lubbed a p'ooty yaller gal, an' fought dat she lubbed me!"

Of course, Hiram Bangs and Tom Bullover, who were smoking inside the
galley at the time, laughed at the man for his folly; but he persisted
in his statement, and went away at last quite huffed because they would
not believe him.

This was not the end of it all, however, as events will show.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

A HAUNTED SHIP.

A week later, Captain Snaggs, after drinking heavily during the evening,
was seized with a fit of delirium similar to the one he had that night
when he frightened me so terribly, for he rushed out of the cuddy,
screaming that `thet durned nigger Sam' was after him again.

He made my flesh creep; and I wouldn't have gone afterwards into the
stern of the ship at night, without a light, for a good deal, nor would
any of the fo'c's'le hands either, excepting, perhaps, Tom Bullover. I
am certain Hiram Bangs would have been even more reluctant than myself
to have ventured within the presumptive quarters of the ghost.

But, it was when we were off Cape Horn itself, though, that we
encountered our greatest peril.

The _Denver City_ had got down well below the latitude of the stormy
headland that is to mariners like the `Hill Difficulty' mentioned in the
`Pilgrim's Progress,' carrying with her up to then the light, favourable
breezes we had encountered after leaving the south-east trades which had
previously wafted her so well on her way; when, all at once, without
hardly a warning, the sea began to grow choppy and sullen, and the air
thick and heavy. The sky, too, which had been for days and days nearly
cloudless, became overcast all round, heavy masses of vapour piling
themselves upwards from the horizon towards the zenith, to the southward
and westward, gradually enveloping ship and ocean alike in a mantle of
mist.

"Cape Horn weather," observed Tom Bullover meaningly, as he squinted to
windward; "we'll have a taste of it presently!"

"Aye, bo," said Hiram, from the door of the galley opposite, where the
carpenter was holding on to the weather rigging; "I wonder what the
skipper's about, keepin' all thet hamper aloft an' a gale like thet
a-comin'! I reckon he'd better look smart, or we'll be caught nappin',
hey?"

Captain Snaggs, however, was also on the look-out; and, almost ere Hiram
had finished his sentence, he shouted out for all hands to take in sail.

"'Way aloft thaar!" he cried; "lay out on the yards, men, an' close