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Davie Paine, in his deep, rolling voice, sent shivers down our backs by his story of a ghost-ship manned by dead men with bony fingers and hollow eyes, which had sailed the seas in the days of his great-uncle, a stout old mariner who seemed from Davie's account to have been a hard drinker.
But steering a ghost-ship through endless tempests is hard labour, Phil; so be a little kind a little more than patient, if my hand grows tired at the wheel.
"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?"
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!"
One evening, after a gale like this had blown over, the stowaways, who had not dared to show face all day, were told to come up on deck. What a sight! Why, the Valhalla was like a ghost-ship. The decks were white, and the bulwarks too. Every rope and stay seemed made of frosted silver, while great icicles hung everywhere around.
"You know yourself, Max, that it doesn't materialize every time it is invoked," began Constance. "I know it," said Max. "I only wanted to ascertain how keen the spook-hunters are. I slept in that room once for two weeks when the house was full and became much attached to his ghost-ship." "So I told the girls," replied Constance with equal gravity.
"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!"
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.
"It almost makes my ghost-ship boil when I think of the way in which he used to amuse himself by making me a target for his bean shooter. Often when I was asleep in the button-ball he would fetch me one on the side of the head that would give me an earache for a week. But now it is our turn." Here the other turkeys broke into a wild chorus of approval.
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!" "Nonsense, man!" cried Captain Applegarth. "Don't make such an ass of yourself! Flying Dutchman indeed!
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