u
haven't chucked anybody overboard, have you?"

"If anybody should happen to come aboard this vessel," said Flower,
without deigning to reply to the question, "and ask questions about the
master of it, he's as unlike me, Jack, as any two people in this world
can be. D'ye understand?"

"You'd better tell me what you've been up to," urged the mate.

"As for your inquisitiveness, Jack, it don't become you," said Flower,
with severity; "but I don't suppose it'll be necessary to trouble you at
all."

He walked out of the cabin and stood listening at the foot of the
companion-ladder, and the mate heard him walk a little way up. When he
reentered the cabin his face had cleared, and he smiled comfortably.

"I shall just turn in for an hour," he said, amiably; "good-night,
Jack."

"Good-night," said the curious mate. "I say----" he sat up suddenly in
his bunk and looked seriously at the skipper.

"Well?" said the other.

"I suppose," said the mate, with a slight cough--"I suppose it's
nothing about that girl that was down here?"

"Certainly not," said Flower, violently. He extinguished the lamp, and,
entering his state-room, closed the door and locked it, and the mate,
after lying a little while drowsily wondering what it all meant, fell
asleep again.

CHAPTER II.

WHILE the skipper and mate slumbered peacefully below, the watchman sat
on a post at the extreme end of the jetty, yearning for human society
and gazing fearfully behind him at the silent, dimly-lit wharf. The two
gas-lamps high up on the walls gave but a faint light, and in no way
dispelled the deep shadows thrown by the cranes and the piled-up empties
which littered the place. He gazed intently at the dark opening of the
floor beneath the warehouse, half fancying that he could again discern
the veiled apparition which had looked in at him through the office
window, and had finally vanished before his horror-struck eyes in a
corner the only outlet to which was a grating. Albeit a careful man and
tender, the watchman pinched himself. He was awake, and, rubbing the
injured part, swore softly.

"If I go down and tell 'em," he murmured softly, in allusion to the
crew, "what'll they do? Laugh at me."

He glanced behind him again, and, rising hastily to his feet, nearly
fell on to the deck below as a dark figure appeared for a moment at the
opening and then vanished again. With more alacrity than might have been
expected of a man of his figure, he