, we arranged what he
was to do. He was to make a huge cap, with a high peak of straw, and he
was to cut his jacket into shreds, and a red handkerchief I had into
strips, and to fasten them about him in long streamers, and he was to
take a thick pole in his hand, covered much in the same way, and then he
was to rush into the house, shrieking and crying out as if a pack of
hounds were after him.

"They will not wonder at seeing me mad, for I have done already many
strange things, and very little work, since I came here," he remarked.
"But what it to become of the chain?"

"You had better carry that with you, and clank it in their faces," said
I. "Make as if you had bitten it through. That will astonish them, and
they will, at all events, be afraid to come near your teeth."

To make a long story short, we worked away with a will, and in half an
hour or so he was rigged out in a sufficiently strange fashion. I have
no doubt, had Peter been with us, he would have improved on our
arrangement. I then, advising Lyal to follow me in a short time, stole
back, and took my place unobserved in the old Moor's dining-hall. The
captain guessed what I had been doing, but the rest of the party had
been too much engaged in their potations to miss me. After a little
time I stole over to the captain and told him the arrangements I had
made, that he might be ready to act accordingly.

In a short time the silence which had hitherto prevailed was broken by a
terrible uproar of dogs barking, and men hallooing and crying out at the
top of their voices; while, above all, arose as unearthly shrieks as I
had ever heard. Presently in rushed a crowd of black and brown
servants, followed by a figure which I recognised as that of Lyal,
though he had much improved his appearance by fastening a haik over his
shoulders and another round his waist, while he waved above his head a
torch, at the risk of setting his high straw-cap on fire. The people
all separated before him, as he dashed on, right up to the old Moor,
who, with a drunken gaze of terror and astonishment, stared at him
without speaking.

"Ho! ho!" shouted the sailor, seizing him by the nose; "old fellow, I
have you now!"

Thereon he kicked over the jar of Schiedam, the contents of which he set
on fire with his torch; and keeping fast hold of the old Moor's nose,
who in his fright knew not how to resist, dragged him round and round
the room, shouting and shrieking all the time l