A SAILOR'S YARN.

Lake Wakatip Mail, Volume II, Issue 106, 4 May 1864, Page 6

A SAILOR'S YARN.

We were on board a slave ship bound to the coast of Africa. I had my misgivings about the business, and I believe others had them too. We had passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and were lying off Barbary one clear, bright evening, when it came to my turn to take the helm. The ship was becalmed, and everything around was as silent as the day after the deluge. The wide monotony of water, varied only by the glances of the moon on the crest of the waves, made me think the old fables of Neptune were true ; and that Amphitrite arid her Faida were sporting on the surface of the ocean, with diamonds in their hair. These fancies were followed by the thought of my wife, my children, and my home ; and all were wildly enough jumbled up together in a delicious state of approaching slumber. Suddenly I heard above my head a loud, deep, terrible voice call out, " Stand from under!" I started to my feet—it was a customary signal when anything was to be thrown from the shrouds and mechanically I sung out the usual answer, " Let go!" But nothing came. I looked up into the shrouds—there was nothing there. I searched the deck, and found that I was alone ! I tried to think it was a dream; but that sound, so deep, so stern, rang in my ears like the bursting of a cannon. In the morning I told the crew what I had heard. They laughed at me; and were all day long full of their jokes about " Dreaming Tom." One fellow among them was most unmerciful in his raillery. He was a swarthy, malignantlooking Spaniard, who carried murder in his eye and curses on his tongue; a daring and lordly man, who boasted of crime as if it gave him preeminence among his fellows. He laughed longest and loudest at my story. "A most uncivil ghost, Tom," said he; " when such chaps come to see me, I'll make 'em show themselves ; I'll not be satisfied without seeing and feeling, as well as hearing." The sailors all joined with him; and I, ashamed, was glad to be silent. The next night Dick Burton took the helm. Dick had nerves like an ox, and sinews like a whale; it was little he feared on earth or beneath it. Dick was leaning his head on the helm, as he said, thinking nothing of me or my story, when that awful voice again called out from the shrouds, " Stand from under!' Dick darted forward like an Indian arrow, which they say goes through and through a buffalo, and wings on its way as if it had not left death in the rear. It was an instant or more before he found presence of mind to call out, " Let go!" Again nothing was seen—nothing heard. Ten nights in succession, at one o'clock, the same unearthly sound rang through the air, making the stoutest sailors quail as if a bullet-shot had gone through their brains.

At last we grew pale when it was spoken of, and the worst of us never went to sleep without saying our prayers. For myself, I would have been chained to the oar all my life, to have got out of that vessel But there we were in the vast solitude of ocean ; and this invisible being was with us. No one put a bold face on the matter but Antonio, the Spaniard. He laughed at our fears, and defied Satan himself to terrify him. However, when it was his turn at the helm, he refused to go; several times, under the pretence of illness, he was excused from a duty which all on board dreaded. But at last the captain ordered Antonio to receive a round dozen of lashes every night until he should consent to perform his share of the unwelcome office. For a while this was borne patiently; but at length he called out, il I may as well die one way as the other : give me over to the ghost!" That night Antonio kept watch on the deck. Few of the crew slept, for expectation and alarm had stretched our nerves upon the rack. At one o'clock the voice called, " Stand from under ! " "Let go!" screamed the Spaniard. This was answered by a shriek of laughter; and such laughter! It seemed as if the fiends answered each other from pole to pole, and the base was howled in hell. Then came a sudden crash upon the deck, as if our masts and spars had fallen. We all rushed to the spot, and there was a cold, stiff", gigantic corpse. The Spaniard said it was thrown from the shrouds ; and when he looked on it he ground his teeth like a madman. " I know him!" he exclaimed; "I stabbed him within an hour's sail of Cuba, and drank his blood for breakfast!" We all stood aghast at the monster. In fearful whispers we asked what should be done witli the body. Finally we agreed that the terrible sight must be removed from us, and hidden in the sea. Four of us attempted to raise it; but human strength was of no avail—we might as well have tugged at Atlas. There it lay, stiff, rigid, heavy, and as immoveable as if it formed a part of the vessel. The Spaniard was furious. "Let me lift hin\!" said he ;"I lifted him once—l can do it again. I'll teach him what it is to come and trouble me." He took the body round the waist and attempted to raise it. Slowly and heavily the corpse raised itself up. Its rayless eyes opened—its rigid arms stretched out and clasped its victim in a close death-grapple, and, rolling over the side of the ship, they tottered an instant over the waters—then, with a plunge, they sank together. Again that laugh—that wild, shrieking, lau<»h—was heard on the winds. The sailors bowed their heads and put up their hands to shut out the appalling sound. I took the helm more than once after, but we never again heard in the shrouds, " Stand from under!"

In the shop window of an undertaker in Chancery lane, London, posted on a coffin, is the following :—" Pleasant lodging for a single gentleman of retired habits. Euquire within." Why should a man never marry a woman named Ellen ? Because he rings his own (K)nell.