“Aye, true, sir, as I sits here, for I lost my other leg among ’em. I ought not to forget ’em, for they have given me plenty o’ reason to remember ’em by.”
WILDFIRE NED VISITS THE RED MAN ON THE HEATH.—See No. 3.
“Do you say, then, that you believe there is such a thing as a Skeleton Crew?” asked the knight, very slowly, and looking very hard at Ned’s interested face.
“Do I? why, in course I do,” said the one-legged stranger, in a huffish manner, “for I’m one on ’em my——”
“What!” gasped every one, rising to their feet.
“I’m one on ’em myself—as suffered by ’em.”
“O-h-h-h!” said one and all, very much relieved, for they thought that the cripple was going to say that he was one of the Skeleton Crew.
“Well, as I were about to say, gentlemen,” Ralph Spray continued, “I served as an able seaman on board His Majesty’s sloop of war ‘Dolphin,’ and we lay in the Sound. We hadn’t been there long afore the news reached us about the wild doings of the Skeleton Crew. At first we didn’t believe any o’ the strange tales, but at last we were ordered off to cruise after the Phantom Ship and Skeleton Crew.”
“And did you ever overhaul them?” asked Ned, impatiently.