“’Rion,” he said, “you certainly are about as useless a fellow as I ever had anything to do with.  These Portygees who have left me in the lurch have some excuse for their actions.  They are ignorant and superstitious.  You know mighty well that the stuff you have been repeating about the schooner being cursed is nothing but lies and old-women’s gossip!  You’ve done it to make trouble.  I ought to have had booted you overboard at the start.”

“Aw—­you—­”

“Close your hatch!” ejaculated Tunis.  “And keep it closed.  I’m talking, and I won’t take any of your slack in return.  I am not married to you, thanks be!  I think you’ve got pretty near enough of me, and I’m sure I have of you, ’Rion.  I give you warning—­”

“Oh!  You do?” snarled ’Rion, his ugly face aflame.

“Yes.  I give you fair warning.  When the Seamew gets back here to Big Wreck Cove again, you’re through!  You can take your dunnage ashore now if you like, but you go without pay if you do.  Or you can do your work properly on this trip and return. Then you get through.  Take your choice.”

He expected ’Rion would leave the Seamew then and there.  Tunis half hoped, indeed, that he would do so.  But to his surprise, Orion suddenly snatched the book and pencil out of the skipper’s hand and, growling that “he’d stay the voyage out,” shuffled away to the rail and began taking tally of the barrels and cases being hauled aboard.

Working smartly, the new crew got the Seamew under sail and out of the cove two hours later.  The wind held in a favorable quarter, and they reached Hollis betimes.  There they finished the schooner’s loading, and about dark went out to sea on a long tack and got plenty of sea room before they made the short leg of it.

Supper was the first good meal they had had aboard that day.  After everything was cleaned up, the black cook joined the crew forward.  In whispers the men talked over both the skipper and his schooner.  The story of the curse was known to everybody in Big Wreck Cove by this time, and none of these new men was ignorant of it.  They had, however, merely used it as a means of getting more pay than ordinary seamen were getting in such vessels.

“’Tain’t nothing as I can see,” one of the older men said, “that is likely to hurt us.  It’s a curse on the schooner, not on us folks that warn’t aboard her when she run under that other boat.  And as long as we keep away from the spot where the poor devils was drowned, we ain’t likely to see no ha’nts.”

The cook’s eyes rolled tremendously.

“You thinks likely this yere is that Marlin B.?”

“Bah!” exclaimed one, whose name was Carney.  “It’s only talk.  Maybe she ain’t that schooner at all.  Mr. Chapin says she ain’t.”

“Is that so?” sneered the voice of ’Rion Latham behind them.  “You fellows don’t want to believe what the skipper and the mate say.  It ain’t to their benefit for you to believe the truth.  Look here!”