Willis the Pilot

CHAPTER XXV.

DEL­HI--WILLIAM OF NOR­MANDY AND KING JOHN--IS­ABEL­LA OF BAVARIA AND JOAN OF ARC--POITIERS AND BOVINES--HIS­TO­RY OF A GHOST, A GRID­IRON, AND A CHEST OF GUINEAS.

At first the three ad­ven­tur­ers were re­gard­ed as pris­on­ers of war; when, how­ev­er, their en­tire his­to­ry came to be known, and their ex­traor­di­nary mi­gra­tions from ship to ship au­then­ti­cat­ed, they were looked up­on as guests, and treat­ed as friends.

“I thought I had on­ly ob­tained pos­ses­sion of an En­glish cruis­er,” said the cap­tain; “but I find I have al­so ac­quired the right of be­ing use­ful to you.”

The com­man­der of the _Boudeuse_ was a very dif­fer­ent sort of a per­son from Com­modore Trun­cheon; the for­mer treat­ed his men as if ev­ery one of them had a ti­tle and great in­flu­ence at the Ad­mi­ral­ty, whilst the lat­ter swore at his crew as if the word of com­mand could not be un­der­stood with­out a sup­ple­men­tary oath. The En­glish com­modore might be the bet­ter sailor of the two, but cer­tain­ly the French cap­tain car­ried off the palm as re­gards po­lite­ness, ur­ban­ity, and gen­tle­man­ly bear­ing.

The wounds of Fritz and Jack were heal­ing rapid­ly un­der the skil­ful treat­ment of the French sur­geon, and, with a lift from Willis, they were able to walk a por­tion of the day on deck. With re­viv­ing health, their cheer­ful hopes of the fu­ture re­turned, their dor­mant spir­its were re-​awak­ened, and their minds re­gained their wont­ed an­ima­tion.

“The corvette spins along ad­mirably,” said the Pi­lot, “and is steer­ing straight for the Bay of Bis­cay.”

“Ah!” said Jack sigh­ing, “it is very easy to steer for a place, but it is not quite so easy to get there. I am sick of your friend the sea, Willis; and would give my largest pearl for a glimpse of a town, a vil­lage, or even a street.”

“If you want to see a street in all its glo­ry, Mas­ter Jack, you must try and get the cap­tain to al­ter his course for Del­hi.”

“But I should think, Willis, that there is noth­ing in the street-​scenery of Del­hi to com­pare with the Boule­vards of Paris, Re­gent-​street in Lon­don, or the Broad­way of New York.”

“Beg your par­don there, Mas­ter Jack; I know ev­ery shop win­dow in Re­gent-​street; I have of­ten been near­ly run over in the Broad­way, and can eas­ily imag­ine the turn out on the Boule­vards; but they are soli­tudes in com­par­ison with an In­di­an street.”

“How so, Willis?”

“Well, it is not that there are more in­hab­itants, nor on ac­count of the traf­fic, for no streets in the world will beat those of Lon­don in that re­spect--it is be­cause the peo­ple live, move, and have their be­ing in the streets; they eat, drink, and sleep in the streets; they sing, dance, and pray in the streets; con­ven­tions, treaties, and al­liances are con­clud­ed in the streets; in short, the street is the In­di­ans' home, his club, and his tem­ple. In Eu­rope, trans­ac­tions are ne­go­ti­at­ed qui­et­ly; in In­dia, noth­ing can be done with­out roar­ing, scream­ing, and bawl­ing.”

“There must be plen­ty of deaf peo­ple there,” ob­served Jack.

“Pos­si­bly; but there are no dumb peo­ple. Added to the end­less vo­cif­er­ations of the hu­man voice, there is an eter­nal bark­ing of dogs, ele­phants snort­ing, cows low­ing, and myr­iads of pigs grunt­ing. Then there is the thump, thump of the tam-​tam, the whistling of fifes, and the screech­ing of a hor­ri­ble in­stru­ment re­sem­bling a fid­dle, which can on­ly be com­pared with the Belze­bub mu­sic of Hawai. If, amongst these dis­cor­dant sounds, you throw in a cloud of mosquitoes and a hur­ri­cane of dust, you will have a tol­er­able idea of an In­di­an street.”

