n my own eyesight. I'd take my
davy 'twere Sam Jedfoot I seed jest now; and though I'm no coward,
mates, I don't mind saying I'm mortal feared o' going nigh the cuddy
agen!"

"Never ye fear, old hoss," replied Hiram encouragingly; albeit, at any
other time he would have laughed at the steward's declaration that he
was `no coward,' when he was well known to be the most arrant one in the
ship. "It ain't ye thet the ghost air arter, ye bet. It's the skipper.
Ye remember ez how he promised us all he'd call in at the nearest port
an' hev all the circumferences overhauled, ez he sed?"

"Aye," responded the Welshman, "that he did. He took his solemn davy,
afore the second-mate, an' Tom Bullover, an' the lot o' you, on the
maindeck, that time he shot the cook. I heard him from under the break
o' the poop, where I were standin'."

"Yes, I seed ye keepin' well to looard!" said Hiram drily. "But, ez I
wer a sayin', the skipper agrees to call in at the fust port we fetches,
an' we've b'en close in to Bahia, when we near ran ashore, an' Rio an'
Buenos Ayres; an' he's never put into no port yet!"

"No, nor doesn't mean to, neither," chorussed the steward. "I hear him,
t'other day, a jokin' with that brute of a fust-mate about it; an' both
was a sniggerin': an' he says as he'll see you all to old Nick afore he
stops anywhere afore he gets to 'Frisco!"

"I reckon, then, sunthin' bad 'll come of it," said Hiram, shaking his
head gravely, "Thet nigger's sperrit don't haunt this ship fur nothin',
an' we ain't see the wuss yet, ye bet! Soon arter Cholly hyar seed
Sam's ghost, ye remembers, we hed thet fire aboard in the forepeak?"

"Aye," agreed Morris Jones; "an' the next time--"

"Wer the banjo we heered a-playin', afore we were caught in thet buster
of a gale, an' the ship wer a'most capsized on her beam-ends," continued
the American, full of his theme. "An' now, I guess--"

"What?" cried I eagerly, anxiously drinking in every word, deeply
impressed with the conversation. "What do you think will happen?"

"'Ructions, thet's all, b'y," replied Hiram, hitching up the waistband
of his overalls coolly, in the most matter-of-fact way, as if he were
only mentioning an ordinary circumstances. "Thet is, if the skipper
don't touch at Callao or Valparaiso. Fur my part, sonny, I guess this
hyar ship air doomed, ez I sed afore, an' I don't spec, for one, as ever
she'll reach 'Frisco this v'yage; an' so thinks old Chips, Tom Bul