“Next morning, however, explained everything.
“The ship was a total wreck.
“Not a soul among the whole crew was alive but myself.
“I was master of the wreck, and all it contained; but yet I could not get on board very well, for the waves were washing right over it.
“While I sat watching the stranded vessel, and thinking what it might contain, I was startled by what I there saw.
“All around me danced a dozen skeleton men, who seized me by my arms and legs, and bore me away to their rendezvous.”
“And who was it?” asked Phillip Redgill.
“The Red Man of the Gibbet. He was the chief of the Skeleton Crew in those days, and that’s how I became one of them.”
A ROUGH RECEPTION.— See Number 22.