“There may be an­ima­tion and life enough, Willis, but I should pre­fer the monotony of Re­gent-​street for all that. Would you like to air your­self in Paris a bit?”

“Yes, but not just now; the less my coun­try­men see of France, un­der present cir­cum­stances, the bet­ter.”

“What is Eng­land and France al­ways fight­ing about, Willis?”

“Well, I be­lieve the cause this time to be a shindy the _moun­seers_ got up amongst them­selves in 1788. They first cut off the head of their king, and then com­menced to cut one an­oth­er's throats, and Eng­land in­ter­fered.”

“That,” ob­served Fritz, “may be the im­me­di­ate ori­gin of the present war [1812]. But for the cause of the an­imos­ity ex­ist­ing be­tween the two na­tions, you must, I sus­pect, go back as far as the eleventh cen­tu­ry, to the time of William, Duke of Nor­mandy.”

“What had he to do with it?”

“A great deal. He claimed a right, re­al or pre­tend­ed, to the En­glish throne. He crossed the Chan­nel, and, in 1066, de­feat­ed Harold, King of Eng­land, at the bat­tle of Hast­ings.”

“Both William and Harold were orig­inal­ly Danes, were they not?” in­quired Jack.

“Yes; I think Rol­lo, William's grand­fa­ther, was a Nor­man ad­ven­tur­er, or sea-​king, as these ma­raud­ers were some­times called. William, af­ter the vic­to­ry of Hast­ings, pro­claimed him­self King of Eng­land and Duke of Nor­mandy, and as­sumed the des­ig­na­tion of William the Con­queror.”

“Then how did France get mixed up in the af­fair?” in­quired Willis.

“William's grand­fa­ther, when he seized the duke­dom cf Nor­mandy, be­came vir­tu­al­ly a vas­sal of the King of France, though it is doubt­ful whether he ev­er took the trou­ble to rec­og­nize the suzerain­ty of the throne. As sovereign, how­ev­er, the King of France claimed the right of homage, which con­sist­ed, ac­cord­ing to feu­dal us­age, in the vas­sal ad­vanc­ing, bare-​head­ed, with­out sword or spurs, and kneel­ing at the foot of the throne.”

“Was this right ev­er en­forced?”

“Yes, in one case at least. John Lack­land--or, as the French called him, John Sans Terre--hav­ing as­sas­si­nat­ed his nephew Arthur, Duke of Brit­tany, in or­der to ob­tain pos­ses­sion of his lands, was sum­moned by Philip Au­gus­tus, King of France, to jus­ti­fy his crime. John did not obey the sum­mons, was de­clared guilty of felony, and Philip took pos­ses­sion of Nor­mandy. Thus the first step to hos­til­ities was laid down.”

“The En­glish hav­ing lost Nor­mandy, the vas­salage ceased.”

“Yes, so far as re­gards Nor­mandy; but, in the mean­time, Louis le Je­une, King of France, un­for­tu­nate­ly di­vorced his wife, Elenor of Aquitaine, who af­ter­wards mar­ried an En­glish prince, and added Gui­enne, an­oth­er French duke­dom to the En­glish crown.”

“So an­oth­er vas­salage sprung up.”

“Ex­act­ly. All the French King in­sist­ed up­on was the homage; but Ed­ward III. of Eng­land, in­stead of bend­ing his knee to Philip of Val­ois, ar­gued with him­self in this way: 'If I were King of Eng­land and France as well, the claim of homage for the duke­dom of Gui­enne would be ex­tin­guished.'”

“Rather cool that,” said Jack, laugh­ing.

“'We shall then,' Ed­ward said to him­self, 'be our own sovereign, and do homage to our­self, which would save a deal of both­er.'”

“Well, he was right there, at least,” re­marked the Pi­lot.

“The King of France, how­ev­er, en­ter­tained a dif­fer­ent view of the sub­ject. Hence arose an end­less suc­ces­sion of sieges, bat­tles, con­quests, de­feats, ex­ter­mi­na­tions, and ha­treds, which, no doubt, gave rise to the ill-​feel­ing that ex­ists at present be­tween Eng­land and France. It is cu­ri­ous, at the same time, to ob­serve what mis­chief in­di­vid­ual acts may oc­ca­sion. If William of Nor­mandy had re­mained con­tent­ed with his duke­dom, and Louis le Je­une had not di­vorced his wife, France would not have lost the dis­as­trous bat­tles of Ag­in­court and Poitiers.”

