But we could stand it no longer.  We scrambled to our legs, and the next minute were down in fo’castle, rousing the men.  They were sleepy enough, you may be bound; but we almost lugged them out of the hammocks.  ’Turn out, turn out, shipmates, for God’s-sake:  the devil’s aboard this ship, and he’s playing cards with the captain in the cabin.’  At first, mates, the hands thought we had gone mad; but we both of us told in a breath what we had seen; and so in a minute or two we all went aft, creeping like cats along the deck.  But there was no need.  We heard Old Goss’s voice raging like a fury.

‘You’re a cheat, Old Un,’ he was yelling out.  ’You cheat all mankind:  you’ve cheated me.  Come, play; double or quits on the first turn-up.  What’s that?  Nine of Spades!  Seven of Spades!  What! no trumps?  I say, don’t you mind the old craft under the line?  That’s her opposite you; so, play away.’

‘Mates,’ says an old salt—­his name was Bartholomew Cook—­’mates,’ says he, ‘this is a doomed ship, an I won’t ship for another v’y’ge.’

‘Nor I;’ ‘nor I,’ says several, as we crept along.

‘He’s only mad with drink,’ whispered the mate.  ’It’s all five-water grog.’

‘Is it?’ said Bartholomew.  ‘Look down there!’

The men crept to the skylight, and peeped; and so did I. What we saw, not a man forgot the longest day he lived.  The captain was dealing the cards furiously; his face working and swelling; his hair bristling up; his good eye gleaming, and the patch off the other, the blind one, which was shining, too, as it were, like a rotten oyster in the dark.

‘Play!’ roars Goss at last; and then he paused, as if he was thinking of his next card.  The table was rapped.  He played; and then quick and furious the cards came down; the captain all the while raving, shouting, and foaming at the mouth.

’Against me—­against me—­against me!  Avaunt!  A man’s no match for ye.  Ye have all!  Lost again!  No; here—­stop.  On the next card, I stake myself—­my ship—­my’—­

‘Stop!’ shouted old Bartholomew.  He had been standing at the foot of the companion, and he burst into the cabin.  ’Stop, Captain Goss, in the name of God!’

Goss turned round to him.  His face was so like the Evil One’s that we did not look for any other.  Then a brass-mounted pistol—­a shot—­and rolling smoke:  all passed in a minute.  Then the captain flung a card upon the table, and with a yell like a wild beast, shouted out:  ‘Lost!’ fell over the cards, extinguished the lamp; and we neither heard nor saw more, till there came a shuffling on the companion, and Bartholomew crawled out with his face all blackened by the powder, and the blood trickling from his cheek, where the ball had grazed it.  We all went for’ard, mates, and had a long palaver, and resolved to go ashore at daybreak, and leave a doomed captain and a doomed ship.  But we didn’t know our man.  In the gray of the morning, we heard the handspike rattle on the hatch, and we tumbled up one after the other.  The captain was there, looking much as usual, but only paler.