Lynch. "My man, have you permitted a ghost stand your
trick at the wheel?" This last to Newman.

"Hardly a ghost, sir," answered Newman. We could not see his face, but
from his tone I knew he was smiling. "Do I look like one? Not yet, I
hope. I was just about to turn over the wheel to the lad, sir, when he
shied--at the shadow of the mizzen stays'l I think--and rushed away
forward."

"What is wrong, Mister?" inquired the captain's soft voice. Aye, we
all jumped as if it were the ghost talking. Captain Swope, with Mister
Fitzgibbon behind him, had popped up from below as quietly as If he
were a ghost.

"Nothing wrong, Captain," replied Mister Lynch. "One of my jaspers
declared he saw the little squarehead's ghost dancing about the poop,
and now the lot of them have nerves. I brought them aft to teach them
better in a peaceful way."

This was a straight dig at the Old Man's "be gentle" orders, but it
didn't pierce his skin. Swope laughed, genuinely amused, his soft,
rippling laugh that always frightened us so much. "Peaceful, eh? By
the Lord, Mister, it sounded like an army overhead. And it was no more
than a ghost!" He peered aft, and discerned Newman at the wheel,
recognizing him by bulk, I guess, for the binnacle lights were half
shuttered and Newman's face invisible. But I'm sure he recognized him,
for he pursed his lips in a way I had seen him do before when he looked
at Newman. He strolled away forward, to the break of the poop,
glancing this way and that, and back again to the hatch. "If it were
moonlight, I'd say your man was touched," says he to Lynch. "But I
suppose he was half asleep and dreaming."

"I'll wake him up and work the dreams out of him," promised Mister
Lynch.

"But no hazing, Mister. The men are in bad enough temper as it is."

Aye, thus to Lynch, as though the rest of us were beyond ear-shot. But
all the time his eyes were upon us, measuring the effect of his words.
Oh, he was a sly beast, a "slick one," as Beasley said.

"Which is the lad who beheld this--ghost?" he added.

The second mate shoved Oscar forward so that he stood in the light that
streamed up from the cabin.

"So one little ghost scared you, eh?" says he to poor trembling Oscar.
"Why, my man, if all the ghosts in this ship were to begin walking
about, we living men would be crowded into the sea." With that he went
below, laughing, as though he had just made a fine joke, and leaving us
more frighten