When he looked up again the woman had disappeared.

Suddenly he remembered Caleb’s story of the girl who, ages back, had left her home to live among the lepers in this very house, perhaps in the very room he occupied; and of the ghost that haunted the burial ground below.  Mr. Fogo was not without courage; but the recollection brought a feeling of so many spiders creeping up his spine.

And yet the whole tale was so unlikely that, by degrees, as he gazed at the wreck, now completely bathed in moonlight, he began to persuade himself that his eyes had played him a trick.

“I will go to bed,” he muttered; “I have been upset lately, and these fits of mine may well pass into hallucination.  Once think of these women and—­”

He stopped as if shot.  From behind the wreck a small boat shot out into the moon’s brilliance.  Two figures sat in it, a woman and a man; and as the boat dropped swiftly down on the ebb he had time to notice that both were heavily muffled about the face.  This was all he could see, for in a moment they had passed into the gloom, and the next the angle of the house hid them from view; but he could still hear the plash of their oars above the sounds of the night.

“The leper and his sweetheart,” was Mr. Fogo’s first thought.  But then followed the reflection—­would ghostly oars sound?  On the whole, he decided against the supernatural.  But the mystery remained.  More curious than agitated, but nevertheless with little inclination to resume his communing with the night, Mr. Fogo sought his hammock and fell asleep.

The sun was high when he awoke, and as he descended to breakfast he heard Caleb’s mallet already at work on the quay below.  Still, anxious to set his doubts at rest, he made a hasty meal, and walked down to take a second opinion on the vision.

Caleb, with his back towards the house, was busily fitting a new thwart into Mr. Fogo’s boat, and singing with extreme gaiety—­

    “Oh, where be the French dogs? 
        Oh! where be they, O? 
     They be down i’ their long-boats,
        All on the salt say, O!”

What with the song and the hammering, he did not hear his master’s approach.

    “Up flies the kite,
        An’ down flies the lark, O! 
     Wi’ hale an’ tow, rumbleow—­”

“Good-morning, Caleb.”

“Aw, mornin’ to ’ee, sir.  You took me unawares—­

    “All for to fetch home,
        The summer an’ the May, O! 
     For summer is a-come,
        An’ winter es a-go.’”

“Caleb, I have seen a ghost.”

The mallet stopped in mid-descent.  Caleb looked up again open-mouthed.

“Tom Twist and Harry Dingle!”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Figger o’ speech, sir, meanin’ ‘Who’d ha’ thought et?’ Whose ghost, sir, ef ’taint a rude question?”

Mr. Fogo told his story.

At its conclusion, Caleb laid down his mallet and whistled.