t
his ship."

"Oh! thank God! But you are hiding something from me! What is it?
Jasper dear, what are you hiding?"

"Mother, I think it was the _Mary Jane_. But it was not father's
ship. Father's all right. And, mother, don't ask me any more; Uncle
Loveday will tell all about it. And--I'm not very well, mother. I
think--"

Want of sleep, indeed, and the excitement of the morning, had broken
me down. My mother stifled her desire to hear more, and tenderly saw
me to bed, guessing my fatigue, but only dimly apprehensive of
anything beyond. In bed I lay all that morning, but could get no
sleep. The vengeance of that dreadful man seemed to fill the little
room and charge the atmosphere with horror. "I come on them in bed
sometimes, and sometimes from behind when they're not looking"--the
words rang in my ears, and could not be muffled by the bed-clothes;
whilst, if I began to doze, the dreadful burthen of his song--

"And the devil has got his due, my lads--
Sing ho! but he waits for you!"--

With the peculiar catch of its lilt, would suddenly make me start up,
wide awake, with every nerve in my body dancing to its grisly
measure.

At last, towards noon, I dozed off into a restless slumber, but only
to see each sight and hear each sound repeated with every grotesque
and fantastic variation. Dead Man's Rock rose out of a sea of blood,
peopled with hundreds of ghastly faces, each face the distorted
likeness of John or the Captain. Blood was everywhere--on their
shirts, their hands, their faces, in splashes across the rock itself,
in vivid streaks across the spume of the sea. The very sun peered
through a blood-red fog, and the waves, the mournful gulls, the
echoes from the cliff, took up the everlasting chorus, led by one
silvery demoniac voice--

"Sing ho! but he waits for you!"

Finally, as I lay tossing and tormented with this phantom horror in
my eyes and ears, the sound died imperceptibly away into the soft
hush of two well-known voices, and I opened my eyes to see mother
with Uncle Loveday standing at my bedside.

"The boy's a bit feverish," said my uncle's voice; "he has not got
over his fright just yet."

"Hush! he's waking!" replied my mother; and as I opened my eyes she
bent down and kissed me. How inexpressibly sweet was that kiss after
the nightmare of my dream!

"Jasper dear, are you better now? Try to lie down and get some more
sleep."

But I was eager to know wha