hat oscillated to and fro as the ship gave an occasional
lurch and roll to port or starboard, betrayed no lack of their proper
quota of wine-glasses, decanters, and tumblers. No, there was no trace
of any disorder here, nothing to account for that noise of a struggle
and of breakages below that had preceded the sudden uprush of the
steward to the poop. What could possibly have caused all that clatter
and commotion?

Evidently so thinking, the captain, mate, and passenger looked at each
other in a bewildered fashion, as if each were endeavouring to solve
some knotty conundrum, and had ultimately come to the conclusion to
"give it up!"

They had not long to wait, however, for an explanation to the mystery.

All at once, a deep, sepulchral groan came from abaft the mizzenmast, as
if some one was being smothered in the hold below; and, almost at the
same instant, there echoed from the adjacent cabin--that whence the
night-capped head before mentioned had popped out--a shrill scream, as
of a female in distress, succeeded by the exclamation, "Gracious
goodness, help us and save us! We shall all be murdered in our beds!"

"Be jabers," ejaculated the mate, following up the captain, who had
immediately rushed aft to the spot whence the groan had proceeded; "sure
and that's the Meejor's swate voice! I'd know it onywheres, aven in the
Bog of Allen!"

On the captain reaching the end of the cuddy table, which had, of
course, interfered with his view, the crash of crockery which they had
heard, and which had been hitherto inexplicable, became at once clear;
for, there on the floor of the deck was the debris of a pile of plates
and scattered fragments of cups and saucers which had been suddenly
dropped by the steward in his fright and were smashed to atoms; while,
in the centre of the scene of devastation, was the dungeon-like cavity
of the after-hatchway, the cover of which had been shifted from its
coamings by the man, in order for him to get up some of the cabin
provisions from the hold, whose gloomy depths were only faintly
illumined by the feeble rays of a lantern, which as it lay on its side
rolling on the deck, participated in the general upset.

Captain Dinks promptly took up the lantern, holding it over the open
hatchway; and, as he did so, a second groan came from below, more hollow
and sepulchral than before.

"Who's there?" shouted the captain down the hatchway.

There was no reply, save a fainter moan, appare