"I'm no believer in ghosts, or anything of that kind myself," was the response; "but one night, when we were off Pantalleria, I was on the bridge, and saw with my own eyes lights shining through these curtains. I'll swear it!"
"Perhaps I had gone there myself for some purpose," Keppel explained rather lamely.
"No, I don't think that, sir, for you were asleep in your own cabin."
"Well, I alone have the key, so no one else could have entered."
"That's just my argument," the captain declared. "There's something uncanny about this deck-house, but what it is I can't quite make out. The look-out man one night swore that he heard a scream coming from it, and I had the devil's own job to persuade him to the contrary."
"That look-out man had had his grog, I suppose, and mistook the whistling of the wind in the rigging," responded the old millionaire, with an air of nonchalance. "All such superstitious fears are rubbish."
"To the landsman, yes, but not to the sailor, sir," was the skipper's response. "When we see a light in the port-hole of an empty cabin, we know one thing is quite certain," he said gravely.
"And what's that?"
"That the ship will go down before very long."
"That's cheerful," remarked the owner of the Vispera. "And when do you and your crew expect that interesting event to occur, pray?"