did too, having learnt
+the language at a French school near Rouen, was very angry at her
+remarks.
+
+"Those men," said he in his best Parisian, "are your own countrymen, all
+that are left of those who died to preserve the lives of you and your
+husband there, who ought to be ashamed of himself for skulking below
+while they were fighting on deck."
+
+Monsieur looked foolish, but said nothing in reply to this.  Madame
+sniffed, and flashed her glittering black eyes, as if she could
+annihilate him at a glance.
+
+"My brave Hercules!" she cried indignantly, "be easy.  You have been out
+in the Bois and have established your reputation as a hero and have no
+need to notice the insulting remarks of this Englishman.  But for you,"
+she added, turning angrily to the colonel, "this would not have
+happened."
+
+"I?  Good Heavens!" exclaimed Colonel Vereker, greatly astonished at her
+turning on him thus.  "Why, it was I who did all in my power to prevent
+Captain Alphonse from allowing those cursed blacks on board the ship in
+the first instance, but you and Monsieur Boisson, both of you, persuaded
+him to the contrary."
+
+"My God! dear Hercules, see how we are calumniated," said the irate
+Frenchwoman, rather illogically, turning to her miserable atom of a
+husband, who gesticulated and shrugged his shoulders in response, and
+looking over the skipper and Colonel Vereker as if neither existed, she
+went on to remark to Elsie, who, however, did not appear to relish very
+much her conversation or endearments, that, "some persons whom she would
+not condescend to name, were, of monsters, the most infamous and
+ungrateful--men, indeed, of the gutter--but that she, the little one,
+was an angel."
+
+Here the skipper put an end to the interview.  He had evidently seen and
+had enough of the Boissons, husband and wife, and, ascending the
+companion-ladder at the same time as Garry and myself, I heard him
+muttering to himself as he went along and just caught the following
+words: "To think--brave men--lose--valuable--save such--theirs--too
+dreadful.  She frivolous--he--a--damned coward!" laying a rather strong
+emphasis on the last words.
+
+We afterwards went down again, Garry and I, and managed between us to
+bring up little Mr Johnson, the brave fellow having picked up
+wonderfully after the attention we had given him, and the knife-thrust
+he had received from the negro was found to have only grazed his ribs,
+and he was anxious for fresh air, after his long imprisonment below, and
+to see and judge for himself how things were looking on deck after our
+scrimmage.
+
+Here the light was waning and there was a good deal to be done.
+
+"I think, Fosset," said the skipper to our worthy first mate, who had
+been ordering matters forward while the former had come aft, "we had
+better muster the hands first so as to know who's missing.  I'm afraid
+several of our poor fellows have lost the number of their mess in the
+fight."
+
+"Aye, sir, they have," replied Mr Fosset.  "Poor Stoddart's gone, for
+one!"
+
+"Poor fellow, I am sorry," exclaimed the captain with much feeling.  "We
+couldn't have lost a better man, for he was about the best we had on
+board, poor fellow--a good engineer, a good mess-mate, and good at
+everything he handled, besides being the finest fellow that ever wore
+shoe leather.  How did it happen?"
+
+"He was knifed by one of those black devils, sir, as he led the boarders
+forrad!"
+
+"Poor Stoddart!  I am sorry to lose you!  Well, there's no use crying
+over spilt milk, and all my words will never bring him back again.  Mr
+O'Neil, just muster the men in the waist and let us know the worst at
+once!"
+
+"Faith, ye're roight, sor; we'd betther count noses an' have the job
+over," returned Garry, _sotto voce_, singing out in a louder key to the
+survivors of the fray, who were grouped in the waist about the mainmast,
+where the remaining Haytians who had not been killed outright were tied
+up feet to the wrists, as the skipper had told Colonel Vereker when he
+came up.  "Now all you _Star of the Norths_ that are still alive, come
+over here to starboard; the chaps that are d'id, sure, can shtop where
+they are!"
+
+The hands laughed at this Hibernian way of putting the matter to them,
+and answered their names readily on Garry proceeding to read out the
+muster roll from a paper he had drawn out of his pocket--all, that is,
+save those that had fallen, eight in number, including poor Stoddart,
+our energetic second engineer, and one of his firemen who had
+volunteered to swell the boarding party, as well as six of our best
+sailors amongst the foremast hands.
+
+Of the rest of the crew four were badly hurt and a few slightly wounded.
+Spokeshave was one of these latter, having, unfortunately, the end of
+his nose--that prominent feature of his--cut clean off by a slash from a
+cutlass; but the majority, we were glad to find, mostly escaped
+unscathed.
+
+Seeing old Masters all right, I thought of his morbid forebodings before
+we came up with the ship, and determined to take a rise out of him.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry about the old bo'sun," I said with a wink to Garry,
+right behind his back.  "He wasn't a bad seaman, but an awful old
+grumbler, and so superstitious that he funked his own shadow and daren't
+walk up a hatchway in the dark.  Poor old chap, though, it's a pity he's
+dead; I shall miss him if only from not hearing his continued growling
+over things that _might_ happen."
+
+"Well I'm blessed!" cried old Masters, completely flabbergasted at this
+exordium of mine; "I never thought, Mister Haldane, to hear you speak
+ag'in me like that.  I allays believed you was a friend, that I did."
+
+I pretended not to see him, and so too did Garry O'Neil, "tumbling to my
+game," as the saying goes, while I went on with my chaff.
+
+"How did he die?"  I asked.  "Was he killed at the first rush?"
+
+"Faith, I can't say corrictly," replied Garry in a very melancholy tone
+of voice.  "I'm afeard care carried him off, somehow or other, as it
+killed the cat, for he war the most disconsolate, doleful, down-hearted
+chap I ivver saw piping the hands to dinner.  An' so he's d'id!  Poor
+old bo'sun! we'll nivver see his loike ag'in."
+
+"Lord bless you!" cried old Masters angrily, stepping up nearer and
+confronting us, "I'm not dead at all, I tell you--I tell you I'm not--
+I'm blessed if I am.  Can't you see me here alive and hearty afore you?
+Look at me."
+
+"Ah, it's his ghost!"  I said, with an affected and tremulous start.
+"He told me, poor fellow, he felt himself doomed, and nothing could save
+him; and I suppose his spirit wants to prove to me he wasn't a liar, as
+I always thought he was, the old sinner!"
+
+This was too much for Garry, and he couldn't hold in any longer, and
+both of us roared at Masters, who looked scared; and, though angry and
+highly incensed with us at first, was only too glad at its being but a
+joke, and not a fact that he was dead, to bear us any ill-feeling long.
+
+We were horrified when we were told later on, while we were committing
+to the deep the corpses of those slain--negroes and white men
+impartially sharing the same grave beneath the placid sea, at rest like
+themselves, the breeze having died away again soon after sunset--that
+Etienne Brago and Francois Terne, the two wounded sailors we had left
+below with the Boissons, and little Mr Johnson and the colonel and
+Elsie of course, that _these_ were the only ones left of the thirty odd
+souls on board the _Saint Pierre_ when she sailed from La Guayra a
+fortnight before!
