“Why?”
“Because the barbed wire runs right down to the water.”
“That’s right,” says he. “Let’s go hide behind something close by.”
So we went and laid down to listen, and the noise kept up, and we could hear a man talking loud and mad.
“Hey, what’s all this rumpus about?” says he. “Who’s doin’ all this dog-gone bellerin’ and hollerin’?”
“We seen a ghost ... a pirate ghost,” says a voice, and we knew it was one of our sentinel friends.
“You git back to your place,” says the boss, “and don’t leave it again.”
“Not me,” says the man. “Not for a million dollars. I’m all through bein’ out there in the dark, with dead men under foot and skeletons a-groanin’ and a-moanin’ all over the place.”
“Be you goin’ to obey orders?”
“Not if I was to hang for it,” says the man. There was a kind of a silence, and then the boss says, “What was it you seen?”