Raner complied; but the others noticed that instead of returning the instant he had accomplished the purpose, he stood a moment and looked out through the gap.
When he returned, Layn could not refrain from asking, “Did you see it?”
“Yes,” replied Raner, “an’ I swar I don’t like it.”
They plunged into work again with greater determination. It was in this way they kept their courage up; for every time they stopped to whet, their feelings were in a turmoil. The very pace they were working put them in all the worse condition. But the plot was lessening rapidly, and so they drove themselves on. Strange to say, some time passed without a word further in allusion to what had been seen. But while there was for this short period a dogged spell upon them to say nothing more about what each was sure the other had seen, the very bugaboo in their minds made all the more headway because of their silence; and in spite of themselves, they kept glancing through the gap, when they cut across the end where the empty jug lay. The expedient of curving that end did not dispel their alarm, for when they rounded the broad curve, some sinister influence impelled them to look seaward.
“She’s fog color,” abruptly exclaimed Josh, startling both Layn and Raner, and causing them to look at the same instant. “She’s got ev’ry stitch spread, too.”
“An’ still headin’ right squar’ on, I sw’ar,” said Layn. And pointing, he continued, “Raner, do you see? We ain’t got no sich breeze a blowin’ here ez she’s got thar.”
“What the hell’s dif’runce, tell me, does that make with her? That wizard o’ a ship ’ud have fair wind an’ plenty on it, ef she wuz sailin’ dead to wind’ard.”
“Now, she’s gone ag’in,” spoke Alibee, “an’ thet’s what she’s done afore.”
The mowers began a new bout, and Raner remarked, “Such things, hell take ’em, have been seen afore, though a long time back. I heerd tell on ’em when I wuz a boy. It’s a spectre o’ some ship Kidd has sunk with all her crew on board, a ha’ntin’ this coast. Thar’s no tellin’ what the mischief’ll come out on it all to us, ne’ther. He wuz off the Inlet thar sev’ral times with the ‘Royal Eduth.’ I’ve hearn, time and ag’in, o’ how he come in the Inlet with his long-boat, an’ got game o’ the Injuns, an’ the devil may know how many lives he put an end to when off here.”
The mowers came again to the bout leading up to the broad curve. Alibee, who a moment ago had said, “I’m all o’ a cold sweat,” looked out upon the ocean and exclaimed, “By the very devil himself, see how much nigher she’s in! Confound ef I want ’o stay here an’ cut much longer.”