“Sperrits, Hiram?” interposed one of the other hands; “what does you mean?—ghostesses?”
“Aye. Sam sed as how his father, a darkey too, in course, wer a fetish man; an’ I rec’l’ects when I wer to hum, down Chicopee way, ther’ wer an ole nigger thaar thet usest to say thet same, an’ the ole cuss wud go of a night into the graveyard, which wer more’n nary a white man would ha’ done, ye bet!”
“You wouldn’t catch me at it,” agreed another sailor, giving himself a shake, that sent a cold shiver through me in sympathy. “I’d face any danger in daylight that a Christian ain’t afeard on; but, as for huntin’ for ghostesses in a churchyard of a dark night, not for me!”
“Aye, nor me,” put in another. “I shouldn’t like old Sammy to come back and haunt the galley, as I’ve heard tell me. By jingo! I wouldn’t like to go into it now that it’s dark, arter the way the poor beggar got shot an’ drownded—leastways, not without a light, or a lantern, or somethin’ or t’other; for, they sez of folks that come by any onnateral sort o’ death, that their sperrits can’t rest quiet, and that then they goes back to where they was murdered, and you ken see ’em wanderin’ around twixt midnight an’ mornin’, though they wanishes agen at the first streak of daylight.”
“I’ve heerd tell the same,” chimed in Hiram Bangs, in a sepulchral voice, that made my heart go down to my toes; “but Sam, he usest to say, sez he, ez how none o’ them sperrits could never touch he, cos he hed a charm agen ’em ’cause of his father bein’ jest in the ring, an’ one of the same sorter cusses—his ‘fadder’ he called him, poor old darkey! Sam told me now, only last night ez never was, how he’d of’en in Jamaiky talked with ghostesses, thet would come an’ tote round his plantation! He sed, sez he, ez how he’d got a spell to call ’em by whenever he liked; thet’s what he told me, by thunder!”
“Aye, bo,” said Tom Bullover; “and, before poor Sam went aft this very evening, I heard him tell this younker, Charlie Hills, how thet he weren’t afraid of that brute of a bullying skipper, and if he came by any harm he’d haunt him—didn’t he, Charlie?”
“Ye–es,” I replied, trembling, feeling horribly frightened now with all their queer talk, coming after what I had gone through before; “but, I didn’t hear him say anything of haunting the ship. I’m awfully sorry for him, Tom; but I hope he won’t come back again, as Hiram Bangs says.”
“He will, ye bet yer bottom dollar on thet, Cholly, if he ain’t made comfable down below in Davy Jones’ locker, whar the poor old cuss air now,” said the American sailor in his deep voice, increasing my superstitious fears by the very way in which he spoke. “Guess I wouldn’t mind shakin’ fins with the nigger agen if he’d come aboard in daylight, but I’m durned if I’d like to see him hyar ’fore mornin’! I’d feel kinder skeart if I did, b’y, I reckon.”
I had no time to reply; for, the captain’s voice hailing us from the poop at the moment made us all jump—I, for one, believing that it was Sam Jedfoot already come back to life, or his ghost!
The next instant, however, I was reassured by a hoarse chuckle passing round amongst the men; while Hiram Bangs called out, “I’m jiggered, messmates, if it ain’t the old man up on deck agen!”