"She fell senseless on the deck, and was carried below.
"This alleged apparition caused great speculation, and, as we had several emigrants from the Western Highlands on board, no small degree of terror, so that part of the deck abaft the mainmast was always watched narrowly and suspiciously; but neither flame nor figure saw we, though Hester afterwards asserted that one of the watch, who heard her cry, and hastened to assist her, passed through the figure, which wavered as he did so, but again resumed its luminous form.
"A fortnight elapsed before she was brought on deck again; and I must own to being shocked at the change in her appearance. Her keen blue eyes seemed unnaturally large and sunken, with dark rings round them, and her poor, thin, transparent hands trembled as she muffled her plaid or shawl over her head, when the watch on deck hastened to make a comfortable seat of old sails for her under the lee of the bulwark.
"Fearing a repetition of what had occurred before, her father and mother insisted on taking her below when twilight approached; but, urged by some undefinable feeling or emotion, she lingered longer than she should have done.
"We were now in latitudes where the sun sets quickly, the dusk comes on as rapidly, and heavily falls the dew.
"Hester Udny, pale as a spectre, was soon observed to fix her eyes upon that portion of the deck abaft the mainmast where she had seen the apparition, with a wild, but steady and deliberate gaze, as if fascinated; and then, in faint and tremulous accents, she declared that the figure of flame was again visible, pale and luminous, sometimes turning from amber to blue, and becoming hazy; that beyond it, or through it, she could see the line of the ship's bulwark, and the shrouds of the mainmast, as if it was transparent.
"To undeceive her, the captain passed and repassed the place, going each time, as she said, amid her cries, completely through the figure, unsinged, unhurt, and all unconscious that he was doing so.
"She swooned, and was carried below again.
"What added greatly to the strangeness of this phenomenon was the circumstance that some of the crew, when standing over the spot where the spectre was alleged to appear, were seized with giddiness, strange qualms, and even sickness, alike by day or night, and were ridiculed by those of a less nervous temperament, who never felt any such sensations, as 'green-horns' and 'fanciful lubbers.'
"Hester Udny never came on deck again—alive, at least.