I went on deck to look at a passing ship about as often as I used to run to the window at the sound of carriagewheels.  One can’t take a very intimate interest in whales and the other seamonsters unless one is scientific.  Time died with me a slow but by no means a painful death.  I used to fold my hands and look at them by the hour, internally rollicking over the idea that there was no milk to skim or dishes to wash, or any earthly wheel in motion that required my shoulder to turn it.  I spent much time in a half-awake state in the long warm days, out of sheer delight in wasting time after saving it all my life.

So it came about that I slept lightly o’ nights.  Every morning the steward came into the cabin with the first dawn of day to scour his floors before the captain should appear.  He had a habit of talking to himself over this early labor, and one morning, more awake than usual, I found that he was praying.  “O Lord, be good to me!  I wasn’t to blame.  I would have helped her if I could.  O Lord, be good to me!” and other homely entreaties were repeated again and again.

He was a meek, bowed old negro, with snowy hair, and so many wrinkles that all expression was shrunk out of his face.  He was an excellent cook, but he waited on table with a manner so utterly despairing that it took away one’s appetite to look at him.

For many mornings after this I listened to his prayers, which grew more and more earnest and importunate.  I could not think he had done any harm with his own will.  He must have been more sinned against than sinning.

He brought me a shawl one cool evening as if it were my death-warrant, and I said, in the sepulchral tone that wins confidence, “Pedro, do you always say your prayers when you are alone?”

“Yes, miss, ’board this ship.”

“What’s the matter with, this ship?”

“I s’pose you don’t have no faith in ghosts?”

“Not much.”

“White folks mostly don’t,” said Pedro with aggravating meekness, and turned into his pantry.

I followed him to the door, and stood in it so that he had no escape:  “What has that to do with your prayers?”

“This cabin has got a ghost in it.”

I looked over my shoulder into the dusk, and shivered a little, which was not lost on Pedro.  He grew more solemn if possible than before:  “I see her ’most every morning, and if my back is to the door, I see her all the same.  She don’t never touch me, but I keep at the prayers for fear she will.”

“Do you never see her except in the morning?”

“Once or twice she has just put her head out of the door of the middle state-room when I was waitin’ on table.”

“In broad daylight?”

“Sartin.  Them as sees ghosts sees ’em any time.  Every morning, just at peep o’ day, she comes out of that door and makes a dive for the stairs.  She just gives me one look, and holds up her hand, and I don’t see no more of her till next time.”