+
+After all the bodies had been buried in their watery tomb, not
+forgetting that of poor Ivan, who we all thought merited an honoured
+place by the side of his biped brethren of valour--well, after all this
+had been done the skipper had the pumps rigged and the decks sluiced
+down to wash away all traces of the fray.
+
+A council of war was then held between us all on the poop, the skipper
+of course presiding, and the colonel coming up from the cabin to take
+part in the proceedings, as well as old Mr Stokes from our ship, where
+he had remained attending singlehanded to the duties of the engine-room,
+denying himself, as Garry O'Neil remarked, "all the foin of the
+foighting!"
+
+This conclave had been called for the purpose of deciding what was to be
+done with the _Saint Pierre_ and the captured black pirates, from whom
+we had salvaged her, and without much deliberation it was pretty soon
+decided, on the colonel's suggestion, to send the ship to her destined
+port, Liverpool, taking the negroes in her, so that they could be tried
+before a proper court in England for the offence they had committed.
+"It's of no use your fetching them up to New York," said the colonel,
+"for though I'm an American myself and am proud of my nationality, I
+must confess those Yanks of the north mix up dollars and justice in a
+way that puzzles folk that are not accustomed to their way of holding
+the scales."
+
+The skipper was of the same opinion as Colonel Vereker; so, the matter
+having been settled, a navigating party was selected to work the _Saint
+Pierre_ across the Atlantic, with Garry O'Neil as chief officer.  The
+skipper was unable to spare Mr Fosset, and Garry was all the more fit
+in every way for the part, as he would be able to look after the wounded
+French sailors, who would naturally go in the ship as they were the
+principal witnesses against the blacks on the charges that would be
+brought against them of "piracy on the high seas."
+
+It was dark when all these details were finally arranged, and all of
+them went back aboard on our vessel for rest and refreshment, the
+colonel and his daughter, of course, accompanying us.
+
+Madame and Monsieur Boisson, however, could not be made to leave the
+ship, saying they would not do so--Madame, that is, said it, and the
+_brave Hercule_, following her lead as usual, "would not leave," said
+she repeatedly, "until they once more touched _terra firma_," and not
+wishing they should be starved for their obstinacy, the skipper ordered
+Weston to look after the happy pair and provide them with food at the
+same time as he did the wounded and prisoners.
+
+The two vessels remained for the night, still lashed alongside for
+better security, all hands being too tired out besides to be able to do
+anything further beyond "turning in" and getting as much rest and sleep
+as they could after the fatigue and excitement of the day.
+
+Next morning at sunrise Garry O'Neil went back to his ship with his crew
+of eight men--all the skipper was able to spare him--and by breakfast
+time they had made her all atauto, bending new sails, which they found
+below in the forepeak, in place of the tattered rags that hung from some
+of the yards, and otherwise making good defects, preparing the vessel
+for her passage home.
+
+We were all sorry to part with Garry even for the short period that
+would elapse before he would rejoin the old barquey, for he was the life
+of all us aboard; but the same regret was not felt for Master Spokeshave
+when we saw him go over the side to accompany the Irishman, the skipper
+having so decreed, as his assistant navigator, the damage to his nose
+not necessarily affecting his "taking the sun," though it might
+interfere with the little beggar's altitudes of another character.
+
+By eight bells all the details necessary under the circumstances were
+satisfactorily arranged, including the transfer of the effects belonging
+to the colonel and Miss Elsie, these two preferring to voyage with us,
+unlike their whilom passengers, the Boissons, who remained in their old
+quarters, going with "Captain Garry," as we all dubbed our mess-mate on
+his promotion to a separate command; and half an hour or so later a
+splendid breeze just then springing up from the westwards and flecking
+the still blue water with buoyant life, the two ships parted company
+amid a round of enthusiastic cheers that only grew faint as the distance
+widened them apart, the _Saint Pierre_ sailing off right before the
+wind, with everything set below, and aloft, across the ocean on her
+course for Saint George's Channel, while we braced our yards sharp up
+and bore away full speed ahead in the opposite direction, bound for New
+York, which port we safely reached without further mishap four days
+later.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN.
+
+I GO TO VENEZUELA.
+
+"You'd better stick to us," said the skipper to Colonel Vereker, who
+talked of taking the next Cunard steamer, which was advertised to leave
+on the morrow, as the _Star of the North_ was being berthed in our
+company's dock on the East River.  "I'm only going to stop here long
+enough to discharge our cargo and ship a fresh one; which is all ready
+and waiting for us; and then, sir, we'll `make tracks,' as our friends
+the Yankees say, right away over the `herring-pond' to Liverpool as fast
+as steam and sail can carry the old barquey.  Better stick to us,
+colonel, and see the voyage out."
+
+"All right, Senor Applegarth," replied the colonel, who could not drop
+his Spanish phraseology all at once, though otherwise gradually
+returning to his and our own native tongue and becoming less of a
+foreigner in every way, "I will return with you."
+
+Both were as good as their word, he and little Elsie coming home with
+us, and the skipper making the passage from Sandy Hook to the Mersey in
+eight days from land to land, the fastest run we had ever yet achieved
+across the Atlantic, whether outward or homeward-bound.
+
+But, quick as we were, the _Saint Pierre_ managed to reach Liverpool
+before we did, the pilot who boarded us off the Skerries bringing the
+news that she had gone up the river a tide ahead of us.
+
+This piece of intelligence was confirmed beyond question by Garry O'Neil
+coming off in the company's tug that sheered alongside as we dropped
+anchor in the stream later on, midway between the Prince's landing-stage
+and the Birkenhead shore, the manager of our line being anxious to
+compliment the skipper on his successful rescue of the French ship, the
+percentage on whose valuable cargo for bringing her safely to port, and
+thus saving all loss to the underwriters, would more than repay any
+damage done for the detention of our vessel when engaged on the errand
+of mercy and justice that took her off her course.
+
+In addition likewise to the thanks of the company and the underwriters,
+the skipper was also presented with a handsome gold chronometer watch by
+the committee of Lloyds, besides participating in the amount awarded by
+the charterers of the _Saint Pierre_ for the salvage of the ship, though
+in this latter apportionment it was only fair to mention that we all
+shared, officers and crew alike, I for my part coming into the sudden
+possession of such a tidy little sum of ready money that I felt myself a
+comparative millionaire.
+
+When talking with Garry, whom it is almost needless to say all hands
+were glad to see again, the men cheering him lustily as he crossed the
+gangway from the tug, he told us that though otherwise they had had a
+fairly pleasant voyage after parting company with us off the Azores, the
+Boissons gave him a good deal of trouble.
+
+Madame, he said, worried his life out by "making eyes" at him when he
+went below at meal-times, while on deck he was never safe for a moment
+from her embarrassing attentions unless, in desperation, as he was often
+forced to do, he went aloft to get out of her way.
