the boat and
facing forward, fisherman-fashion, caught sight of the sinister stain
almost as soon as I did, and exclaimed, as he laid in his oar with a
clatter on the thwart:

"Jerusher! see that, sir? See that, Tom? Smother me if it ain't blood!
Now, what's been happenin' aboard this here ghastly hooker?"

"I am afraid I can make a pretty shrewd guess," I answered; "but let us
wait until we can get a glimpse of what is to be seen between her
bulwarks. Make fast your painter round one of her deadeyes, and then
follow me aboard."

So saying, I sprang into her main chains, and from thence made my way
inboard. The moment that my head rose above her rail a horrible odour,
of which my nostrils had already caught a faint hint, smote me almost as
something solid, and, looking down upon the main deck, the waist of her
seemed to be full of dead bodies, their clothing smeared and splashed
with blood, while that part of the deck whereon they lay was deeply dyed
and crusted with the same deep, rusty stain. As I gazed, petrified with
horror, the bell upon the poop once more clanged loudly; and, glancing
upward, I saw that the figure which I had already observed lolling in so
odd an attitude over the poop rail was that of a dead man, grasping in
his right hand the short length of rope attached to the clapper of the
bell. His attitude was such that, as the ship swung upon the swell, his
body moved just sufficiently to cause the clapper to strike a single
stroke.

For the first few seconds after I had found myself standing upon the
ensanguined deck planks of that floating charnel house I had no eyes for
anything, save the spectacle of her slaughtered crew, lying there at my
feet in every conceivable attitude indicative of the unspeakable agony
and terror that had distracted their last conscious moments. Then, as
the two seamen who had accompanied me from the _Mercury_ swung
themselves in over the rail and came to my side, muttering ejaculations
of horror and dismay at the ghastly spectacle that met their gaze, I
pulled myself together with a wrench, and, mounting to the poop, began
to take in the general details of the scene.

Standing, as I now was, at the head of the starboard poop ladder, I
commanded a complete view of the vessel's deck from stem to stern, and
saw that my original estimate of her size was rather under than above
the mark, her dimensions being those of a vessel of fully three hundred
and fifty tons. Fro