“Nor gained the bril­liant vic­to­ry of Bovines,” sug­gest­ed Jack.

“Cer­tain­ly not; but she would have been spared the in­dig­ni­ty of hav­ing one of her kings marched through the streets of Lon­don as a pris­on­er.”

“True; but, on the oth­er hand, the cap­tured monarch would not have had an op­por­tu­ni­ty of il­lus­trat­ing the laws of hon­or in his own per­son. He re­turned loy­al­ly to Eng­land and re­sumed his chains, when he found that the enor­mous sum de­mand­ed by Eng­land for his ran­som would im­pov­er­ish his peo­ple: oth­er­wise he could not have giv­en birth to the max­im, 'That though good faith be ban­ished from all the world be­side, it ought still to be found in the hearts of kings.'”

“One of the kings of Scot­land,” re­marked Willis, “was placed in a sim­ilar po­si­tion. The Scot­tish army had been cut to pieces at the bat­tle of Flod­den, the king was cap­tured in his har­ness, con­veyed to Lon­don, and the peo­ple had to pay a great deal more to ob­tain his free­dom than he was worth. But, be­fore that, the Scotch near­ly caught one of the Ed­wards. This time the En­glish army had been cut to pieces; but the king did not wait to be cap­tured, he took to his heels, or rather to his horse's hoofs. He was beau­ti­ful­ly mount­ed, and fol­lowed by half a dozen Scot­tish troop­ers; away he went, over hill and dale, ditch and riv­er. Dick Turpin's ride from Lon­don to York was noth­ing to it. The king proved him­self to be a first-​rate horse­man, for, af­ter be­ing chased this way over half the coun­try, he suc­ceed­ed in baf­fling his pur­suers. All these es­capades be­tween Eng­land and Scot­land are, how­ev­er, for­got­ten now, or at least ought to be; there are, doubt­less, a few thick-​head­ed per­sons in both sec­tions of the em­pire who de­light in keep­ing alive old prej­udices, but they will die out in time.”

“It seems, how­ev­er, they have not died away yet,” said Fritz, “in so far as re­gards France and Eng­land, since the two coun­tries are at war again. But, as I ob­served be­fore, had it not been for the am­bi­tion of William and the an­ti-​con­nu­bial propen­si­ties of John, the En­glish would nev­er have been mas­ters of Paris, and a great part of France un­der Charles VI.”

“Still, in that case,” per­sist­ed Jack, “Charles VII. would not have had the op­por­tu­ni­ty of lib­er­at­ing his coun­try.”

“Then,” con­tin­ued Fritz, “his­to­ry would not have had to record the shame­less deeds of Is­abel­la of Bavaria.”

“Nor chron­icle the bril­liant achieve­ments of Joan of Arc,” added Jack.

“Any how,” ob­served Willis, “the moun­seers are a cu­ri­ous peo­ple. I have heard it re­marked that they are oc­cu­pied all day long in get­ting them­selves in­to scrapes, and that Prov­idence bus­ies her­self all night in get­ting them out again.”

By chat­ting in this way, Fritz, his broth­er, and the Pi­lot con­trived to re­lieve the monotony of the voy­age, and to pass away the time pleas­ant­ly enough. Each con­tribut­ed his quo­ta to the com­mon fund; Fritz his judg­ment, Jack his hu­mor, and Willis his prac­ti­cal ex­pe­ri­ence, strong good sense, and vig­or­ous, though un­tu­tored un­der­stand­ing. A por­tion of Jack's time was passed with the sur­geon, be­tween whom a great in­ti­ma­cy had sprung up. Time did not, there­fore, hang heav­ily on the hands of the young men; for even dur­ing the night their thoughts were busy form­ing projects, or in em­broi­der­ing the can­vas of the fu­ture with those fairy de­signs which youth alone can cre­ate.

One morn­ing Willis ar­rived on deck, pale, and with an air of fa­tigue and las­si­tude al­to­geth­er un­usu­al. He gazed anx­ious­ly in­to ev­ery nook and cran­ny of the ship.

