“Then he disappeared, did he not?”

“Yes, Master Jack.”

“I thought so.”

“But I heard the door of my cabin shut behind him, as distinctly as I now hear the waves breaking on the sides of the corvette at this moment.”

“You ought to have run after him.”

“I did so.”

“Well, did you catch him?”

“No; I was stopped by the watch, for I had nothing on me but my shirt; the officers stared, the sailors laughed, and the doctor felt my pulse.  But, for all that, I am satisfied there is a mystery somewhere.”

“But, Willis, the thing is altogether improbable.”

“Well, look here; Captain Littlestone is either dead or alive, is he not?”

“Yes,” replied Jack, “there can be no medium between these hypotheses.”

“Then all I can say is this, that as sure as I am a living sinner, I have seen him if he is alive, and, if he is dead, I have seen his ghost.”

“You believe in visitations from the other world then, Willis?”

“I cannot discredit the evidences of my own senses, can I?”

“No, certainly not.”

“Besides, this brings to my recollection a similar circumstance that happened to an old comrade of mine.  Sam Walker is as fine a fellow as ever lived, he sailed with me on board the Norfolk, and I know him to be incapable of telling a falsehood.  Though his name is Sam Walker, we used to call him ‘Hot Codlins.’”

“Why, Willis?”

“Because he had an old woman with a child tatooed on his arm, instead of an anchor, as is usual in the navy.”

“A portrait of Notre Dame de Bon Lecours, I shouldn’t wonder,” said Jack; “but what had that to do with hot codlins:  a codlin is a fish, is it not?”

“I will explain that another time,” said Willis, the shadow of a smile passing over his pale features.  “The short and the long of the story is, that Sam once saw a ghost.”

“Well, tell us all about it, Willis.”

“But I am afraid you will not believe the story if I do.”

“On the contrary, I promise to believe it in advance.”

“Very well, Master Jack.  Did you ever see a windmill?”

“No, but I know what sort of things they are from description.”

“There are none in Scotland,” continued Willis; “at least I never saw one there.”

“How do they manage to grind their corn then?  There should be oats in the land o’ cakes, at all events,” said Jack, with a smile.

“Well, in countries that have plenty of water, they can dispense with mills on land.  Though there are no wind-mills in Scotland, there are some in the county of Durham, on the borders of England, for it appears my mate Sam was born in one of them.  His father and mother died when he was very young, and he, conjointly with the rats, was left sole owner and occupant of the mill.  Some of the neighboring villagers, seeing the poor boy left in this forlorn condition, got him into a charity school, whence he was bound apprentice to a shipmaster engaged in the coal trade, by whom he was sent to sea.  The ship young Sam sailed in was wrecked on the coast of France, and he fell into the hands of a fisherman, who put the mark on his arm we used to joke him about.”