hatches and
secured the hold we went down below into the fore-peak, where the smell
of brimstone did not make us feel more comfortable, I can tell you, and
we began to talk over the matter, for you see the cat should not have
been thrown overboard, but put on shore; but we were called away to man
the boat again, for the fellow had come to his senses, and swore that he
would not stay in the ship, but go on shore and take the law of the
first mate, and the first mate and captain thought the sooner he was out
of the ship the better, for we were to sail before daylight, and there
might not be a wherry for him to get into; so the fellow took his kit,
and we pulled him on shore and landed him on Southsea beach, he swearing
vengeance the whole way; and as he stepped out on the beach he turned
round to us and said, as he shook his fist, `You've thrown overboard a
_black tom cat_, recollect that! and now you'll see the consequence; a
pleasant voyage to you. I wouldn't sail in that vessel if you were to
offer her to me as a present as soon as she got to Smyrna; because why,
you've thrown overboard a _black tom cat_, and you'll never get there--
never!' cried he again, and off he ran with his bundle.

"Well, we didn't much like it, and if the second mate hadn't been in the
boat, I'm not sure that we shouldn't all have gone on shore rather than
sail in the vessel; but there was no help for it. The next morning
before daylight we started, for the captain wouldn't wait to get another
hand, and we were soon out of soundings, and well into the Bay of
Biscay.

"We had just passed Cape Finisterre, when Jim, the cabin-boy says one
morning, `I'm blessed if I didn't hear that cat last night, or the ghost
on it!' So we laughed at him; for, you see, he slept abaft, just
outside the cabin door, close to the pantry, and not forward with the
rest of us.

"`Well,' says he, `I heard her miaul, and when I awoke I think I seed
two eyes looking at me.'

"`Well, Jim,' said I, for we had got over our fears, `it was you who
knocked her overboard, so it's all right that she should haunt you and
nobody else.' Jim, however, could not laugh, but looked very grave and
unhappy. A few days afterwards the captain and passenger complained
that they could not sleep for the noise and racket that was kept up all
night between the timbers and in the run aft. They said it was as if a
whole legion of devils were broken loose and scampering about; and the
ca