most uncomfortable. I
couldn't make it out at all.

"Jest as I was a-puzzling my brains as to the reason of these fog banks
and the stench they brought with them, Gil Saul came on deck too, and
sheered up alongside of me as I was looking out over the side. His face
was a worse sight than the morning; for, instead of his looking white,
the colour of his skin was grey and ashy, like the face of a corpse. It
alarmed me so that I cried out at once--

"`Go down below, Gil! Go down and report yourself to the doctor!'

"`No,' sez he, `it ain't the doctor an will cure me, Jim; I feel it
coming over me again as I felt this morning. I shall see that sarpint
or ghost again, I feel sure.'

"What with his face and his words, and the bad smell from the fog, I
confess I began to feel queer myself--not frightened exactly--but I'd
have much rather have been on Southsea common in the broad daylight than
where I was at that moment, I can tell you."

"Did you see anything, Jim?" I asked the old sailor at this juncture.

"I seed nothing, Master Charles, _as yet_ but I felt something, I can't
tell what or how to explain; it was a sort of all-overish feeling, as if
something was a-walking over my grave, as folks say, summat uncanny, I
do assure you.

"The captain and the first lieutenant was on the quarter-deck, the
latter with his telescope to his eye a-gazing at something forward
apparently, that he was trying to discern amongst the clumps of fog. I
was nigh them, and being to leeward could hear what they said.

"The first lieutenant, I hears him, turns to the captain over his
shoulder speaking like, and sez he--

"`Captain Manter, I can't make it out exactly, but it's most curious;'
and then turning to me, he sez, `Newman, go down to my steward and ax
him to give you my night-glass.'

"I went down and fetched the glass and handed it to him, he giving me
t'other one to hold; and he claps the night-glass to his eye.

"`By Jove, Captain Manter,' sez he presently, `I was right, it is the
greatest marine monster I ever saw!'

"`Pooh!' says the captain, taking the glass from him and looking
himself. `It's only a waterspout, they come sometimes along with this
appearance of the sea!' But presently I heard him mutter something
under his voice to the lieutenant, and then he said aloud, `It is best
to be prepared;' and a moment after that he gave an order, and the
boatswain piped up and we beat to quarters. It was very stran