“That’s Abishal,” said Salters.  “Full o’ gin an’ Judique men, an’ the judgments o’ Providence layin’ fer him an’ never takin’ good holt He’s run in to bait, Miquelon way.”

“He’ll run her under,” said Long Jack.  “That’s no rig fer this weather.”

“Not he, ’r he’d’a done it long ago,” Disko replied.  “Looks ’s if he cal’lated to run us under.  Ain’t she daown by the head more ’n natural, Tom Platt?”

“Ef it’s his style o’ loadin’ her she ain’t safe,” said the sailor slowly.  “Ef she’s spewed her oakum he’d better git to his pumps mighty quick.”

The creature threshed up, wore round with a clatter and raffle, and lay head to wind within ear-shot.

A gray-beard wagged over the bulwark, and a thick voice yelled something Harvey could not understand.  But Disko’s face darkened.  “He’d resk every stick he hez to carry bad news.  Says we’re in fer a shift o’ wind.  He’s in fer worse.  Abishal!  Abi-shal!” He waved his arm up and down with the gesture of a man at the pumps, and pointed forward.  The crew mocked him and laughed.

“Jounce ye, an’ strip ye an’ trip ye!” yelled Uncle Abishal.  “A livin’ gale—­a livin’ gale.  Yab!  Cast up fer your last trip, all you Gloucester haddocks.  You won’t see Gloucester no more, no more!”

“Crazy full—­as usual,” said Tom Platt.  “Wish he hadn’t spied us, though.”

She drifted out of hearing while the gray-head yelled something about a dance at the Bay of Bulls and a dead man in the foc’sle.  Harvey shuddered.  He had seen the sloven tilled decks and the savage-eyed crew.

“An’ that’s a fine little floatin’ hell fer her draught,” said Long Jack.  “I wondher what mischief he’s been at ashore.”

“He’s a trawler,” Dan explained to Harvey, “an’ he runs in fer bait all along the coast.  Oh, no, not home, he don’t go.  He deals along the south an’ east shore up yonder.”  He nodded in the direction of the pitiless Newfoundland beaches.  “Dad won’t never take me ashore there.  They’re a mighty tough crowd—­an’ Abishal’s the toughest.  You saw his boat?  Well, she’s nigh seventy year old, they say; the last o’ the old Marblehead heel-tappers.  They don’t make them quarterdecks any more.  Abishal don’t use Marblehead, though.  He ain’t wanted there.  He jes’ drif’s araound, in debt, trawlin’ an’ cussin’ like you’ve heard.  Bin a Jonah fer years an’ years, he hez.  ‘Gits liquor frum the Feecamp boats fer makin’ spells an’ selling winds an’ such truck.  Crazy, I guess.”

“‘Twon’t be any use underrunnin’ the trawl to-night,” said Tom Platt, with quiet despair.  “He come alongside special to cuss us.  I’d give my wage an’ share to see him at the gangway o’ the old Ohio ’fore we quit floggin’.  Jest abaout six dozen, an’ Sam Mocatta layin’ ’em on criss-cross!”

The disheveled “heel-tapper” danced drunkenly down wind, and all eyes followed her.  Suddenly the cook cried in his phonograph voice:  “It wass his own death made him speak so!  He iss fey—­fey, I tell you!  Look!” She sailed into a patch of watery sunshine three or four miles distant.  The patch dulled and faded out, and even as the light passed so did the schooner.  She dropped into a hollow and—­was not.