"How such things come to pass I can no more say than where a hurricane begins, or where it ends; I relate but the events as they happened.
"My brother was dead, and I became stupefied!
"I was afterwards told that a fatal fever had seized him, and that he had been given over by the doctor to the grim king at the very time we had come to anchor in the Zuid-vliet. On a further comparison of notes, we found that he had fallen into a trance at each time I had been awakened in my cabin; and that at the moment I had thrown the marlinspike (you may see the mark of it there on the cabin floor), he had uttered my name with a cry of agony; but Heaven rest him," added the captain, once more filling the bowl of his meerschaum, "he lies at rest now in the old burying-ground of Smouts Kerk."
Soon after Captain Zeervogel concluded his narrative, I proposed to leave the schooner and return home; but he said, that as he intended to sleep that night on board, and as the crew were all ashore, he begged that I would have the kindness to remain in the cabin for a few minutes until he returned from the little tavern where they were located, as he had some orders to give.
"The tide will rise higher to-night than usual," he added. "I must have the schooner made more secure by additional warps, else there is no knowing what may happen."
I could not in courtesy refuse, though in no way disposed to remain in that gloomy little cabin, after the ghostly narrative I had just heard; but he trimmed the lamp anew, as if to make the place more cheery, and, without waiting for an answer, went on deck. I heard him descend the side-ladder; and, as he passed away, stumbling among the logs and chips of the little dockyard, I had the unpleasant conviction of being alone—alone in the confined scene of his wild story.
My watch told me it was now the time for supper and prayers at the Rectory, from which I had been too long absent. Then a vague emotion of alarm came over me, as I expected every instant to hear some unaccountable sound, or to see something that might terrify me; so, to gather "Dutch courage," I very unwisely took one or two more of Captain Zeervogel's peaches, which, as already stated, were preserved in brandy, and consequently were more potent in effect than the spirit itself.
Dearly did I pay the penalty of that act of indiscretion!
I listened intently, but heard no sound indicative of the captain's return. Once, there seemed to come a cry from a distance. My head began to swim and my eyelids to droop. The fumes of Zeervogel's long pipe, which pervaded and made closer the atmosphere of the little cabin, together with the effect of the peaches, proved too much for me.
I started to reach the companion ladder and ascend on deck; but my limbs seemed to become powerless—to yield under me, and I fell into a drowsy doze, with my head and arms on the cabin table.