“What­ev­er is the mat­ter, Willis?” in­quired Jack. “Have you seen the Fly­ing Dutch­man?”

“No, Mas­ter Jack,” said he in a for­lorn tone; “but I have ei­ther seen the cap­tain or his ghost.”

“What! the cap­tain of the _Hobo­ken_?”

“No; the cap­tain of the _Nel­son_.”

“In a dream?”

“No, my eyes were as wide open as they are now; he looked in­to my cab­in, and spoke to me.”

“Im­pos­si­ble, Willis.”

“I as­sure you it is the case though, im­pos­si­ble or not.”

“Where is he then?” ex­claimed both the young men, start­ing.

“That I know not; I have looked for him ev­ery­where.”

“What did he say to you?”

“At first he said, How d'ye do, Willis?”

“Nat­ural­ly; and what then?”

“He asked me what I thought of the cloud that was gath­er­ing in the south-​west.”

“Imag­ina­tion, Willis.”

“But look there, you can see a storm is gath­er­ing in that quar­ter.”

“The night­mare, Willis. But what did you say to him?”

“I could not an­swer at the mo­ment; my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth, and I rose to take hold of his hand.”

“Then he dis­ap­peared, did he not?”

“Yes, Mas­ter Jack.”

“I thought so.”

“But I heard the door of my cab­in shut be­hind him, as dis­tinct­ly as I now hear the waves break­ing on the sides of the corvette at this mo­ment.”

“You ought to have run af­ter him.”

“I did so.”

“Well, did you catch him?”

“No; I was stopped by the watch, for I had noth­ing on me but my shirt; the of­fi­cers stared, the sailors laughed, and the doc­tor felt my pulse. But, for all that, I am sat­is­fied there is a mys­tery some­where.”

“But, Willis, the thing is al­to­geth­er im­prob­able.”

“Well, look here; Cap­tain Lit­tle­stone is ei­ther dead or alive, is he not?”

“Yes,” replied Jack, “there can be no medi­um be­tween these hy­pothe­ses.”

“Then all I can say is this, that as sure as I am a liv­ing sin­ner, I have seen him if he is alive, and, if he is dead, I have seen his ghost.”

“You be­lieve in vis­ita­tions from the oth­er world then, Willis?”

“I can­not dis­cred­it the ev­idences of my own sens­es, can I?”

“No, cer­tain­ly not.”

“Be­sides, this brings to my rec­ol­lec­tion a sim­ilar cir­cum­stance that hap­pened to an old com­rade of mine. Sam Walk­er is as fine a fel­low as ev­er lived, he sailed with me on board the _Nor­folk_, and I know him to be in­ca­pable of telling a false­hood. Though his name is Sam Walk­er, we used to call him 'Hot Codlins.'”

“Why, Willis?”

“Be­cause he had an old wom­an with a child tatooed on his arm, in­stead of an an­chor, as is usu­al in the navy.”

“A por­trait of _Notre Dame de Bon Lecours_, I shouldn't won­der,” said Jack; “but what had that to do with hot codlins: a codlin is a fish, is it not?”

“I will ex­plain that an­oth­er time,” said Willis, the shad­ow of a smile pass­ing over his pale fea­tures. “The short and the long of the sto­ry is, that Sam once saw a ghost.”

“Well, tell us all about it, Willis.”

“But I am afraid you will not be­lieve the sto­ry if I do.”

“On the con­trary, I promise to be­lieve it in ad­vance.”

“Very well, Mas­ter Jack. Did you ev­er see a wind­mill?”

“No, but I know what sort of things they are from de­scrip­tion.”

“There are none in Scot­land,” con­tin­ued Willis; “at least I nev­er saw one there.”

“How do they man­age to grind their corn then? There should be oats in the land o' cakes, at all events,” said Jack, with a smile.

