Nils came at night, in the middle watch, always in the middle watch.  That circumstance might have aroused suspicion in sceptical minds.  But we were not sceptical.

Lynch had us busy forward this night.  Aye, it had become a practice with him to keep us busy in the fore part of the ship during the night watches.  One of his tradesmen, Connolly, kept the poop watch for him.  No, we did not think this arrangement odd; we worked too hard to think.

Newman had the first wheel.  At four bells, a lad named Oscar went aft to relieve the big fellow.  A moment later he reappeared forward, wild-eyed and spluttering his own lingo.  Oh, he was a frightened squarehead.  All we could understand of his speech was the word “Nils.”

The word was enough.  We didn’t need the commotion and consternation among Oscar’s countrymen to help us interpret.  He had seen Nils.

“What’s the matter with you?” demanded Lynch.

Lindquist answered for Oscar.  Nils was at the wheel.  Oscar had gone aft to relieve Newman, and he had seen his dead shipmate at the wheel, steering the ship.  He was afraid to relieve a ghost.

“Oh, rot!” says Lynch.  “Here, come along aft with me, the lot of you.  We’ll lay this ghost.”

Oscar did not want to go aft again, but he had to.  It was better to face a ghost than disobey Bucko Lynch.  That is what the rest of us thought, too.  We were all afraid to go aft, but more afraid not to.  So we huddled close upon the second mate’s heels, and clumped noisily upon the deck, as though to rout the wraith with our racket.

Perhaps our racket did send Nils away.  It certainly aroused the men sleeping in the cabin, and the roundhouse.  But we saw Newman at the helm, not Nils.

“Well, m’son, where’s your ghost?” demanded Mister Lynch.

Oscar was still too frightened to muster his scant English, but Lindquist talked for him.  “He say like dis, sir, Nils ban at da wheel when he koom aft, oond den he yump vrom der wheel oond run for’ard yust like da time da captain thoomp him.”

“Rot!” says Lynch.  “My man, have you permitted a ghost stand your trick at the wheel?” This last to Newman.

“Hardly a ghost, sir,” answered Newman.  We could not see his face, but from his tone I knew he was smiling.  “Do I look like one?  Not yet, I hope.  I was just about to turn over the wheel to the lad, sir, when he shied—­at the shadow of the mizzen stays’l I think—­and rushed away forward.”

“What is wrong, Mister?” inquired the captain’s soft voice.  Aye, we all jumped as if it were the ghost talking.  Captain Swope, with Mister Fitzgibbon behind him, had popped up from below as quietly as If he were a ghost.

“Nothing wrong, Captain,” replied Mister Lynch.  “One of my jaspers declared he saw the little squarehead’s ghost dancing about the poop, and now the lot of them have nerves.  I brought them aft to teach them better in a peaceful way.”