in earnest, for he was a violent sort of
fellow, and so they set to. We didn't gain much upon her; I thought we
did a little, but the men said no. The captain declared that we did gain
considerably, but it was supposed that he only said so to encourage the
people. Well, the captain ordered the mate to take up the hatches that
they might see the state of the cargo. This was done; the dry goods, as
far as we could make out, were not injured, and the men pumped spell and
spell until the evening, when the captain gave them a good allowance of
grog, and an hour to rest themselves. It was a beautiful moonlight
night: the sails were just asleep and no more; but the vessel was heavy,
from the water in her, and we dragged slowly along. The captain, who had
gone down below with the first mate, came up from the cabin, and said to
the men, 'Now, my lads, we'll set to again'; when suddenly there was a
loud, melancholy _miaw!_ which terrified us all. We looked from whence
the sound appeared to come, and there, on the launch turned over
amidship, we beheld the ghost of the black tom cat, so large, so black,
with the broad moonlight shining on it; and so thin, it was the skeleton
of the cat, only it looked as black as ever; its back was humped up and
its tail curved; and, as it stood out in the broad moonlight, it did
look twice as big as the original cat, which was the biggest I ever saw.
Well, the men actually screamed; they ran aft, upsetting the captain and
mate, and roiling over them and hiding their faces, with 'Lord, have
mercy on us!' and 'God, forgive our sins!' and 'Oh! we're lost, we're
lost!' and every sort of crying and groaning that could be thought of.
At last the captain gets up from under them in a great rage and looks
forward to see what was the matter, and there he sees the ghost of the
tom cat standing just in the same place; and it gave another miserable
_miaw!_ 'Why,' cried the captain (who had his grog on board, and was as
brave as brass), 'it is the cussed cat himself. Stop a moment.' Down he
goes to the cabin, reels up the hatchway again with his double-barreled
gun, and lets fly at it"--(here Dick lowered his voice to almost a
whisper)--"the cat gave a shriek--and then--"

Here, during the pause, Bill put out his finger and thumb to snuff the
candle, but his hand shook--he snuffed it out, and we were all left in
darkness. I can hardly describe the feeling which appeared to pervade
the whole of our party. Every