nd about a
mile from the vessel succumbed to the piercing cold, falling into that
fatal sleep from which few ever waken, in this life at least. Coffin's
companion, a strong, hardy sailor, reached the light-house alive, but
swooned away, and could not be resuscitated; and Coffin barely escaped
with his life. He was terribly frost-bitten, but was thawed out in a
puncheon of cold water, the right foot, however, dropping off at the
ankle; but he escaped with life, after terrible suffering.

"The schooner sank, in the spring, at the edge of the channel, when the
moving ice forced her into deeper water; and at very low tides her
battered hull may still be seen by the passing boatman. But ever since
that fatal night, whenever a storm from that quarter is threatened, a
ball of fire is seen to emerge from the depths where lies the fated
packet, and to sway and swing above the water, as the signal lantern did
on the swaying mast of that doomed vessel. Then, if you but watch
patiently, the ball is seen to expand into a sheet of crimson light,
terribly and weirdly beautiful, until the eye can discern the shadowy
outline of a ship, or rather schooner, of fire, with hull and masts,
stays and sails; and then the apparition again assumes the shape of a
ball, which is lost in the sea.

"At times it appears twice or thrice in the same night, and often the
herring-fisher, after setting his nets along the bar, sees behind his
boat, as he nears the shore, the apparition of the 'packet light.' Since
that night of wreck and death, no dweller on this island has passed a
year without seeing it, and it is so common that its appearance awakens
no fear; and among the fishers of Point Prime, and the farmers of the
opposite shores, there are few who will not bear witness to the truth of
my story."

* * * * *

"It is a little singular," said Risk, "that a ship is the only
inanimate object ever seen as an individual apparition. There are not
many of these ghostly ships on the seas, however. I do not remember to
have heard of more than one--that of the celebrated 'Flying Dutchman,'
off the Cape of Good Hope."

"It's no wonder, sir," said Lund, warmly, "that sailors suppose ships to
be haunted, and also to be capable of becoming ghosts themselves, when
you sit down and think how differently every one views a vessel, as
compared with a house, or store, or engine. Why, there are no two ships
alike, and two were never b