"'Well,' says the captain, 'may I be jiggered!' and without another word he walked away on to the poop.
"I told the men to clap the hatches on again, and they did this in double-quick time, evidently afraid that the ghost might pop up out of the hold if they didn't mind their eye.
"All this made us very superstitious, from the captain down to the boys. We talked it over in the cabin, and the mate was incredulous, and disposed to ridicule me.
"'Any way,' said he, 'it's strange that this voice is only heard in your watch. It's never favored me with any remarks. The creaking and groaning of an old wooden ship is often like spoken words, and what you've been hearing may be nothing but a deception of the ear.'
"'A deception in your eye,' cried the skipper. 'The timbers of an old wooden ship may strain and creak in the Dutch language, but hang me if they ever talked good, sensible English. However, I'm not going to worry. For my part,' said he, with a nervous glance around him, 'I don't believe in ghosts; whatever it is that's talking in the hold may go on jawing, so long as he sticks to that, and don't frighten the men with an ugly mug, nor come upon us for a man's allowance.'
"'If it's anybody's ghost,' said I, 'it must be the Italian's, the chap that was starved in the forepeak.'
"'I doubt that,' said the skipper. 'I didn't detect anything foreign in what he said. To my ear it sounded more like Whitechapel than Italiano.'
"Well, for another week we heard little more of the ghost. It's true that one middle watch a chap I had sent aloft to loose the main-royal had hardly stepped out of the lower rigging, after lingering in the crosstrees to overhaul his clew-lines, when he comes rushing up to me and cries out, 'I've been hailed from aloft, sir! a voice has just sung out, "Tommy, jump aloft again that I may have a good look at you!"'
"'Who's up there?' I asked him, staring into the gloom where the mast and yards went towering.
"'There's no one up there, sir; I'll swear it. I was bound to see him had any one been there,' he answered, evidently very much frightened.