+
+"Faith, an' sure, that warn't the worst of it nayther," complained Garry
+in his humorous way.  "Though the vain, silly ould crayture bate
+Banagher for flirtin'--an', indade, bates ivviry other of her sex, God
+bless 'em, that I've ivver clapt eyes on yet--that quare little Frenchy
+chap, her husband, he, the little sparrow, must neades git jallous, an'
+makes out it's all my fault, an', belave me, a nice toime I had o' it
+altogether.  At last I said to him, afther havin' been more than usual
+exasperated by him, `If you want to foight me, begorrah, ye can begin as
+soon as you loike,' at the same toime showin' him me fists."
+
+"_Ah, non, non, mon Dieu, non_, note yat vay!" sez he, joompin' away
+from me whin he caught soight o' me fists.  "I was mean ze duel and ze
+rapiere."
+
+"Not me, faith," sez I.  "If it's duellin' ye want you'll have to go to
+another shop, Monsieur Parleyvoo, for it ain't in my line.  Allow me to
+till ye too, Monsieur Boisson, that if ye dare to hint at sich a thing
+ag'in whilst I'm in command of this ship, the ounly satisfaction ye'll
+ivver have out of me in the rap-here way will be a rap on the h'id wid
+this shtick of moine here, you recollict, joist to thry the stringth of
+y'r craynium, begorrah!  Faith, that sittled the matther, the little
+beggar turnin' as pale as a codfish and goin' below at onst, lookin'
+very dejecthed an' crestfallin.  He nivver s'id another word afther that
+to me as long as he remained aboard, nor did Madame trouble me very much
+more wid her attenshions.  On the contrary, bedad, from the day this
+happened till yestherday, whin she wor set ashore at the landing-stage
+yonder, she'd look moighty saur at me if we chanced to mate on deck--
+aye, faith, as saur as a babby that's been weaned on butthermilk."
+
+"Why," inquired the skipper, when we had both a good laugh at Garry and
+his account of the Boisson episode, "have they left, then, the ship for
+good?"
+
+"Faith, yis, sor, bag an' baggage, the blissid pair of 'em, an' moighty
+pleased I wor to say the backs of 'em!"
+
+"But how about the trial of those black devils, those pirates, then;
+won't they be required as witnesses against the murderers?"
+
+"No, sor," replied Garry.  "The polis officers that came aboard whin we
+got into dock sid they didn't want monsieur nor madame neither, as they
+didn't know a ha'porth of the jambolle, worse luck, they bein' below all
+the toime.  The magistrates think the two French sailors, who're goin'
+on foine by the same token, and the colonel, all of whom were on deck
+an' saw everything that went on, would be sufficient witnisses aga'n the
+Haytian scoundrels."
+
+"Oh!" said the skipper, "have these men been brought up before the
+magistrates?"
+
+"Aye, yestherday afthernoon, sor, an' they've been raymanded, whativer
+that may mane--it ought to have been rayprimanded, I'm thinkin', an' a
+cat-o'-nine-tails, if they had their desarts--till next Tuesday!  The
+magisthrates belayvin' the ould _Star of the North_ wid you, cap'en, wid
+the colonel aboard, to give ividence ag'st the mutineers, that they
+wouldn't be in from New York afore then, not knowin' what the ould
+barquey could do in the way of stayming as you an' I do, sor, an' that
+she'd arrive, faith, to-day!"
+
+All happened as Garry O'Neil informed us, the Haytians and mutineer
+blacks of the _Saint Pierre's_ crew being brought up again before the
+magistrates the week following our arrival home, when, after hearing the
+additional evidence against them given by Colonel Vereker and the
+skipper, the six black and mahogany-coloured rascals were committed for
+trial at the next assizes, which we were told would not be held for
+another month, on the charge of "piracy and murder on the high seas."
+
+The colonel took advantage of the interval that would necessarily have
+to elapse before his presence would again be required in court to escort
+Miss Elsie to Paris, and place her under the care of the sisters at the
+convent at Neuilly, where, I think I told you before, he said her mother
+had been brought up and educated; while the skipper and others of us
+belonging to the _Star of the North_, being compelled to remain within
+handy reach of the authorities, in case our presence at the trial might
+be required, the opportunity was seized to lay the old barquey up in dry
+dock and give her a thorough overhaul within and without, though the
+engines, as proved by our rapid passage here, were none the worse for
+our breakdown in mid-Atlantic, thanks to the skill and exertions of poor
+Stoddart and the rest of old Mr Stokes' staff.
+
+Most of us in this way got a short holiday while awaiting the assizes,
+which I spent with my mother and sister, taking home with me the money I
+had been awarded as my share of the _Saint Pierre's_ salvage, which had
+made me fancy myself a temporary Croesus.
+
+Alas, though, the sum, large though it was for a young fellow to find
+unexpectedly in his pocket, went but a very short step in satisfying the
+rapacious wolf I found at my mother's door when I reached the little
+cottage, where she lived with my sister Janet, in one of the suburbs of
+Liverpool.
+
+A bubble company, whose directors had all been selected for their
+religious bias rather than their business qualifications, burst at one
+fell coup, almost in the very hour of my return home, dissipating into
+thin air, as the Latin poet has it, all the savings of a lifetime which
+my mother had invested in the swindle--the provision left behind by my
+father, when he died, for her use, and the subsequent benefit of my
+sister and myself.  The devout rogue who had "managed" the concern to
+his own worldly interest and that of his fellow religionists, carried on
+the same, so they said, in a pious and eminently "Christian way," no
+doubt, respected alike in the eyes of God and men, according to the
+loudly-voiced tenets of the particular sect, to which he and his co-
+directors mostly belonged; but he managed, all the same, to carry off to
+a remote and friendly land outside the pale of international law, and
+where dividends need no longer be paid to clamorous creditors, a
+considerable amount of portable property of a valuable nature, amongst
+which, probably, was our inheritance, my mother's capital!
+
+Under these circumstances it behoved me to consider how I could best aid
+my poor mother and sister, then left suddenly destitute through no fault
+of their own.
+
+Fortunately, I had the means ready at hand.
+
+In our constant association on board the _Star of the North_ after his
+rescue from the drifting boat, in which he greatly exaggerated the help
+I was able to render him, Colonel Vereker was kind enough to notice me
+much more than my subordinate position on board would have seemed to
+warrant; and in a conversation we had together during the voyage home
+from New York, after asking me what my prospects were, he made me an
+offer to accompany him back to Venezuela on his return, promising me,
+should I accept, a good salary to start with, and a fair chance of
+ultimately making my fortune.
+
+Loving the sea and my profession, however, with all a sailor's love,
+besides being attached to my old ship and her officers, I felt no
+inclination then to give up what I had learnt to look upon as my
+legitimate calling, and turn landsman; so, although I had the highest
+admiration for the colonel, coupled with more than a liking for his
+young daughter, between whom and myself there seemed such a mysterious
+sympathy on the evening of my sighting the _Saint Pierre_, when the
+captain declared we were some hundreds of miles apart, I reluctantly
+and, so it seemed to me, ungraciously, declined his proposal, telling
+him I preferred "sticking" to the skipper and the old barquey!