“Well, in coun­tries that have plen­ty of wa­ter, they can dis­pense with mills on land. Though there are no wind-​mills in Scot­land, there are some in the coun­ty of Durham, on the bor­ders of Eng­land, for it ap­pears my mate Sam was born in one of them. His fa­ther and moth­er died when he was very young, and he, con­joint­ly with the rats, was left sole own­er and oc­cu­pant of the mill. Some of the neigh­bor­ing vil­lagers, see­ing the poor boy left in this for­lorn con­di­tion, got him in­to a char­ity school, whence he was bound ap­pren­tice to a ship­mas­ter en­gaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea. The ship young Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell in­to the hands of a fish­er­man, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him about.”

“I thought so,” said Jack; “the mark in ques­tion rep­re­sents the pa­tron saint of French sailors.”

“Af­ter a va­ri­ety of ups and downs, Sam found him­self rat­ed as a first-​class sea­man on board a British man-​of-​war. He served with my­self on board the _Nor­folk_, and was wound­ed at the bat­tle of Trafal­gar [1806], which, I dare say, you have heard of.”

“Yes, Willis, it was there that your Ad­mi­ral Nel­son cov­ered him­self with im­mor­tal renown.”

“There and else­where, Mas­ter Fritz.”

“It cost him his life, how­ev­er, Willis, and like­wise short­ened those of the French Ad­mi­ral Vil­leneuve and the Span­ish Ad­mi­ral Grav­ina; that, you must ad­mit, is too many eggs for one omelet.”

“As you once said your­self, great vic­to­ries are not won with­out loss, and the bat­tle of Trafal­gar was no ex­cep­tion to the rule. Sam, hav­ing been wound­ed, was sent to the hos­pi­tal, and when his wound was healed, he was al­lowed leave of ab­sence to re­cruit his strength, so he thought he would take a run to Durham and see how it fared with the pa­ter­nal wind­mill. Time had, of course, wrought many changes both out­side and in, but it still re­mained perched grim­ly on its pedestal, but now en­tire­ly aban­doned to the bats and owls. The sails were gone, and the wood­work was slow­ly crum­bling away; but the base­ment be­ing of hewn gran­ite, it was still in a tol­er­able state of preser­va­tion. The place, how­ev­er, was said to be haunt­ed; ex­act­ly at twelve o'clock at night dis­mal howls were heard by the vil­lagers to is­sue from the mill. Ac­cord­ing to the black­smith, who was a great au­thor­ity in such mat­ters, Sam's fa­ther was a very avari­cious old fel­low, and had hid his mon­ey some­where about the build­ing; and you know, Mas­ter Jack, that when a man dies and leaves his mon­ey con­cealed, there is no rest for him in his grave till it is dis­cov­ered.”

“I re­al­ly was not aware of it be­fore,” replied Jack; “but I am de­light­ed to hear it.”

“When Sam ar­rived, no­body dis­put­ed his ti­tle to the prop­er­ty, ex­cept the ghost; but Sam had seen a good deal of hard ser­vice, and de­clared that he would not be choused out of his pat­ri­mo­ny for all the ghosts in the parish; and, in spite of the per­sua­sions of the vil­lagers, re­solved to take up his abode there forth­with. Sam ac­cord­ing­ly laid in a sup­ply of stores, in­clud­ing a month's sup­ply of to­bac­co and rum. He first made the place wa­ter-​tight, then made a fire suf­fi­cient to roast an ox, and when night ar­rived made a jo­rum of grog, a lit­tle stiff, to keep away the damp. This done, he lit his pipe, and be­gan to cook a steak for his sup­per. The old mill, for the first time since the de­cease of the for­mer pro­pri­etor, was filled with the sa­vory odor of roast beef.”

“And there are worse odors than that,” re­marked Jack. "Whilst the steak was friz­zling, he took a swig at the grog; and, think­ing one side was done, he gave the grid­iron a twist, which sent the steak a lit­tle way up the chim­ney, and, strange to say, it nev­er came down again.

"'Ten thou­sand What's-​a-​names,' cried Sam, 'where's my steak?'

“No an­swer was vouch­safed to this query; he looked up the chim­ney, and could see no one.”

“The steak had re­al­ly dis­ap­peared then?” said Jack, in­quir­ing­ly.

“Yes, not a frag­ment re­mained; but he had more beef, so he cut off an­oth­er; and, as his head had got a lit­tle mid­dled with the grog, he thought it just pos­si­ble that he might have cap­sized the grid­iron in­to the fire, so he qui­et­ly recom­menced the op­er­ation.”

