There’s nothing like rum on a windy night,
Sing hey, my lads, sing hey!
When the rigging howls and you’re battened tight,
Yo ho! my lads, Yo ho!
On a dirty piece of newspaper was written: “Jimmy Jobson, 1st mate, went to Davy Jones’s locker May 16.” Another bore the statement: “Pugfaced Willie ought to have been a tub-thumper instead of sailing under the black flag. That is Andy Anderson’s opinion.”
The last piece I examined was half a sheet of note-paper bearing the heading, “High Elms,” the paper given to patients for their correspondence. It was covered with scribble, just as a child scribbles before it can write, but in a small blank space near the bottom were the strange words: “Beware of Black Bennett! He means mischief!”
The latter had been written as a warning, but to whom addressed it was impossible to tell.
“All are, of course, the wanderings of the patient’s mind,” remarked Macfarlane. “Those names may possibly help us to establish his identity.”
“Have you determined his age?”
“Not more than seventy, if as much,” was the reply. “But I feel certain that he’ll recover, if not at once, within, say, a year. This writing is a very hopeful sign. Of course, I can’t say that he’ll recover his speech too—probably he won’t. But he can write, and by that means tell us something of how he came on board the ancient ship.”