+
+But the colonel very kindly would not take my refusal at first as final;
+and, when setting out for Paris to take Elsie to her convent school, she
+taking leave of me with many tears and assurances that under any
+circumstances she would always remain _mio amiquito_ (my little friend)
+pledging herself, too, to be, if allowed at the school, a constant
+correspondent if I would write to her sometimes to let her know where I
+was.  Well, the kind, good-hearted man, taking, as he said, a deep
+interest in my welfare for Elsie's sake as well as for my own, assured
+me that he would keep his generous offer open until the period arrived
+for his ultimate departure for South America, on the termination of the
+trial of the Haytian pirates and their mutineer accomplices.
+
+So, recollecting all this, in my hour of need, I naturally turned to the
+colonel and told him of my trouble on his return to Liverpool for the
+assizes, at which, by the way, the black scoundrels and their allies
+were sentenced to five years' penal servitude, the judge regretting his
+inability to impose a heavier punishment from the fact of proof being
+wanted of the active participation of the prisoners in the atrociously
+cruel murder of Cato and the other diabolical work perpetrated on board
+the ill-fated ship.
+
+We were all glad when this matter, with the examination and sickening
+details that it entailed, was finally settled, and we were at liberty to
+go where we liked.
+
+Colonel Vereker more than justified my confidence in him.
+
+"Heavens! my boy, you must and shall be as my son," he said, wringing my
+hand in a grip that I knew would be faithful unto death.  "Come with me
+and I will make a man of you, and a rich one, too, Dick Haldane!"
+
+"But how shall I manage about my mother and sister, sir?" said I
+hesitatingly.  "How shall I manage about them during my absence?"
+
+"You can make over your salary to them, for you will not want anything
+while at Caracas, as you will live with me as my private secretary," he
+replied, with another hearty shake of my hand.  "The money shall be paid
+to your mother regularly by my agent here, so that you need have no
+fears on that score as to her support.  But I do not want you to decide
+such an important change in your life without proper consideration, and
+the advice of your friends, my boy.  Go and consult Senor Applegarth,
+who I know is an old friend of yours as well as being your captain; and
+then, if he and your other friends advise your acceptance of my offer,
+and your mother and sister are willing to part with you--why then, Dick,
+you may consider the matter settled, and you, some day, will be very
+thankful you accepted my offer."
+
+The skipper did not hesitate for one moment in giving his opinion,
+though, like most of my mess-mates, he was good enough to say how sorry
+he would be to part with me, and how he would miss me.
+
+"Go by all means, my lad," said he.  "By George! it's a chance that
+doesn't come twice in a fellow's lifetime, and you may consider your
+fortune as good as made!"
+
+Mr Fosset and Garry O'Neil were equally enthusiastic.
+
+"Faith, now, sor!" observed the latter, with a comical air of assured
+deference at my future dignified position, as he imagined it would be,
+"I hope ye'll remember ye'r humble ould fri'nd Garry whim ye're
+Prisidint of the Venezuelan Raypublic, mid a lot of yaller divvles for
+lackeys, an' so many dollars that ye won't know what to do wid 'em.
+Begorrah, it's wishin' I am, I stood in ye'r shoes, alannah, an' I
+wouldn't care for to call the Pope me ouncle, God bless him!"
+
+Spokeshave, though, sneered at my success in gaining so good a friend as
+the colonel; but owing to the accident to the top of his nose, which
+being still bandaged, or rather court-plastered up, and not tending to
+add to his beauty, he was not able to turn it up and sniff in his former
+irritating way that always exasperated me so much.
+
+As for old Masters, his face became the picture of woe when I informed
+him I was leaving the ship and the company's service.
+
+"You mark my words, Master Haldane," said he in his most sepulchral
+manner, "many a one afore you has throwed up the sea, and what good has
+it done 'em?  No good!  Them that goes to sea oughter stick to the sea,
+that's what I says; and if they throws it up, though I hopes you won't,
+they allus live to repent it.  I be truly sorry you be goin', and ah,
+Master Haldane, I sed as how summet 'ud come of our seein' that there
+blessed ghost-ship!"
+
+"And so something _has_ happened, bo'sun, and a precious lot too, my
+hearty!" said I, jokingly, as I stood on the gangway preparatory to
+going over the side.  "But never mind that now, old shipmate!  Good-bye
+to you, men, and thank you all for your kindness to me from the time I
+first sailed with you as a youngster."
+
+I really believe I could see a tear in the old bo'sun's eye as he wished
+me farewell with the rest of them, the crew manning the rigging to give
+me a hearty cheer and "send off" that could be heard across the Mersey.
+
+Thus it was that I took leave of the old barquey, and, my mother's
+consent having been obtained before I finally settled with the colonel,
+no further arrangements had to be perfected beyond obtaining and
+preparing my kit, and a hasty run to the cottage to pay a last visit to
+my old mother and sister Janet, and wish them farewell for a few years,
+when I looked forward to returning to England and finding them both well
+and happy, and in more comfortable and prosperous circumstances.
+
+That same afternoon Colonel Vereker and I started off by train from
+Liverpool for Southampton, at which latter port we embarked in the
+outward bound West India mail steamer, sailing for Colon, _en route_ to
+Venezuela.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT.
+
+DURING SEVEN YEARS.
+
+We reached La Guayra, and from thence Caracas, safely enough, in spite
+of the country just then passing through the acute stage of one of its
+periodical revolutions that had supervened on the top of an earthquake;
+which convulsions of nature and society are characteristic features of
+Venezuela, like as the chief products of its fertile soil are cocoa and
+"patriots," the latter being almost as great an article of export as the
+former, especially after a political crisis, and consisting of all sorts
+and conditions of men who, whether born subjects or alien intriguers,
+are all desirous of serving their natural or adopted mother country for
+a consideration!
+
+Colonel Vereker was largely interested in an extensive gold mine in the
+interior, where he put me as his overseer.
+
+This was not an unwise measure for his own sake, apart from any motive
+he had in advancing my welfare--his real reason for appointing me to the
+post; for, with the exception of the captain of the mine, a Frenchman,
+the majority of those employed were half-caste Spaniards and Portuguese,
+all of whom studied their several individual pockets rather than the
+interest of their employer, while the main body of workers were peons
+and mezites, bastard mulattoes, with a large intermixture of negro
+blood, who valued their own lives as little as they did the lives of
+those, with whom they had to deal.
+
+I had plenty of work to do here, looking after all these scoundrels,
+having to keep my eyes open as much as possible in order to prevent
+wholesale robbery as far as I could, although it was utterly impossible
+to prevent petty pilfering of the ore on its way from the mine to Puerto
+Cabello, its general port for transhipment to Europe, to swell the
+treasure chest of the exiled.
