Then in the gathering darkness it faded
and was gone. Could it have been the same that we had seen before?
There was much talk of the mysterious ship that night, and many strange
theories were offered to account for it. Davie Paine, in his deep, rolling
voice, sent shivers down our backs by his story of a ghost-ship manned by
dead men with bony fingers and hollow eyes, which had sailed the seas in
the days of his great-uncle, a stout old mariner who seemed from Davie's
account to have been a hard drinker. Kipping was reminded of yarns about
Malay pirates, which he told so quietly, so mildly, that they seemed by
contrast thrice as terrible. Neddie Benson lugubriously recalled the
prophecy of the charming fortune-teller and argued the worst of our
mysterious stranger. "The lady said," he repeated, "that there'd be a dark
man and a light man and no end o' trouble. She was a nice lady, too." But
Neddie and his doleful fortune-teller as usual banished our gloom, and the
forecastle reechoed with hoarse laughter, which grew louder and louder when
Neddie once again narrated the lady's charms, and at last cried angrily
that she was as plump as a nice young chicken.
"If you was to ask me," Bill Hayden murmured, "I'd say it was just a sail.
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