nd went
about my business, wid a mighty heavy heart entirely.

All went on smoothly enough--but about the tenth day after we sailed, a
report got afloat that the ship was haunted.

At first, the captain only laughed at such an absurd rumour; but finding
the men believed it, and went unwillingly about their duty after dark,
unless in couples, he set to work to find out who had been the first
person to circulate the story.

After a deal of dodging and prevarication, it was traced to black Sam,
the nigger cook.

The skipper called the ould darky up to the quarter-deck, and then, in
the hearing of the cabin-passengers and most of the crew, the cook
stated, afther we had been at say for a few days, that one night, as he
was dozing in the caboose, he was startled by the appearance of a tall
figure, with a face as pallid as death, noiselessly entering through the
half-open door. The ghost--for such Sam was willing to swear it was, to
use his own words, "on a stack of bibles as high as the main topmast"--
had on a blood-stained shroud. It slowly approached the terror-stricken
cook, who, fearing it intended to do him some bodily harrum, sprang from
his bunk, and yell'd loudly for assistance. At the first sound of Sam's
voice, the lamp wint out of itself, and the ghost vanished.

Several sailors bore testimony to hearing the cook screaming for help--
to the fearful state of fright he was in; and, as they could see no
trace of the apparition Sam so minutely described, confirmed his report
as to the sudden disappearance of the supernatural intruder.

This was the origin of the report; but, some days after, at least half a
dozen seamen declared they had seen the self-same spectre gliding about
the deck soon after midnight; and among them the boatswain, as brave a
fellow as ever brandished a rope's-end, declared that, upon waking
suddenly one night, he saw the ghost sated on his locker, either
imitating the action of a person ating voraciously, or making a series
of such horribly ugly grimaces as would have done honour to Vanity Fair
itself.

The whole affair was considered a good joke by the skipper and
cabin-passengers; but those in the steerage and the ship's crew placed
implicit confidence in the cook's narrative, corroborated and supported
as it was by the sailors and the boatswain.

For my part, I had no faith in any worse sperrits than those than that
come out of a bottle, or, maybe, a hogshead, and I lost no chanc