+
+However, by adopting the old Latin maxim, _Suaviter in modo, fortiter in
+re_, treating all without hauteur, which some of the insolent half-caste
+Spanish creoles affected, and yet keeping my revolver ready, with "my
+powder dry," so as to be prepared for any emergency, I managed to get
+along very well with the mixed lot I was set over, winning golden
+opinions from every one but a few of the worst characters.
+
+It sounds as if I were boasting, but this is something for a young
+Englishman to be able to say in a country which, though it is the
+veritable El Dorado of poor Drake's dreams, and has possibly a future of
+wealth and prosperity before it when it comes under the rule of the
+Anglo-Saxon race--whether of ourselves, or of our cousins in Yankee land
+it does not much matter, for we are all of the same race and
+enterprising spirit--can be better described in respect of its present
+condition by a shorter and far more expressive word.
+
+Amongst my other duties I had charge of all the colonel's voluminous
+correspondence, he having a mortal hatred to all letter writing in any
+shape or form, and in addition to my good patron's business
+communications, was entrusted with the task of despatching a lengthy
+epistle every other mail--they went fortnightly from La Guayra to
+France--informing Miss Elsie of our doings, the colonel himself adding
+the briefest of postscripts to his _pequina nina_, as he invariably
+termed her and always enclosing some remembrance for his little
+daughter, to show that his love exceeded any epistolary proof of the
+same, as well as a more substantial token of a handsome cheque for her
+maintenance and education, forwarded to the care of the mother superior
+of the convent.
+
+Of all my manifold duties this was the pleasantest I had to perform,
+being as grateful as water poured on the parched soil of my exile
+amongst an alien people, antagonistic to me in everything, and with whom
+I had to shape a steady course, and preserve a "stiff weather helm," as
+sailors say, to avoid open rupture and assassination, the Venezuelese
+"sticking at nothing," especially when that "nothing" happened to be one
+whom, for some sufficient reason to their minds, they deemed an enemy
+and they chanced to be behind his back--and as I told you before, I
+steered clear of many enemies, but I could never learn to trust them as
+a people.
+
+Yes, my happiest hours at San Felipe were spent in writing to little
+Elsie, who answered my own letters, as well as those I despatched on
+behalf of the colonel, with unvarying punctuality, holding to the
+promise she spontaneously gave in England when we parted on her going to
+school, at which time she had no idea of my ever accompanying her father
+to South America.
+
+Similarly, the saddest task that could have been laid on my shoulders
+fell to my lot five years later, when the mysterious attraction by which
+I had been drawn towards her as a boy had grown into the most absorbing
+affection--a love that filled my heart.
+
+And I had to write and tell her--I, who would cheerfully have laid down
+my life to save her a pang--to tell her of her dear father's death.
+
+This occurred just as poor Colonel Vereker had arranged for my returning
+with him to the capital of the State, where another revolution--the
+sixth, I believe, since I had been in the country--had broken out, with
+the object, as the object of all these explosions of the mob invariably
+was, to depose the reigning party in power, and put the leaders of "the
+popular movement" for the time being, in the power of the deposed
+authorities.
+
+The colonel, who had a good deal staked on the issue of the struggle,
+took up arms on the side of the cause he esteemed just--that to which
+the most respectable of the inhabitants to a man adhered--as he had
+taken up arms before for the party of law and order, amongst whom he was
+looked up to, not only as a skilled soldier and tactician, but a
+stalwart partisan, his very name being a tower of strength.
+
+Alas! though, no opportunity was afforded him now to display his valour
+on the battlefield and lead his hosts to victory; for while we were _en
+route_ for Caracas, a dastardly hound of a creole, whose blood was a
+mixture of the beast elements--part Spaniard, part Portuguese, part
+negro--well, this treacherous brute assassinated Colonel Vereker in the
+most cowardly fashion.
+
+I was by and saw it all.
+
+The vile murderer came up to my poor friend as we were resting in a
+_posada_ on the road from San Felipe; and, while engaging him in an
+apparently friendly conversation respecting the political points of the
+rising, he suddenly stabbed the dear old man in the back with a long
+stiletto which he had hidden up his wide shirt sleeves.
+
+Fortunately, I was there, and I had time to send a bullet through his
+brain from my revolver before the wretch could stir a yard from the
+spot; but this could not save my noble-hearted, kind, generous
+protector, a man who had been more than a father to me, and for whom I
+had the utmost affection and respect.  No; the death of the scoundrel
+could not save him, for the wound the cowardly scoundrel had inflicted
+was mortal.
+
+My dear friend and companion only survived long enough to confide his
+daughter to my care and give me his blessing ere he died, drawing his
+last breath in my arms, a smile on his face and dauntless to the end, as
+he pressed my hand and uttered the usual parting phrase he had learnt
+from his Spanish associates--"_Hasta la manana_--Good-bye till to-
+morrow!"
+
+It was a long to-morrow, indeed!
+
+After seeing the last tribute of respect paid to the colonel's remains,
+the gallant fellow being buried close to the _posada_ where he had met
+with his untimely end, and a cross which I carved myself placed above
+his lonely grave, sheltered by a noble palm that stood erect, as he had
+done when living, a monument of nature's handiwork, I resumed my journey
+to Caracas, in order to carry out my lost friend's last directions.
+
+The _alcalde_, who acted as the colonel's agent and was largely in his
+confidence, being an acquaintance of many years' standing, produced a
+copy of Colonel Vereker's will for my inspection, assuring me that this
+had been drawn up during his last visit to the State capital, while all
+his affairs were in the most perfect order, "the poor gentleman," as the
+_alcalde_ expressed it, "being under the opinion that he would not have
+long to live," a presentiment of death I have often found many people to
+have had.
+
+Generous and thoughtful for others to the end, he had not forgotten me
+in this his last testament, showing that the regard he had already
+displayed for my welfare was no mere temporary fancy!
+
+On the contrary, much to my astonishment, he had bequeathed to me quite
+half his fortune--all his share, indeed, in the Gondifera mine--while
+all his realised property, which was invested in good English and
+American securities, out of the reach of the grasping hand of the
+hungerful Venezuelan patriots--all this he left to his daughter Elsie.
+
+From a codicil, too, appended to the document, more in the form of a
+sacred charge than a legal instrument, "reading between the lines," I
+could perceive that the large-hearted man had fathomed the secret desire
+of my heart, though secret it evidently was not to him, loving Elsie as
+he did, albeit in a different fashion; for after enjoining upon me to
+regard his little daughter's interests even as he had studied mine, he
+added that, should fate bring us together in the future, as had happened
+so strangely in the past, his dearest wish would be gratified, for he
+had already learnt to care for me and to look upon me as his son!
