thing the matter with
his eyes. He rubbed them, but the object did not disappear.

Then it moved, and, to his horror Mark saw that it had the shape of a
man, tall and thin. The two arms were outstretched, and to Mark's
imagination seemed to be pointed toward him.

In spite of trying not to be, Mark was frightened.

He did not believe in ghosts, and had always felt that all stories about
them were due to persons' imaginations. Now he saw something that was
hard to explain.

As he watched it, the white object turned and glided without making the
slightest noise, toward the conning tower. It entered and Mark breathed
a sigh of relief.

Perhaps, after all, it was some one from down in the cabin, maybe the
professor himself in his night shirt, who had come up to see that all
was right.

"I'll go and look," said Mark to himself.

He had to nerve himself for the ordeal, as, in spite of assuring himself
that there were no such things as ghosts, he was frightened.

It was absolutely quiet. The only sound was the gentle swish of the
water against the sides of the ship. The engine was running so slowly
that it caused no noise.

Half way on his journey to the conning tower Mark paused. There,
advancing toward him, was the white object. With outstretched arms it
glided nearer and nearer until Mark's heart was beating as if it would
burst through his ribs. His mouth was dry and he could not have cried
out had he tried.

There was a splash in the water off to the left as some big fish sprang
out and dropped back again. Involuntarily Mark turned in that direction.
Then he thought of the ghost and looked for it again. To his surprise
the white object was nowhere to be seen!

The boy waited a few minutes, and then, screwing up his courage, he went
to the tower. There was no one inside, and, along the length of deck
nothing was to be seen of the ghost.

"I wonder if I have been asleep and dreaming," the boy asked himself. He
gave his leg a pinch, and the sensation of pain told him he was not
slumbering.

"Well, I'll say nothing about it," Mark went on to himself. "They'll
only laugh at me."

Entering the tower Mark looked for the glasses in order to make another
observation. He could not find them, yet he was sure he had left them on
a shelf in the tower.

"I wonder if the ghost took them," he said.

He heard some one coming up the iron stairs of the small companionway
that led down into the interior of the ship thro