shes, and wrote and wrote all next day in their
notebooks, and whispered together full of excitement, and they were
sharp-spoken with the men when they offered to ask any questions.

"Then there came a day," said Captain Littlepage, leaning toward me with
a strange look in his eyes, and whispering quickly. "The men all swore
they wouldn't stay any longer; the man on watch early in the morning
gave the alarm, and they all put off in the boat and got a little way
out to sea. Those folks, or whatever they were, come about 'em like
bats; all at once they raised incessant armies, and come as if to drive
'em back to sea. They stood thick at the edge o' the water like the
ridges o' grim war; no thought o' flight, none of retreat. Sometimes
a standing fight, then soaring on main wing tormented all the air.
And when they'd got the boat out o' reach o' danger, Gaffett said they
looked back, and there was the town again, standing up just as they'd
seen it first, comin' on the coast. Say what you might, they all
believed 'twas a kind of waiting-place between this world an' the next."

The captain had sprung to his feet in his excitement, and made excited
gestures, but he still whispered huskily.

"Sit down, sir," I said as quietly as I could, and he sank into his
chair quite spent.

"Gaffett thought the officers were hurrying home to report and to fit
out a new expedition when they were all lost. At the time, the men
got orders not to talk over what they had seen," the old man explained
presently in a more natural tone.

"Weren't they all starving, and wasn't it a mirage or something of that
sort?" I ventured to ask. But he looked at me blankly.

"Gaffett had got so that his mind ran on nothing else," he went on. "The
ship's surgeon let fall an opinion to the captain, one day, that 'twas
some condition o' the light and the magnetic currents that let them see
those folks. 'Twa'n't a right-feeling part of the world, anyway; they
had to battle with the compass to make it serve, an' everything seemed
to go wrong. Gaffett had worked it out in his own mind that they was
all common ghosts, but the conditions were unusual favorable for seeing
them. He was always talking about the Ge'graphical Society, but he never
took proper steps, as I viewed it now, and stayed right there at the
mission. He was a good deal crippled, and thought they'd confine him in
some jail of a hospital. He said he was waiting to find the right men to
tell, som