his slow critical motion of eye, and
continued:

"'What's wrong aloft forrad there?' bawled the mate, and now he sung
out with energy and decision, for the figure of the captain was
alongside of him.

"'There's something aloft that looks like a man,' howled a seaman, one
of the upstaring crowd about the Dutchman. 'Come forrad, sir. You'll
see him.'

"The mate and the captain went forward and looked up.

"'It's a man,' exclaimed the captain. 'Aloft there! What are you doing
skylarking up in those cross-trees? Come down!' he cried, angrily.

"'You sick-hearts, what d'ye see to stare at, or seeing, why don't you
go for it?' thundered the mate, after a pause, during which the figure
on high had made no answer or motion, and as he spoke the words the
officer bounded on to the bulwarks, and ran up the fore-shrouds.

"He travelled with heroic speed till he got as high as the foretop.
There he stood at gaze; presently, after you might have counted fifty,
putting his foot into the topmast rigging he began to crawl, with
frequent breathless stops; his passage up those shrouds had the dying
uncertainty of the tread of a blue-bottle when it climbs a sheet of
glass in October.

"On a sudden he came down into the top very fast. There he stood
staring aloft as though fascinated or electrified, then putting his
foot over the top he got into the fore-shrouds, and trotted down on
deck, all very quick. The captain stood near the main hatch, looking
up. The mate approached him, and, in a whisper of awe and terror,
exclaimed, whilst his eyes sought the shadow up in the foretopmast
cross-trees, 'I believe the Dutchman's right, sir, and that we've been
boarded by the devil himself.'

"'What are you talking about?'

"'I never saw the like of such a thing,' said the mate, in shaking
tones.

"'Is it a man?' said the captain, staring up with amazement, while the
seamen came hustling close in a sneaking way to listen, and the
Dutchman drew close to the mate.

"'It has the looks of a man,' said the mate; 'yet it sha'n't be murder
if you kill him.'

"'She vos no man, sir. I vos close. I vent closer don you. I oxpect,
sir,' said the Dutchman, 'she's an imp. Strange dot I did not see him
till I was upon her.'

"The captain went swiftly to his cabin for a binocular glass. The
lenses helped him to determine the motionless shadow in the
cross-trees, and he clearly distinguished an apparently large human
shape, but in what fashion, or