“And the sec­ond steak dis­ap­peared like the first?” “Yes, Mas­ter Fritz, with this dif­fer­ence--there was a dead man's thigh-​bone in its place.”

“An awk­ward trans­for­ma­tion for a hun­gry man,” said Jack.

“'Here's a go!' cried Sam, like to burst his sides with laugh­ing, 'they ex­pect to fright­en me with bones, do they? they've got the wrong man--been played too many tricks of that kind at sea to be scared by that sort of thing. Ha, ha, ha! cap­ital joke though.'”

“Your friend Sam must have been a mer­ry fel­low, Willis.”

"Yes, but he was hun­gry, and want­ed his sup­per; so he con­tin­ued sup­ply­ing the grid­iron with steaks as long as the beef last­ed, but on­ly ob­tained hu­man shin-​bones, clav­icles and tib­ias.

"'Nev­er mind,' said Sam to him­self, 'they will tire of this game in course of time.'

“When the beef was done, he kept up a sup­ply of rash­ers of ba­con, and threw the bones as they ap­peared in a cor­ner, con­sol­ing him­self in the mean­time with his pipe and his grog.”

“He must have been both pa­tient and per­se­ver­ing,” re­marked Jack.

“This went on till a skull ap­peared on the grid­iron.”

“A sin­gu­lar ob­ject to sup up­on,” ob­served Jack.

"'I won­der what the deuce will come next,' said Sam to him­self, throw­ing the skull amongst the rest of the bones.

"The next time, how­ev­er, he took the grid­iron off the fire, there was his last rash­er done to a turn.

"'Now,' said Sam, 'I am go­ing to have peace and quiet­ness at last.'

“He sat down then very com­fort­ably, and kept eat­ing and drink­ing, and drink­ing and smok­ing, till the vil­lage clock struck twelve.”

“Good!” cried Jack. “You may come in now, ladies and gen­tle­men; the per­for­mance is just a-​go­ing to be­gin.”

“Sam heard a suc­ces­sion of crack cracks amongst the bones, and turn­ing round he be­held a fright­ful-​look­ing spec­tre, point­ing with its fin­ger to the door.”

“Was it wrapped up in a white sheet?” in­quired Jack.

“Yes, I rather think it was.”

“Very well, then, I be­lieve the sto­ry; for spec­tres are in­vari­ably wrapped up in white sheets.”

"The bones, in­stead of re­main­ing qui­et­ly piled up in the cor­ner, had joined them­selves to­geth­er--the leg bones to the feet, the ribs to the back-​bone--and the skull had stuck it­self on the top. Where the flesh came from, Sam could not tell; but he strong­ly sus­pect­ed that his own steaks and ba­con had some­thing to do with it. But, be that as it may, there was not half enough of fat to cov­er the bones, and the fig­ure was dread­ful­ly thin. Sam stared at first in as­ton­ish­ment, and be­gan to doubt whether he saw aright. When, how­ev­er, he be­held the fig­ure move, there could be no mis­take, and he knew at once that it was a ghost. Any­body else would have been fright­ened out of their sens­es, but Sam took the mat­ter philoso­soph­ical­ly and went on with his sup­per.

"'How d'ye do, old fel­low?' he said to the spec­tre. 'Will you have a mouth­ful of grog to warm your in­side? Sit down, and be so­cia­ble.'

"The spec­tre did not make any re­ply, but con­tin­ued mak­ing a sign for Sam to fol­low.

"'If you pre­fer to stand and keep beck­on­ing there till to-​mor­row you may, but, if I were in your place, I would come near­er the fire,' said Sam; 'you may catch cold stand­ing there with­out your shirt, you know.'

“The same si­lence and the same ges­ture con­tin­ued on the part of the ghost, and Sam, see­ing that his words pro­duced no ef­fect, recom­menced eat­ing.”

“There is one thing,” re­marked Jack, “more as­ton­ish­ing about your friend Sam than his cool­ness, and that is his ap­petite.”

"The spec­tre did not ap­pear sat­is­fied with the state of af­fairs, for it as­sumed a threat­en­ing at­ti­tude and strode to­wards the fire-​place.

