“Now, you see, our bottom cargo consisted of two or three tier of crates of crockery, which would not spoil by being wet; but the upper part of the cargo was bales of dry goods and linen; so the captain was very anxious that they should work the pumps before the water got higher:  the weather was very fine, the sea smooth, and the wind, although fair, was light.  Well, the seamen were terrified, and thought they were lost; they asked for liquor, and refused to work at the pumps; they said it was no use, the ship was doomed.  Well, the captain he got very angry; he went down into the cabin, loaded his double-barreled gun, and swore that he would shoot the first man through the head who refused to work at the pumps.  The men knew that he was in earnest, for he was a violent sort of fellow, and so they set to.  We didn’t gain much upon her; I thought we did a little, but the men said no.  The captain declared that we did gain considerably, but it was supposed that he only said so to encourage the people.  Well, the captain ordered the mate to take up the hatches that they might see the state of the cargo.  This was done; the dry goods, as far as we could make out, were not injured, and the men pumped spell and spell until the evening, when the captain gave them a good allowance of grog, and an hour to rest themselves.  It was a beautiful moonlight night:  the sails were just asleep and no more; but the vessel was heavy, from the water in her, and we dragged slowly along.  The captain, who had gone down below with the first mate, came up from the cabin, and said to the men, ‘Now, my lads, we’ll set to again’; when suddenly there was a loud, melancholy miaw! which terrified us all.  We looked from whence the sound appeared to come, and there, on the launch turned over amidship, we beheld the ghost of the black tom cat, so large, so black, with the broad moonlight shining on it; and so thin, it was the skeleton of the cat, only it looked as black as ever; its back was humped up and its tail curved; and, as it stood out in the broad moonlight, it did look twice as big as the original cat, which was the biggest I ever saw.  Well, the men actually screamed; they ran aft, upsetting the captain and mate, and roiling over them and hiding their faces, with ’Lord, have mercy on us!’ and ‘God, forgive our sins!’ and ’Oh! we’re lost, we’re lost!’ and every sort of crying and groaning that could be thought of.  At last the captain gets up from under them in a great rage and looks forward to see what was the matter, and there he sees the ghost of the tom cat standing just in the same place; and it gave another miserable miaw! ‘Why,’ cried the captain (who had his grog on board, and was as brave as brass), ‘it is the cussed cat himself.  Stop a moment.’  Down he goes to the cabin, reels up the hatchway again with his double-barreled gun, and lets fly at it”—­(here Dick lowered his voice to almost a whisper)—­“the cat gave a shriek—­and then—­”