n, they have a language of
their own which they talk with one another. But of our hotch-potch of
nationalities fore and aft there is no person who catches an inkling of
their language or nationality.

Mr. Mellaire raised the theory that they were Finns of some sort, but
this was indignantly denied by our big-footed youth of a carpenter, who
swears he is a Finn himself. Louis, the cook, avers that somewhere over
the world, on some forgotten voyage, he has encountered men of their
type; but he can neither remember the voyage nor their race. He and the
rest of the Asiatics accept their presence as a matter of course; but the
crew, with the exception of Andy Fay and Mulligan Jacobs, is very
superstitious about the new-comers, and will have nothing to do with
them.

"No good will come of them, sir," Tom Spink, at the wheel, told us,
shaking his head forebodingly.

Margaret's mittened hand rested on my arm as we balanced to the easy roll
of the ship. We had paused from our promenade, which we now take each
day, religiously, as a constitutional, between eleven and twelve.

"Why, what is the matter with them?" she queried, nudging me privily in
warning of what was coming.

"Because they ain't men, Miss, as we can rightly call men. They ain't
regular men."

"It was a bit irregular, their manner of coming on board," she gurgled.

"That's just it, Miss," Tom Spink exclaimed, brightening perceptibly at
the hint of understanding. "Where'd they come from? They won't tell. Of
course they won't tell. They ain't men. They're spirits--ghosts of
sailors that drowned as long ago as when that cask went adrift from a
sinkin' ship, an' that's years an' years, Miss, as anybody can see,
lookin' at the size of the barnacles on it."

"Do you think so?" Margaret queried.

"We all think so, Miss. We ain't spent our lives on the sea for nothin'.
There's no end of landsmen don't believe in the Flyin' Dutchman. But
what do they know? They're just landsmen, ain't they? They ain't never
had their leg grabbed by a ghost, such as I had, on the _Kathleen_,
thirty-five years ago, down in the hole 'tween the water-casks. An'
didn't that ghost rip the shoe right off of me? An' didn't I fall
through the hatch two days later an' break my shoulder?"

"Now, Miss, I seen 'em makin' signs to Mr. Pike that we'd run into their
ship hove to on the other tack. Don't you believe it. There wasn't no
ship."

"But how do you explain the carr