“I don’t understand you at all, Mr. Newbegin,” said the girl, staring at him with a strange look dawning in her own countenance.

He bent toward her, after casting a knowing glance aloft.  His weather-bitten face was preternaturally solemn.

“Ye can’t help havin’ your suspicions ’bout ships or folks that are sailin’ under cover.  There’s got to be some reason for a man changing his name and trying to get by on one that ain’t his’n.  Same with a schooner like this.”

“Oh!”

“There is such things as hoodooed ships, Miss Bostwick, just like there is hoodooed folks,” he said hoarsely, without seeming to notice her shrinking from him and her changed countenance.

“Oh!  Is there?” she inquired faintly.

“Surest thing you know,” acclaimed the old seaman with his most impressive manner.  “There was a hoodooed schooner sailed out o’ Salem some years back, the Marlin B. She had the same tug to sta’bo’d that I feel when I’m steerin’ of this here schooner.”

The girl was recovering from her momentary excitement.  She saw that Newbegin had no ulterior meaning in his speech.  He shook his head and cast a wary glance toward the companionway to see that the skipper was not appearing from below.

“Listen here, Miss Bostwick,” he said hoarsely.  “It’s a mighty curious thing.  I had just come back from a v’y’ge to New Guinea, and I thinks I’d like a trip to the Banks, not having been fishin’ since I was a boy.  I went to Sutro Brothers in Salem and got me a berth on the Marlin B. I marked that every man aboard her, skipper and all, warn’t Salem men, nor yet from Gloucester nor Marblehead.  But I didn’t suspicion nothing.

“Tell you, Miss Bostwick, them that goes down to the sea in ships runs against more than natur’s wonders.  There’s mysteries that ain’t to be explained, scurce to be spoke of.  I dunno why we shouldn’t believe in spirits and ghosts and dead men come alive.  The Bible’s full of such, ain’t it?

“Well, then!  And what I tell you is as sure, as sure.  I took the Marlin B. out of that harbor, being at the wheel.  It was February, and a nasty snow squall come up and smothered us complete and proper.  That schooner was a hummer; she sailed just so pretty as this one.  She did for a fact.  But I felt that tug to sta’bo’d.  Do you know, Miss Bostwick, as I was tellin’ Cap’n Tunis, there ain’t never two craft just alike, no more than there is two men.”

“Is that so?” she said.

“Ships is almost human.  I never did see two so much alike as this Seamew and the Marlin B. Well, to continue, as the feller said, we was smothered in that snow squall for ’bout ten minutes.  At the wheel there I heard off to windward the rushing sound of another craft.  She was a tall ship, too, and she had as much canvas spread as we had.  She came down on us like a shot.

“I shouted to the mate, but he had heard it too.  He yelled for all hands on deck.  We both knowed the Marlin B. was due to be run under unless a miracle intervened.  It was a moment I ain’t likely to forget, for we stood there, the whole ship’s company, hanging on by backstay and rail, peering out into the smother of the snow, while the amazing rush of that unknown craft deafened us.