o voice
answered, and I went within. The man still sat at the table,
without turning at my entrance. The atmosphere was cold and musty;
there was no fire in the stove, although yet another man sat
crouched before it. I went behind the man at the table and touched
him on the shoulder.

"D'ye not hear me, sir?" I said. "Are ye deaf? or what has gone
wrong?"

He did not move.

I looked down into his face.

"Heavens!" I exclaimed, drawing back in horror at the grim sight.

What did it mean? I made bold to look again, though I felt myself
trembling. A green damp mould covered his cheek and forehead, and
hung in a ghastly fringe over his open eyes. The man was a frozen
corpse!

Terrified at the sight, I fled up the stairs with my heart wildly
beating. Regaining the deck I looked about me, but there was no
sign of life anywhere on the ship. Afraid to make any further
search, I clambered down into the Falcon and rushed below. I cast
myself before the fire, trembling and unable to realize anything
for the mortal fear that was upon me. I tried to forget the sight
of that face of death, with its horribly grim and mouldy features,
but it haunted me with terrible clearness.

I roused up my fire and made some strong tea, and, drinking it, I
wondered why I had not thought of pushing off the schooner from
this death ship. It was now growing dark, and the thought of
spending a whole night alone in the near presence of dead men,
whose ghosts, for all I knew, might visit me, filled my mind with
strange and awful fancies. Even the sound of the wind whispering in
the ropes struck me with nervous fear. But the drink of tea and
what little I ate helped to revive my spirits, and gradually my
sense of awe was overcome by a curiosity that came upon me--a
curiosity to go aboard the vessel again and discover something more
of her singular condition.

It was now wearing on towards night and I trimmed my lamps.
Lighting a small lantern, I carried it with me on deck. I made the
two vessels still more secure by means of a hawser rope, and then
went aboard the barque. As I began to climb up her side I was
conscious that she seemed to be deeper in the water than she had
been when I came alongside of her, but the discovery did not at the
moment trouble me.

I carried my lantern across her quarterdeck, and with timid steps
again descended into the after cabin. The lantern shed a ghostly
light upon the figure of the man at the table. I walke