"'Avast heav­ing, old fel­low,' cried Sam, 'there is one thing I have got to say, which is this here: you may stand and hoist sig­nals there as long as ev­er you like; but if you touch me, then look out for squalls, that's all.'

"The 'old fel­low,' how­ev­er, paid no at­ten­tion to this cau­tion. He strode right up to the fire-​place, and, whilst point­ing to the door with one hand, grasped Sam's arm with the oth­er. Sam start­ed up, shook off the hand that held him, and pitched in­to the spec­tre right and left. But, strange to say, his hands went right through its bones and all, just as if it had been made of the hy­dro­gen gas you spoke of the oth­er day. Sam saw that it was no use lay­ing about him in this fash­ion, for the spec­tre stood grin­ning at him all the time, so he gave it up.

"'I wish,' said he, 'you would be off, and go to bed, and not keep both­er­ing there.'

"Still the spec­tre main­tained the same pos­ture, and kept per­ti­na­cious­ly point­ing to the door.

"'Well,' said Sam, 'since you in­sist up­on it, let us see what there is out­side. Go a-​head, I will fol­low.'

"The spec­tre led him in­to what used to be the gar­den of the mill, but the en­clo­sure was now over­grown with rank and poi­sonous weeds. There was a path run­ning through it paved with flag­stones; the spec­tre point­ed with its find­er to one of them. Sam stooped down, and, much to his as­ton­ish­ment, raised it with ease. Be­neath there was an iron chest, the lid of which he al­so opened, and saw that it was filled with old spade guineas and Span­ish dol­lars.

"'You be­hold that trea­sure!' said the spec­tre, in a hol­low voice.

"'Ha, ha, old fel­low! you can speak, can you? Now we shall un­der­stand each oth­er. Yes, I see a box, filled with what looks very like gold and sil­ver coins.'

"'I placed that trea­sure there be­fore my death,' added the spec­tre.

"'Ah, so! than you are dead?' said Sam.

"'One half of that mon­ey I wish you to give to the poor, and the oth­er half you may keep to your­self, if you choose.'

"'Gol­ley!' said Sam, 'you are not much of a swab af­ter all, though you look as thin as a purs­er's clerk. Give us a shake of your paw, my hearty.'

“Here Sam, some­how or oth­er, stum­bled over the lamp, and when he got up again the spec­tre had van­ished. He laid hold of the chest, how­ev­er, and groped his way back to the mill. When safe in­side, he made a stiff jo­rum of grog, and then fell com­fort­ably asleep. That night he dreamt that he was eat­ing gold and sil­ver, that he was his own cap­tain, that the cat-​o'-nine tails was en­tire­ly abol­ished in the navy, and that his ship, in­stead of sail­ing in salt wa­ter was float­ing in rum. When he awoke, the sun was steam­ing through all the nooks and cran­nies of the old mill. All the marks of the pre­ced­ing night's ad­ven­tures were there--the grid­iron, the emp­ty rum jar, the the ta­ble o'er­turned in the _mélée_ with the ghost--but the chest of mon­ey was gone.”

“And what did Sam con­clude from that in­ci­dent?” in­quired Fritz.

“Well, he sup­posed that he had slept rather long, and that some­body had come in be­fore he as up and had walked off with the box.”

“If I had been in his place,” con­tin­ued Fritz, “I should have said to my­self that the mind of­ten gives birth to strange fan­cies, par­tic­ular­ly af­ter a heavy sup­per, and that I had mud­dled my brain with rum; con­se­quent­ly, that all the things I imag­ined I had seen were on­ly the chimeras of a dream.”

“But that could not be, Mas­ter Fritz, for two rea­sons; the first, that the mark of the ghost's hand re­mained on his arm.”

“Very like­ly burnt it when he grilled the ba­con.”

“The sec­ond, that the ghost was no more seen or heard of in the mill.”

“That proof is a pos­er for you, broth­er, I think,” said Jack.

“Did you heave that sigh just now, Mas­ter Fritz?” in­quired Willis, in a low tone.

“It was not I,” said Fritz, look­ing at his broth­er.

“Nor I,” said Jack, look­ing at Willis.

“Nor I,” said Willis, look­ing be­hind him.