“We’re going wherever the ship goes,” was the surly reply.
“Well, you’ll have a good long ride. This cargo will not be broken out under seven or eight months. Have you got provisions enough to last you that long?”
“You needn’t lose no sleep in worrying about that.”
“I won’t, for it’s your lookout, not mine. Hadn’t you better let me rig a whip and hoist that box off that man? It’s a pity to keep him in that fix.”
“And after you get it hoisted off you would try to come some of your sailor tricks over us,” said the robber. “We ain’t quite so green as that. You just go off and attend to your own business. We’ll take care of him.”
“All right. Mark you now, my fine lads, I’m going to close and batten down my hatches, and they sha’n’t be opened again until we reach port, no matter what happens. If the ship goes to the bottom you go with her, and without a chance to save yourselves.”
The skipper turned and crawled back toward the hatchway as he said this, and the watch followed him. They found their companions on deck impatiently awaiting their return, and when they heard what the captain had to say to his mates, and learned that the men in the hold were not ghosts, as they had supposed, but a gang of burglars, who, in spite of the vigilance of the watch, had succeeded in smuggling themselves on board before the ship left port, their surprise knew no bounds. Their faces, too, as well as the long, deep sighs which came up from their broad chests showed that their relief was fully as great as their astonishment.
Guy and the four men he had found on board the Santa Maria when he first joined her, knew more about the matter than anybody else, except the officers, they having been on deck while the policeman was talking with the captain about the burglars. They were obliged to repeat all they had heard over and over again, first to one and then to another, and Guy always wound up by declaring that that was the way all ghost stories turned out—they could be explained easily enough if people would only take the trouble to look into them.
“Avast there!” said Upham, who happened to overhear this last remark. “You ain’t done with the old Santa Maria yet. You hain’t seen the ghost who gets up on the main-topsail yard every night during a gale and says:
“Stand from under!”