+
+Of course nothing of this was mentioned when writing to tell Elsie of
+the awful event and dreadful calamity that had befallen her, although
+later on, before I was able to return to England, when her education was
+completed and the good nuns wrote to me, as her father's executor, to
+say the time had arrived for taking her away from the convent unless she
+wished to change her religion and join the sisterhood, to both of which
+courses I was, of course, bitterly opposed, and, as you may imagine, was
+delighted when Elsie herself requested to be allowed to leave.
+
+I must, however, have accidentally have shown my feelings towards her
+and have "let the cat out of the bag" in the letter I sent home to my
+mother, in answer to the last communication from Neuilly, asking her to
+take charge of my darling Elsie until I came home to win and claim her.
+
+I imagined this from something that leaked out afterwards, and from the
+somewhat altered tone of Elsie's letters to me from the date of her
+leaving France to live with my mother; for, though affectionate enough,
+they had a certain little air of constraint about them, and though she
+spoke of various objects of interest to both of us, and of different
+persons whom she and I knew, and places she went to, she never by any
+chance ever mentioned herself, never after the letters she sent me
+containing the passionate outpouring of her inmost heart on receiving
+the news of her father's death, albeit all this she would feel perfectly
+certain was to me a sacred confidence.
+
+Slight as the change was in her subsequent correspondence, I noticed it
+and it worried me, and determined me to have the matter cleared up as
+soon as I possibly could.
+
+Meanwhile, however, I had to fulfil the colonel's last trust, and as I
+knew what his intentions had been in regard to the crisis in Venezuelan
+affairs at the time when an assassin's hand prevented him from acting
+the part he intended to play in the existing revolution, I thought I
+should be only carrying out his wishes in putting myself in his place,
+as far as it lay in my power to do so.
+
+So, soon after coming to Caracas and settling the details of the
+colonel's last depositions, making my own will in my turn in case of
+accidents, though in what way is best known to myself, I went to the
+headquarters of the Government troops and joined the army of General
+Gomez.
+
+Under this able leader I fought in several engagements that were fierce
+and sanguinary as all such fratricidal contests are, and ever have been
+in the annals of civil war, at San Sebastien, Carapana, Tarasca, and
+elsewhere, our guerilla struggle extending over the whole extensive
+country in almost every direction, where there was a town to sack or
+property to plunder, until at last the insurgent "patriots" were
+conquered and peace restored.
+
+All this took a long time; and then, having had enough and to spare of
+fighting and bloodshed, and tired of mining too, I disposed of my
+interest in the Gondifera mine, and at last sailed for Europe, bidding a
+long adieu to Venezuela and everything belonging to it, my journey home
+being hastened by a somewhat tenderer letter than usual from Elsie, who
+had read a paragraph in the papers about my having been wounded at the
+battle of San Sebastien, though, of course, I had not mentioned anything
+about the affair to her or my mother, as it was a mere flea bite and of
+no consequence, and I feared to have alarmed them needlessly had I said
+anything about it in my letters to them at home.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
+
+HOME AT LAST!
+
+Fellows who knock about the world sailoring and so on, cannot help
+coming to the conclusion that its compass is narrower than stay-at-home
+folk might be inclined to believe, for you can hardly stir a step
+without knocking across some one whom you previously imagined to have
+been miles and miles away, separated, perhaps, by an ocean from
+yourself.
+
+I had scarcely stepped into the train from Southampton, bound
+Londonwards, _en route_ for Liverpool, having only landed from the mail
+steamer that brought me direct all the way from Colon that very morning,
+when whom should I see looking at me from the opposite corner of the
+railway carriage but a big, bushy-haired, brown-bearded man whom I did
+not know from Adam.
+
+"Faith," exclaimed this gentleman, after a moment's scrutiny, a broad
+grin lighting up his face and his eyes twinkling with a comical
+expression that would alone have made me recognise him, had I not heard
+his delightful, to me at any rate, Irish brogue, "ye're ayther Dick
+Haldane or the divvle!" stretching out both hands to grasp mine.
+
+I was as pleased to see him, as may readily be believed, as the genial
+Irishman was to see me, I was sure, even without his telling me so.
+
+"Well," said I, after we had pretty nigh wrung each other's hands off in
+friendly greeting, "and how are you all getting on aboard the dear old
+barquey?  I want to hear about everybody."
+
+"Begorrah, Dick, give me toime to recover me bre'th, me bhoy, an' thin
+I'll till ye ivverythin'," and then he continued in a bashful sort of
+way, unlike his usual off-hand manner, "I've lift the say for good, an'
+sit up for a docther ashore on me own hook, faith."
+
+"Why!"  I exclaimed in great surprise, "how's that?"
+
+"Bedad, you'd betther axe y'r sister."
+
+"What! my sister Janet?"
+
+"Faith, yis; the very same little darlint of a colleen.  Dick, ye
+spalpeen, jist lit me shake y'r fist agin, lad.  I'm the happiest man in
+the wurrld!"
+
+"Whee-e-e-e-eew," I whistled through my teeth.  "This is indeed a
+surprise!"
+
+Then it all came out, Garry telling a long yarn about his calling at my
+mother's house to ask about me some few months back, and meeting there
+Elsie, whom he had no difficulty in identifying, he said, as "the little
+girl of the ghost-ship," though she had grown a bit taller and was more
+good-looking than he remembered her at the time he saw her on board the
+_Saint Pierre_.  But, good-looking as she was, he did not think her to
+be compared to my sister Janet, with whom he had evidently fallen in
+love at first sight and very deeply so, too!
+
+On his subsequently declaring his passion, impetuous as usual, after a
+very short acquaintance, my mother insisted as a first step to
+entertaining his suit that he should leave the sea, as he had another
+profession by which he was quite capable of supporting a wife as well as
+himself, if he so pleased.
+
+"Faith, and I wint an' bought a practis' at onst, havin' a snig little
+sum stowed away in the bank," continued Garry, "the savin's of me pay
+for the last five year an' more, besides that money we all got for
+salvagin' the French ship, sure, of which I nivver spint a ha'poth.  But
+aven thin, Dick, ould chap, yer dear ould mother wern't satisfied, bless
+her ould heart.  She sid that yer sisther an' mesilf wu'ld have to wait
+to git marri'd till you came home, ye spalpeen; an' not thin aven, if so
+be as how ye'd turn nasty an' disagreyable, an' refuse yer consint.
+Faith, ye won't now, will ye? or, bedad, I'll be afther breakin' ivvrey
+bone in y'r body, avic, an' thin have to plasther ye up ag'in."
+
+To avoid such a terrible contingency I there and then gave my hearty
+consent to the arrangement he and Janet, with my mother's concurrence,
+had thus planned without my knowledge; although, really, if I had been
+inclined to grumble at not being informed previously of what now so
+unexpectedly transpired, I had only time and distance to blame, not the
+parties concerned, for the engagement was of so recent a date that the
+news of it, though on the way through the post, had not reached
+Venezuela when I left.
+
+After I had answered a lot of Garry O'Neil's questions concerning myself
+and the time I had passed in South America, speaking, too, of poor
+Colonel Vereker, whose death he had learnt from my mother, I began
+again, asking in my turn all about my old shipmates, and, of course, his
+own also.
