bottle of rum and glasses before him.

"I stared incredulous. Yes, there could be no doubt it was he, and pretty
flushed with drink, too, by his appearance.

"'Incandescent light in a West Indiaman!' I muttered; for not otherwise
could I account for the sudden illumination. 'What the deuce!'

"'Belay that!' he growled. He seemed to observe me for the first time.

"'A handsome manner of boarding a craft you've got, sir,' said he,
glooming at me.

"I was hastening to apologize, but he stopped me coarsely.

"'Oh, curse the long jaw of him! Fill your cheek with that, you Barbary
ape, and wag your tail if you can, but burn your tongue.'

"He pointed to the case-bottle with a forefinger that was like a dirty
parsnip. What induced me to swallow the insult, and even some of the
pungent liquor of his rude offering? The itch for 'copy' was, no doubt,
at the bottom of it.

"I sat down opposite my host, filled and drained a bumper. The fire ran
to my brain, so that the whole room seemed to pitch and courtesy.

"'This is an odd fancy of yours,' I said.

"'What is?' said he.

"'This,' I answered, waving my hand around--'this freak of turning a back
room into a cabin.'

"He stared at me, and then burst into a malevolent laugh.

"'Back room, by thunder!' said he. 'Why, of course--just a step into the
garden where the roses and the buttercupses be agrowing.'

"Now I pricked my ears.

"'Has the night turned foul?' I muttered. 'What a noise the rain makes
beating on the window!'

"'It's like to be a foul one for you, at least,' said he. 'But, as for
the rain, it's blazing moonlight.'

"I turned to the broad casement in astonishment. My God! what did I see?
Oh, my friend, my friend! will you believe me? By the melancholy glow
that spread therethrough I saw that the whole room was rising and sinking
in rhythmical motion; that the lights of King's Cobb had disappeared, and
that in their place was revealed a world of pale and tossing water, the
pursuing waves of which leapt and clutched at the glass with innocuous
fingers.

"I started to my feet, mad in an instant.

"'Look, look!' I shrieked. 'They follow us--they struggle to get at you,
you bloody murderer!'

"They came rising on the crests of the billows; they hurried fast in our
wake, tumbling and swaying, their stretched, drowned faces now lifted to
the moonlight, now over-washed in the long trenches of water. They were
rolled against the galleries of glass, on wh