The Old Sailor relapsed into a deep silence, and the boys waited patiently for several minutes, knowing that if there was any memory at work within him it would surely work its way out. In about five minutes the old man suddenly broke out thus:
"Ye may paral and sarve me with fish bones ef this ain't the werry identical kind o' day wot it happened on, 'ceptin' as how it didn't really happen till night, an' it are now not more'n five bells in the arternoon watch. I were a-takin' the brig Banana Peel out from St. Paul de Loanda to Delagoa Bay with a cargo of frankfurter sausages, condensed milk, leather shoelaces, an' beeswax. The Cap'n, Jerubabel Moxon, were took sick o' coast-fever in St. Paul, an' had to be left there. So bein' I were the fust mate an' it were my dooty fur to take command an' perceed with the woyidge aroun' the Cape an' into Delagoa Bay, I called at Cape Town fur some fresh purwisions an' water, and we laid at anchor in Table Bay fur two days. W'en I were a-gittin' ready fur to git under way a old boatman sez to me, sez he, 'Ef I was you, I'd wait a day or two longer. It are a-goin' to blow putty fresh from the east'rd, an' ye won't be able fur to double the Cape.' But seein' as how there weren't no other signs o' weather 'ceptin' his talk, I reckoned I'd go ahead, an' I did.
"Waal, boys, we hadn't no more'n got clean out to sea nor she come on in stiff puffs onto the east'rd, an' in about three hours it were blowing half a gale. I laid the brig close-hauled on the port tack, but she made leeway by the rood, and I knowed I were a-headin' a good deal nigher fur the antarctic continent than fur the Cape o' Good Hope. Fur three days an' nights that easter blowed. It warn't never a whole gale, but it kep' us under short canvas, an' riz enough sea fur to keep us way down to leeward all the time, an' when it bruk we was two hundred miles sou'west o' the Cape. Now we got a southerly wind, an' in twenty-four hours we doubled the Cape o' Good Hope, and I laid the course to weather Cape Agulhas. Blow me fur pickles, ef it didn't fall a flat calm w'en we was off that cape, jess like this one to-day, with a mos' disorganizin' swell a-runnin' in from the southeast. I seed that it were a-goin fur to come on to blow, but wot could I do? We was about ten miles off the land, an' them swells a-settin' us in toward it all the time at a mos' amazin' pace. I wished as how I were back on the other side o' Good Hope, w'ere them same swells would 'a' bin a-settin' us off shore. Howsumever, it warn't no use wishin'; 'cos w'y, wishes ain't steam-engines or perpellers, an' won't make ships go w'en there ain't no wind.
"Waal, there we was, a-buggaluggin' aroun' in the mos' permiskous fashion, like a fly in a plate o' butter. Night come on darker'n the inside o' an empty mess-chest with the lid shut down. We was a-rollin' an' a-rollin' so that I were more'n half afeard as how we'd roll the masts out o' the bloomin' hooker, an' most o' the men was on deck hangin' on fur dear life, an' waitin' to hear the wind begin fur to howl. But I kinder b'lieved myself that we wouldn't get it afore mornin'. Waal, all on a suddent down to the south'ard an' west'ard, on our stabboard quarter, there comes one o' the mos' awful ear-splittin' screeches I ever heerd in all my life. We all held our breath, an' I reckon most on us turned white. 'Cos w'y, none on us ever heerd any sich sound afore. In about three minutes we heerd it ag'in. Then the whole sky down there lit up with a big green flash, as ef all the green fireworks on 'arth'd gone off at oncet.
"'Wot in bloomin' Africa are it?' sez I to Hiram Sink, my mate, sez I.
"'Ghosts, sure,' sez he to me, sez he.
"I were jess a-goin' to tell him that ghosts didn't walk aroun' at sea an' set off fireworks, w'en a shout from the hands forrad stopped me. There, broad off our stabboard quarter, about a mile away, were a brig lined out against the sky in a reg'lar skellington o' waverin' fire. It were the palest greenest sort o' fire, an' she looked like the ghost o' a brig.
"'The Flyin' Dutchman!' sez Hiram Sink, sez he.
"'By the great anchor flukes, them's it!' sez I.
"An' at that werry identical minute there were another one o' them awful screeches, an', pst! that there brig jess went out, like as ef ye'd turned off the gas.