“Will you believe me, Captain, if I affirm that this ship is haunted at night?” asked the Doctor, in a serious tone.
“Haunted!” cried the Captain; “what next? Ghosts? and you believe in them?”
“I believe,” replied Pitferge, “I believe what people who can be depended on have told me. Now, I know some of the officers on watch, and the sailors also, are quite unanimous on this point, that during the darkness of the night a shadow, a vague form, walks the ship. How it comes there they do not know, neither do they know how it disappears.”
“By St. Dunstan!” exclaimed Captain Corsican, “we will watch it well together.”
“To-night?” asked the Doctor.
“To-night, if you like; and you, sir,” added the Captain, turning to me, “will you keep us company?”
“No,” said I; “I do not wish to trouble the solitude of this phantom; besides, I would rather think that our Doctor is joking.”
“I am not joking,” replied the obstinate Pitferge.
“Come, Doctor,” said I. “Do you really believe in the dead coming back to the decks of ships?”
“I believe in the dead who come to life again,” replied the Doctor, “and this is the more astonishing as I am a physician.”