p! You've done it to make trouble. I ought to have
had booted you overboard at the start."

"Aw--you--"

"Close your hatch!" ejaculated Tunis. "And keep it closed. I'm
talking, and I won't take any of your slack in return. I am not
married to you, thanks be! I think you've got pretty near enough of
me, and I'm sure I have of you, 'Rion. I give you warning--"

"Oh! You do?" snarled 'Rion, his ugly face aflame.

"Yes. I give you _fair_ warning. When the _Seamew_ gets back here to
Big Wreck Cove again, you're through! You can take your dunnage
ashore now if you like, but you go without pay if you do. Or you can
do your work properly on this trip and return. _Then_ you get
through. Take your choice."

He expected 'Rion would leave the _Seamew_ then and there. Tunis
half hoped, indeed, that he would do so. But to his surprise, Orion
suddenly snatched the book and pencil out of the skipper's hand and,
growling that "he'd stay the voyage out," shuffled away to the rail
and began taking tally of the barrels and cases being hauled aboard.

Working smartly, the new crew got the _Seamew_ under sail and out of
the cove two hours later. The wind held in a favorable quarter, and
they reached Hollis betimes. There they finished the schooner's
loading, and about dark went out to sea on a long tack and got
plenty of sea room before they made the short leg of it.

Supper was the first good meal they had had aboard that day. After
everything was cleaned up, the black cook joined the crew forward.
In whispers the men talked over both the skipper and his schooner.
The story of the curse was known to everybody in Big Wreck Cove by
this time, and none of these new men was ignorant of it. They had,
however, merely used it as a means of getting more pay than ordinary
seamen were getting in such vessels.

"'Tain't nothing as I can see," one of the older men said, "that is
likely to hurt us. It's a curse on the schooner, not on us folks
that warn't aboard her when she run under that other boat. And as
long as we keep away from the spot where the poor devils was
drowned, we ain't likely to see no ha'nts."

The cook's eyes rolled tremendously.

"You thinks likely this yere is that _Marlin B._?"

"Bah!" exclaimed one, whose name was Carney. "It's only talk. Maybe
she ain't that schooner at all. Mr. Chapin says she ain't."

"Is that so?" sneered the voice of 'Rion Latham behind them. "You
fellows don't want to believe what the skipper