"I fell down on the deck of the stranger, but immejiately resumed my legs and took a survey of things in gineral. All the crew moped about the deck, attendin' to their duties, while the captain bellered out his orders through a trumpet made of condensed wind, lined with p'izen and streaks of lightning.
"At first none on 'em paid any attention to me. But at last the first mate—an orful-lookin' cuss—came right up to me, grabbed me by the gullet, and dragged me to the quarter-deck, and stood me up afore the skipper of the Phantom Ship.
"'Here, Cap,' says he, 'is a little cuss of a cabin-boy, as was left behind by that infernal craft as jist ran through us.'
"(I forgot to mention as how the hole, which the Jolly Admiral made in passin' through the stranger, healed itself up ag'in in the most supernatural way in the world.)
"Well, the phantom skipper looked at me a moment without sayin' a word, even so much as a civil 'How d'ye do?' He was the orfulest-lookin' cuss it was ever my fortin' to stumble across. His flippers were those of a skeleton, and his head was a reg'lar death's head, with eyes as burned like two coals of fire, while a pair o' cross bones was suspended across his bosom. I suppose they was some sort o' medals given the cuss on account o' meritorious conduct. At length the critter spoke to me, an' his voice was orful strange. You could hear it very distinctly, but it sort o' seemed to come from a long ways off, jist like the voice of a speerit.
"'What's the name o' that 'ere ship what jist ran through us?' says he, in a melancholy way.
"'Please yer Honor,' says I, respectfully touchin' my cap, 'it warn't a ship, but a schooner—the Jolly Admiral of New Bedford.'
"'Ha, boy,' says he, 'dostest thou dare to banter me with thy jokes. Howsomdever, what's your name?'
"'Bluefish,' says I.
"'The son of old Sol Bluefish of Nantucket, the man as was hanged?' says he.