ans had been distinctly heard down in the
hold among the coals; and the sailmaker affirmed that on several nights
in succession he had seen a man go from amidships aft along the bulwark
railings, stand still and point with his hand to the compass, and then
disappear in the wake of the ship. Another declared that he had seen the
ship's genius proceed in the same direction and jump overboard--cap and
all he was no higher than a half sea-boot; and when the genius deserts a
ship, it betokens in the sailors' superstitious creed that she is about
to founder.

The unaccountable sounds in the hold continued, and changed one day when
the hatch was battened down to a kind of wail, which ceased, however,
when, for fear of an explosion of coal-gas, it was taken off again. On
the following day the cook, who had gone down for water, came hurrying
back with a scared face, and declared that he had seen a man sitting
there in a red jacket.

"It is the ship's genius lamenting the ship," was hesitatingly suggested
by some. But when the cook objected that the creature was at least as
large as Big Anders the boatswain, and proceeded besides to endow him
with sable colouring and claws, the terror reached its height.

The captain had hitherto replied to these, as he conceived them, fresh
attempts to provoke him, by still further grinding; but when this last
observation of the cook was communicated to him, he broke out
scornfully, pointing at the same time with the bitten mouthpiece of his
old meerschaum pipe at the speaker--

"I think there is a sufficiently stupid devil in the hold sticking in
every one of you rascals. Isn't there one of you with courage enough to
go down into the coal-hold? or must I go myself?"

The first mate proposed to accompany him; but Salve now came forward and
declared that he, for his part, would as soon go down into the hold as
up aloft. "A man won't sweat half as much at that work," he added, with
sarcastic significance.

He went down accordingly with a light, and after a few moments' search
came upon a miserable, half-famished wretch, who had squeezed himself in
behind the water-butt. He was as black as a negro from the coal-dust,
and declared tremblingly when he came up on deck, that he had deserted
from his regiment in Monte Video, which was an offence punishable by
death, and that he had thought he might remain concealed until the
vessel arrived at Rio; that he had come on board in the dark on the last