“The crew, you mean?”

He nodded.

“But it’s the dead too.”

“The dead, Tom?”

“Yes, sar—­the dead!”

“All right, Tom,” I said, “go on.”

“Well, sar,” he continued, “there was never a buried treasure yet that didn’t claim its victim.  Not one or two, either.  Six or eight of them, to my knowledge—­and the treasure just where it was for all that.  I das’say it sounds all foolishness, but it’s true for all that.  Something or other’ll come, mark my word—­just when they think they’ve got their hands on it:  a hurricane, or a tidal wave, or an earthquake.  As sure as you live, something’ll come; a rock’ll fall down, or a thunderbolt, and somebody gets killed—­And, well, the ghost laughs, but the treasure stays there all the same.”

“The ghost laughs?” I asked.

“Eh! of course; didn’t you know every treasure is guarded by a ghost?  He’s got to keep watch there till the next fellow comes along, to relieve sentry duty, so to speak.  He doesn’t give it away.  My no!  He dassn’t do that.  But the minute some one else is killed, coming looking for it, then he’s free—­and the new ghost has got to go on sitting there, waiting for ever so long till some one else comes looking for it.”

“But, what has this sucking fish got to do with it?” And I pointed to the red membrane already drying up in Tom’s hand.

“Well, the man who carries this in his pocket won’t be the next ghost,” he answered.

“Take good care of it for me then, Tom,” I said, “and when it’s properly dried, let me have it.  For I’ve a sort of idea I may have need of it, after all.”

And just then, old Sailor, the quietest member of the crew, put up his head into my hands, as though to say that he had been unfairly lost sight of.

“Yes, and you too, old chap—­that’s right.  Tom, and you, and I.”

And then I turned in for the night.

CHAPTER V

In Which We Begin to Understand our Unwelcome Passenger.

Charlie Webster had hinted at a nor’easter—­even a hurricane.  As a rule, Charlie is a safe weather prophet.  But, for once, he was mistaken.  There hadn’t been much of any wind as we made a lee at sunset; but as I yawned and looked out of my cabin soon after dawn, about 4.30 next morning, there was no wind at all.

There was every promise of a glorious day—­calm, still, and untroubled.  But for men whose voyaging depended on sails, it was, as the lawyers say, a dies non. In fact, there was no wind, and no hope of wind.

As I stood out of the cabin hatch, however, there was enough breeze to flutter a piece of paper that had been caught in the mainsail halyard; it fluttered there lonely in the morning.  Nothing else was astir but it and I, and I took it up in my hand, idly.  As I did so, George reared his head for’ard—­

“Morning, George,” I said; “I guess we’ve got to run on gasolene to-day.  No wind in sight—­so far as I can see.”