+
+"Faith, the skipper is foine and flourishin'," he informed me, "an' the
+ould barquey as good an' as sound as ivver she was.  Do you ricollict
+ould Stokes?"
+
+"Of course I do," I said.  "Is he still chief?"
+
+"No, no; he retired a year ago or more on a pinsion which the company
+gave him for his long service; an' little Grummet--ye rimimber him?--
+well, he's promoted, sure, to ould Stokes' billet.  The ould chap,
+though, is alive an' hearty, an' as asthamataky as ivver!"
+
+"What's become of Mr Fosset?"
+
+"Och, be jabbers! he's a big man now.  He's a skipper on his own hook,
+jist loike Cap'en Applegarth.  He's got the ould _Fairi Quane_, the
+sicond best boat but one to the line.  D'ye ricollict that ould thaife
+of a bo'sun we had on the _Star of the North_?"
+
+"Why, you must mean poor old Masters!  I should think I did."
+
+"That same, alannah.  He wasn't a bad sort of chap, an' a good sayman,
+ivvry inch of him, though I used for to call him an ould thaife just
+`for fun an' fancy'--as the old song says--well, he's lift the ould
+barquey an' gone with Cap'en Fosset in the _Fairi Quane_.  But ye
+haven't axed me onst afther yer ould fri'nd Spokeshave!  Sure, now, ye
+haven't forgot little `Conky,' faith!"
+
+"No, indeed," said I, amused at his query and the funny wink that
+accompanied it.  "What has become of that spiteful little beggar?"
+
+"Begorrah, ye'll laugh an' be amused, but he's marri'd to a wife as big
+as one of thim grannydeers we onst took in the ould barquey to Bermuda,
+d'ye rimimber?  Faith, she's saix feet hoigh, an' broad in the b'ame in
+proporshi'n.  They make a purty couple, bedad! an' they do say she kapes
+him in order.  Do ye rickolict what an argufyin' chap Spokeshave was
+aboard?"
+
+"I should think I did, indeed," replied I.  "I think he was the most
+cantankerous little beast I ever came across in my life, either afloat
+or ashore!"
+
+"Faith, ye wouldn't say that same now, Dick," rejoined Garry with much
+earnestness.  "The poor little beggar's as make as a cat, for he daren't
+call his sowl his own!"
+
+I asked after some of the other men belonging to my old ship, including
+Accra Prout, whom the colonel wished to accompany us to Venezuela, the
+mulatto refusing on the plea that, though he should always love his "old
+massa," he could not go with him for one insurmountable reason.
+
+"Guess I'd hav' 'sociate wid dem tam black raskels daan thaar, massa,
+an' dis chile no like dat nohow.  I'se nebbah 'sparrage my famerly by
+'sociatin' wid niggahs, massa, nebbah.  De Prouts 'long good old
+plantation stock, an' raise in Lousianner!"
+
+This supercilious autocrat, it must be borne in mind, all the time being
+more than half a negro himself, though, for that matter, his heart was
+better and his disposition braver than many a white man who would have
+despised his coloured skin.
+
+Some of the other hands about whom I inquired had left the old barquey
+and shipped aboard other vessels, so Garry told me; but at this I was
+not much surprised, sailors as a rule being fond of change and very
+unconservative in their habits.
+
+With suchlike conversation my old mess-mate and I beguiled our long
+railway journey to Liverpool, which we reached the same evening, but
+before we had quite exhausted our respective questions and answers
+respecting everybody we had ever met or known during the time he and I
+had been to sea together.
+
+My meeting with my dear mother and sister after so long an absence
+abroad can be well imagined, and so too my first interview with Elsie,
+whom I should hardly have known again, for how can I describe her beauty
+and grace, and though I had been prepared in some measure from accounts
+my mother had sent me, still they exceeded my expectations.
+
+It would be impossible if I tried to picture her for "a month of
+Sundays," as Captain Applegarth used to say on board the old barquey
+when he thought a fellow spent too much time over a job.
+
+So to make a long story short and to avoid all further explanation, it
+need only be added that one fine day last summer, when the trees were
+all green and leafy, and the flowers abloom, and happy birds filling the
+air with song, Elsie and I were married.
+
+Garry O'Neil joined his lot with that of my sister at the same time, the
+two brides being given away respectively by the skipper, who managed to
+run the _Star of the North_ home in time for the wedding, and old Mr
+Stokes, the chief engineer of the old barquey, who had only to cross the
+road, instead of the Atlantic, to get to our house, as he lived near to
+us now--he also was present.  Captain Applegarth, who was a very old
+friend of my mother's and a kind one too, likewise, lived in a good
+substantial house surrounded by a lovely garden in our pretty,
+picturesque, old village.
+
+To all whom it may concern, it may, in conclusion, be mentioned that
+this double-barrelled affair took place in the quaint, old-fashioned,
+non-ritualistic, semi-Gothic, and many-galleried old village church, of
+which so few remain now in England, situated close to our cottage, and
+where our widowed mother had, in our childhood, taught us to lisp our
+first prayers to heaven, our dead father resting in the ivy-grown and
+flower-adorned graveyard adjoining.  The nuptial knot was tied by Parson
+Goldwire, as everybody called him in the neighbourhood, assisted by
+Matthew Jacon, the equally elderly parish clerk, without whose joint
+ministration on the occasion neither Janet nor myself would have
+believed the marriage ceremony had been properly solemnised, both my
+sister and myself standing in much awe of the learned divine and his
+inseparable "double," and holding to the creed that the austere pair
+represented the very quintessence of orthodoxy.
+
+
+
+CHAPTER THIRTY.
+
+A PRESENTMENT OF THE PAST.
+
+After Elsie and I got "spliced," to use the old familiar language of my
+boyhood, the expressive _argot_ of the sea, for which I shall always
+retain a passionate love, only second to that I bear towards my dear
+wife, we set off for the Continent, having determined to spend the happy
+period of our honeymoon abroad, like the fine folk of the fashionable
+world with whom, though, there is little in common between us, their
+ways otherwise not being our ways, nor their thoughts, ambitions, hopes
+or desires in any respect akin to ours.
+
+First we went up the Seine to Rouen, where I had passed a couple of
+years of my school life, studying French and teaching the young scions
+of the Gallic race, with whom I was associated for the time the
+exigencies of football, as we play the game in Lancashire, varied by an
+occasional illustrative exhibition explanatory of the merits of _la boxe
+Anglaise_.
+
+Time passed swiftly with so sweet and sympathetic a companion; our
+tastes were similar, both taking the greatest delight in ancient
+buildings and lovely scenery; the weather, too, was charming, and
+altogether we were as happy as two mortals can be on this earth.
