d violent inflammation
which must have set up. "I'm in--hell. I--can--feel--I--am--I am--
burning--all over--inside me--here. And you? Oh, yes--I know you!"

This paroxysm left him again after a moment, and he lay back on his
pillows, only to sit up the next minute again, however.

He now pointed his finger in the direction of the sea through the
porthole, gazing earnestly as if he saw something there.

"The ship has come for me again--as--it did t'other night--you know--you
know?" he said in agonised whispers. "There--there,--can't you see it
now? sailing--along--as--Mister--Haldane--said,--there with a--a--
signal--of--distress--flying--the--flag--half-mast high! Why,--there it
is,--now, as plain as--plain--can be; and, see--see they're--lowering--
a--boat,--look,--for me,--to take me aboard. Lend us a hand,--mate. I
wants to halloo--to 'em and I--feels so bad--and--I can't, I can't--move
myself. Hi,--there!--Ship ahoy! Wait--a--minute--can't you? Ship
ahoy!--I'm--coming--I'm--comi-ing. I'm--"

Then, raising his eyes to heaven, and drawing a long deep breath,
something between a sob and a sigh, a breath that was his last, poor
Jackson fell back on the pile of pillows behind him, stone dead!

CHAPTER NINE.

WE SIGHT THE STRANGE CRAFT AGAIN.

"That's number one!" said old Masters, the boatswain, meeting me at the
door of the saloon as I came out on deck, Weston having already told him
the sad news. "Master Stokes'll foller next, and then you or hi, Master
Haldane, for we be all doomed men, I know, arter seein' that there
ghost-ship!"

I made no reply to the superstitious old seaman's ominous prediction,
but as I made my way forward to the bridge, to inform Captain Applegarth
and the others of what had happened, I could not help thinking how
strange it was that poor Jackson should have recalled, at the very
moment the spirit was quitting his crippled body, the fact of my
sighting the ship in distress, and the account I had given the skipper
of what I had seen on board that mysterious craft!

Mr Fosset, or some of the hands who accompanied him, must have taken
down the yarn to the stoke-hold, only just before the unfortunate man
met with his terrible accident, though I had no doubt that he must have
seen the man-of-war through the port hole of the cabin, which was right
opposite his bunk, as she brought up under our stern to speak to us
earlier in the afternoon, and the sight of _HMS Aurora_ had