I found out
the way to port, and made up my log all square for the owner; for I
knowed well enough where I was bound; but I did hanker to get home to
Simsbury afore shovin' off.

"Well, finally, there come into the harbor a Mystic ship that was
a-goin' down the Gulf for a New York owner. I'd known Seth Crane, the
cap'en of her, away back in old Simsbury times. He was an Avon boy; and
when I sighted that vessel's name, as I was crawlin' along the quay one
day, and, seein' she was Connecticut-built, boarded her, and see Seth, I
was old fool enough to cry right out,--I was so shaky. And Seth he
was about as scart as ef he'd seen the dead, havin' heerd up to Avon,
fifteen year ago nearly, that the Lowisy Miles had been run down off the
Sandwich Islands by a British man-of-war, and all hands lost, exceptin'
one o' the boys. However, he come to his bearin's after a while, and
told me about our folks, and how't Hetty Buel wasn't married, but
keepin' deestrict school, and her old grandmother alive yet.

"Well, I kinder heartened up, and agreed to take passage with
Seth.--Good Lord, Doctor! what's that?"

A peculiar and oppressive stillness had settled down on everything in
and out of the hospital while Jackson was going on with his story. I
noticed it only as the hush of a tropic midnight; but as he spoke,
I heard--apparently out on the prairie--a heavy jarring sound like
repeated blows, drawing nearer and nearer the building.

Jackson sprung upright on his pillows, the hectic passed from either
gaunt and sallow cheek, leaving the red and blue tattoo marks visible
in most ghastly distinctness, while the sweat poured in drops down his
hollow temples.

The noise drew still nearer. All the patients in the ward awoke and
quitted their beds, hastily. The noise was at hand,--blows of great
violence and power; and a certain malign rapidity shook the walls from
one end of the hospital to the other,--blow upon blow, like the fierce
attacks of a catapult, only with no like result. The nurse, a German
Catholic, fell on his knees and told his beads, glancing over his
shoulder in undisguised horror; the patients cowered together, groaning
and praying; and I could hear the stir and confusion in the ward below.
In less than a minute's space the singular sound passed through the
house, and in hollow, jarring echoes died out toward the bay.

I looked at Eben;--his jaw had fallen; his hands were rigid and locked
together; his eyes were r