The night was not so clear as the preceding one, and the air was chilly, with a little moisture in it.  I buttoned up my jacket, and thrust my hands in my pockets.

“Everything quiet?” asked Bill as he stepped up and took the wheel.

“Ay, ay,” said Roberts, “quiet as the grave,” and, followed by his willing mate, he went below.

I sat on the deck by Bill’s side as, with a light touch on the wheel, he kept the brig to her course.  It was weary work sitting there, doing nothing, and thinking of the warm berth below, and I believe that I should have fallen asleep, but that my watchful companion stirred me with his foot whenever he saw me nodding.

I suppose I must have sat there, shivering and yawning, for about an hour, when, tired of inactivity, I got up and went and leaned over the side of the vessel.  The sound of the water gurgling and lapping by was so soothing that I began to doze.

I was recalled to my senses by a smothered cry from Bill, and, running to him, I found him staring to port in an intense and uncomfortable fashion.  At my approach, he took one hand from the wheel, and gripped my arm so tightly that I was like to have screamed with the pain of it.

“Jack,” said he, in a shaky voice, “while you was away something popped its head up, and looked over the ship’s side.”

“You’ve been dreaming,” said I, in a voice which was a very fair imitation of Bill’s own.

“Dreaming,” repeated Bill, “dreaming!  Ah, look there!”

He pointed with outstretched finger, and my heart seemed to stop beating as I saw a man’s head appear above the side.  For a brief space it peered at us in silence, and then a dark figure sprang like a cat on to the deck, and stood crouching a short distance away.

A mist came before my eyes, and my tongue failed me, but Bill let off a roar, such as I have never heard before or since.  It was answered from below, both aft and for’ard, and the men came running up on deck just as they left their beds.

“What’s up?” shouted the skipper, glancing aloft.

For answer, Bill pointed to the intruder, and the men, who had just caught sight of him, came up and formed a compact knot by the wheel.

“Come over the side, it did,” panted Bill, “come over like a ghost out of the sea.”

The skipper took one of the small lamps from the binnacle, and, holding it aloft, walked boldly up to the cause of alarm.  In the little patch of light we saw a ghastly black-bearded man, dripping with water, regarding us with unwinking eyes, which glowed red in the light of the lamp.

“Where did you come from?” asked the skipper.

The figure shook its head.

“Where did you come from?” he repeated, walking up, and laying his hand on the other’s shoulder.

Then the intruder spoke, but in a strange fashion and in strange words.  We leaned forward to listen, but, even when he repeated them, we could make nothing of them.