e lagoon. I had a coat on a stick, and I waved it for a
signal, and Hammond set to work building a bonfire. He got a noble one
blazing and then him and me stood and watched the schooner.

"She was acting dreadful queer. First she'd go ahead on one tack and
then give a heave over and come about with a bang, sails flapping and
everything of a shake; then she'd give another slat and go off another
way; but mainly she kept right on toward the island.

"'W'at's the matter aboard there?' says Hammond. 'Is hall 'ands drunk?'

"'She's abandoned,' says I. 'That's what's the matter. There ain't
NOBODY aboard of her.'

"Then we both says, 'Salvage!' and shook hands.

"The schooner came nearer and nearer. It begun to look as if she'd smash
against the rocks in front of us, but she didn't. When she got opposite
the mouth of the lagoon she heeled over on a new tack and sailed in
between the rocks as pretty as anything ever you see. Then she run
aground on the beach just about a quarter of a mile from the shanty.

"'Twas early morning when we climbed aboard of her. I thought Lazarus'
schooner was dirty, but this one was nothing BUT dirt. Dirty sails, all
patches, dirty deck, dirty everything.

"'Won't get much salvage on this bally tub,' says Hammond; 'she's one of
them nigger fish boats, that's w'at she is.'

"I was kind of skittish about going below, 'fraid there might be some
dead folks, but Hammond went. In a minute or so up he comes, looking
scary.

"'There's something mighty queer down there,' says he: 'kind of w'eezing
like a puffing pig.'

"'Wheezing your grandmother!' says I, but I went and listened at the
hatch. 'Twas a funny noise I heard, but I knew what it was in a minute;
I'd heard too much of it lately to forget it, right away.

"'It's snoring,' says I; 'somebody snoring.'

"''Eavens!' says Hammond, 'you don't s'pose it's that 'ere Coolie come
back?'

"'No, no!' says I. 'Where's your common sense? The cook snored bass;
this critter's snoring suppraner, and mighty poor suppraner at that.'

"'Well,' says he, ''ere goes to wake 'im hup!' And he commenced to
holler, 'Ahoy!' and 'Belay, there!' down the hatch.

"First thing we heard was a kind of thump like somebody jumping out er
bed. Then footsteps, running like; then up the hatchway comes a sight I
shan't forget if I live to be a hundred.

"'Twas a woman, middling old, with a yeller face all wrinkles, and a
chin and nose like Punch. She was dressed in a