[Footnote 1:  Modified from the original.]

Abruptly, I heard the Skipper shouting, away forward.  He was singing out to Tammy to get up on to the house with his blue-light.  We reached the fore rigging, and, the same instant, the strange, ghastly flare of Tammy’s blue-light burst out into the night causing every rope, sail, and spar to jump out weirdly.

I saw now that the Second Mate was already in the starboard rigging, with his lantern.  He was shouting to Tammy to keep the drip from his light clear of the staysail, which was stowed upon the house.  Then, from somewhere on the port side, I heard the Skipper shout to us to hurry.

“Smartly now, you men,” he was saying.  “Smartly now.”

The man who had been told to take up a station in the fore-top, was just behind the Second Mate.  Plummer was a couple of ratlines lower.

I caught the Old Man’s voice again.

“Where’s Jessop with that other lantern?” I heard him shout.

“Here, Sir,” I sung out.

“Bring it over this side,” he ordered.  “You don’t want the two lanterns on one side.”

I ran round the fore side of the house.  Then I saw him.  He was in the rigging, and making his way smartly aloft.  One of the Mate’s watch and Quoin were with him.  This, I saw as I came round the house.  Then I made a jump, gripped the sheerpole, and swung myself up on to the rail.  And then, all at once, Tammy’s blue-light went out, and there came, what seemed by contrast, pitchy darkness.  I stood where I was—­one foot on the rail and my knee upon the sheerpole.  The light from my lantern seemed no more than a sickly yellow glow against the gloom, and higher, some forty or fifty feet, and a few ratlines below the futtock rigging on the starboard side, there was another glow of yellowness in the night.  Apart from these, all was blackness.  And then from above—­high above—­there wailed down through the darkness a weird, sobbing cry.  What it was, I do not know; but it sounded horrible.

The Skipper’s voice came down, jerkily.

“Smartly with that light, boy!” he shouted.  And the blue glare blazed out again, almost before he had finished speaking.

I stared up at the Skipper.  He was standing where I had seen him before the light went out, and so were the two men.  As I looked, he commenced to climb again.  I glanced across to starboard.  Jaskett, and the other man in the Mate’s watch, were about midway between the deck of the house and the foretop.  Their faces showed extraordinary pale in the dead glare of the blue-light.  Higher, I saw the Second Mate in the futtock rigging, holding his light up over the edge of the top.  Then he went further, and disappeared.  The man with the blue-lights followed, and also vanished from view.  On the port side, and more directly above me, the Skipper’s feet were just stepping out of the futtock shrouds.  At that I made haste to follow.