of dull spectral light upon the throbbing blackness, and it lay
exactly in a line with the course we had been steering when Pitt first
called out, so that assuredly we had not shifted our helm a minute too
soon. We chopped and wallowed past it slowly, keeping a sharp look-out
for like apparitions in other quarters, and when it had disappeared, I
made up my mind to heave the schooner to and keep her in that posture
till daylight, unless the night cleared. So we got the mainsail down and
stowed it, clewed up the topsail (which I lent a hand to roll up), and
let the vessel lie under a reefed foresail with her helm lashed. The
weather, however, must have ultimately compelled what the thickness had
required; for by ten o'clock it was blowing a hard gale, with a frequent
hoariness of clouds of snow upon the blackness, the seas very high and
foaming, and the wind crying madly in the rigging.

I let some time go by, and then sounded the well and found no more water
than the depth at which the pumps sucked. This did wonders in the way of
reassuring the men, who were rendered uneasy by the violent motions of
the unwieldy vessel, and by the very harsh straining noises which rose
out of the hold, which latter they would naturally attribute to the
craziness of the fabric, though the true cause of it lay in the number
of loose, movable bulkheads.

"It's amazin' to me that she holds together at all," cried Wilkinson,
"so ancient she is!"

"She's only old," said I, "in the sound of the years she's been in
existence. The ice has kept her young. Would the hams and tongues we're
eating be taken to be half a century old? yet where could you buy
sweeter and better meat of the kind ashore? A ship's well is your only
honest reporter of her condition. Ours has vouched in a way that should
keep you easy."

"Arter de _Soosan Tucker_ dis is like bein' hung up to dry," exclaimed
one of the negroes. "It war pump, pump dere and no mistake. I call dis a
werry beautiful little sheep, massa; yes, s'elp me de Lord, dere's
nuffin could persuade me she ain't what I says she am."

However, I was up and down a good deal during the night. But for the
treasure I should have been less anxious, I dare say. I had come so
successfully to this point that I was resolved, if my hopes were to
miscarry, the misfortune should not be owing to want of vigilance on my
part; and there happened an incident which inevitably tended to sharpen
my watchfulness, though I w