+
+Elsie and I saw all that was to be seen in the old city we first
+visited, which, in addition to its architectural beauties, should have a
+special charm for all Englishmen from the fact of the dauntless Richard
+Coeur de Lion having such an affection for the town that he bequeathed
+it his lion heart, and then we journeyed on through _la belle
+Normandie_, loitering here and there at those historic spots, woven into
+the life of our country, spots where artists of all nations love to
+linger.
+
+We stayed anon at slow, sedate Caen, as still as the stone for which it
+is celebrated, and that furnished the building material of Winchester
+Cathedral; Bayeux, boastful of its antique tapestry; and Dol and Saint
+Servan, and away beyond, Sainte Michel, so like and yet unlike the like-
+named Saint Michael's Mount of Cornwall, in our own sea-girt isle that
+it might have been chipped out of the same block by its grand
+handycraftsman to serve as a replica; until, entering brighter
+Bretaigne, in the sunny south of France, where the landmarks of the past
+seem to stand out in bolder relief, we visited Nantes and other places
+of interest, and jogging on thence through Angouleme and Poictiers,
+halting a day at Poictiers to fight our Plantagenet battles o'er again,
+we finally ended our pilgrimage at Bordeaux.
+
+At this wonderfully picturesque port, whose semi-ancient, quaintly
+modern aspect strangely attracted us both, we anchored awhile, remaining
+many weeks in excess of the customary limit of the traditional
+honeymoon, ours being an indefinite one and only to be completed we
+trust, when Elsie and I cease to breathe.
+
+Late in the autumn, when the leaves had begun to turn russet and brown,
+and the air of a morning assumed a crisper and more bracing tone,
+telling us plainly as these signs tell that summer had fled for good and
+aye, and winter was coming by-and-by, we bade adieu to dear old
+Bordeaux, and taking a steamer there bound for the Thames, having had
+enough of railways and land travel, we started to voyage home by sea, my
+native element.
+
+On the evening of the second day that had elapsed since losing sight of
+Pointe de Graves at the mouth of the Garonne, towards sunset, we had
+weathered Ushant and were shaping a course up Channel, north east, so as
+to clear the dangerous Casquettes rocks of Guernsey, when I noticed a
+large ship, close-hauled on the starboard tack, steaming inwards for the
+French coast, as if heading for Brest, her nearest port.
+
+At that moment the tired sun, which previously appeared to linger above
+the horizon, uncertain whether to go or to stay, dipped suddenly as we
+were looking at him, a pale, yellow radiance succeeding the dazzling
+beams that had well-nigh blinded us, shining straight in our eyes, while
+the afterglow, mounting rapidly into the western sky, became more and
+more vivid each moment, two purple islands of cloud which floated across
+this refulgent background having the lower edges dyed of a rich crimson
+that seemed to set the sea on fire and tipped the spars and sails of the
+passing ship with flame.
+
+She was flying the French Tricolor, and as our steamer went by, saluting
+her with a couple of blasts from her steam whistle in friendly greeting,
+the stranger vessel as a return, in accordance with the time-honoured
+rule of nautical etiquette always observed on such occasions, dipped her
+ensign.
+
+This action, coupled with the similarity of the scene and its
+surroundings, the ship in the distance with her flag half on the hoist,
+the sunset glow, and the fact of my being on board a steamer then as
+now, brought back to my mind at once the incidents of that memorable
+evening of the past, more than seven years ago now, the _vraisemblance_
+between the two being simply astounding!
+
+"Elsie, dearest Elsie!"  I cried with a start, as the strange
+coincidence of the presentment struck me, the date being even identical.
+"Do you remember what day of the month this is, _querida mia_?"
+
+"Why, of course, Dick, I do," she answered, nestling up to my side as if
+for protection, for we were sitting in a warm corner by the taffrail,
+just abaft the wheel-house, and screened from the observation of the
+rest of the passengers who were walking up and down the deck as usual
+after dinner.  "Why, Dick, dear, it's the seventh of November, your
+birthday, you know; surely you have not already forgotten the little
+present I gave you this morning, my likeness in a locket for your watch
+chain, a miniature done by that clever artist at Orleans, and you told
+me you would always wear it for my sake.  Dick, my husband, where is
+your memory?"
+
+"No, my little one, I have not forgotten it," said I, kissing her,
+thinking she was going to cry at what she thought was forgetfulness on
+my part.  "Here it is next my heart, like yourself," said I laughingly.
+"But, Elsie, _alma mia_, I was thinking of another anniversary, and a
+Friday evening too, to make it all the more wonderful!  Don't you
+recollect now?"
+
+"Oh Dick, my dear husband," she whispered, seizing my arm and gazing out
+over the taffrail at the ship, all ablaze now from the reflection of the
+sky, and nearly hull down to leeward.  "I see, I see.  What a strange
+coincidence.  It is really wonderful!"
+
+"It is, my darling," said I.  "But it was more extraordinary still that
+you should have seen me that memorable evening, now more than seven
+years ago, and when I too saw the _Saint Pierre_ with you on her deck,
+and more wonderful still, when the captain and some of the crew even to
+_this_ day insist we were actually several hundreds of miles apart!"
+
+"Ah, but you are near me now, though, thank God!" she cried, looking up
+into my face with the most charming expression of delight, causing me to
+be foolish in bestowing another little kiss on her upturned face.  "I
+don't know how it was, but whether the ships were as far apart as the
+captain and the others say, or whether they were not, I did see your
+ship and you on her, as I told my dear, dear father at the time, and he
+himself did not believe it.  Dick, dear, it must have been the gift of
+`second sight,' as the Scotch people call it.  There was a nun at the
+convent who had it, and could tell, so she said, when anything was about
+to happen to any of her family, though she couldn't predict events
+concerning persons who were not `blood relations,' as she termed them.
+Don't be frightened, Dick, but I do think that I must really possess the
+same faculty!"
+
+"Well, if that is the case, sweetheart," said I, "there must be some
+psychological affinity between us, and we are both endowed with the same
+weird gift, although the possession of the same has never been brought
+to the knowledge of us except on that one memorable occasion.  That
+cannot be otherwise explained; but the fact of the two ships meeting
+afterwards may very readily be accounted for under the circumstances.
+The winds and currents of the ocean drifted them together, like as they
+did us, dear.  Don't you think so?"
+
+She did not answer for a moment, and, as our steamer speeded on her way,
+the glow in the sky gradually faded and darkness crept over the face of
+the sea, the flashing light of Ushant whirling its luminous arms round
+in rapid rotation, like some spectral windmill, away in the distance
+over our lee, where the French ship had long since disappeared.
+
+Presently my Elsie, who had been looking down into the now gloomy depths
+alongside, musing over the bitter-sweet memories of the past, lifted her
+eyes to mine, glancing heavenwards.
+
+"No, Dick, my dearest," said she, speaking at last, a certain hesitation
+and catch in her throat and a tear in the broken intonation of her
+voice, "Dick, I've been thinking and--and--it was a power greater than
+that of the winds and seas that brought us together.  It was God!"
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Ghost Ship, by John C. Hutcheson
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