“There ’t is, Cap’in Spike,” said Josh, passing the piece up through the rigging, “but ’t will no more shoot that thing, than one of our carronades would blow up Gibraltar.”

By this time Spike was very determined, his lips being compressed and his teeth set, as he took the gun and cocked it.  Then he hailed.  As all that passed occurred, as it might be, at once, the brig even at that moment was little more than abreast of the immovable mate, and about eighty yards from him.

“Light-house, there!” cried Spike—­“Living or dead, answer or I fire.”

No answer came, and no motion appeared in the dark figure that was now very plainly visible, under a bright moon, drawn in high relief against the glittering white of the tower.  Spike dropped the muzzle to its aim, and fired.

So intense was the attention of all in the Swash, that a wink of Harry’s could almost have been seen, had he betrayed even that slight sign of human infirmity at the flash and the report.  The ball was flattened against a stone of the building, within a foot of the mate’s body; but he did not stir.  All depended now on his perfect immovability, as he well knew; and he so far commanded himself, as to remain rigid as if of stone himself.

“There! one can see how it is—­no life in that being,” said one.  “I know’d how it would end,” added another.  “Nothing but silver, and that cast on purpose, will ever lay it,” continued a third.  But Spike disregarded all.  This time he was resolved that his aim should be better, and he was inveterately deliberate in getting it.  Just as he pulled the trigger, however, Don Juan Montefalderon touched his elbow, the piece was fired, and there stood the immovable figure as before, fixed against the tower.  Spike was turning angrily to chide his Mexican friend for deranging his aim, when the report of an answering musket came back like an echo.  Every eye was turned toward the figure, but it moved not.  Then the humming sound of an advancing ball was heard, and a bullet passed, whistling hoarsely, through the rigging, and fell some distance to windward.  Every head disappeared below the bulwarks.  Even Spike was so far astonished as to spring in upon deck, and, for a single instant, not a man was to be seen above the monkey-rail of the brig.  Then Spike recovered himself and jumped upon a gun.  His first look was toward the light-house, now on the vessel’s lee-quarter; but the spot where had so lately been seen the form of Mulford, showed nothing but the glittering brightness of the white-washed stones!

The reader will not be surprised to learn that all these events produced a strange and deep impression on board the Molly Swash.  The few who might have thrown a little light on the matter were discreetly silent, while all that portion of the crew which was in the dark, firmly believed that the spirit of the murdered mate was visiting them, in order to avenge the wrongs inflicted on it in the flesh.  The superstition of sailors is as deep as it is general.  All those of the Molly, too, were salts of the old school, sea-dogs of a past generation, properly speaking, and mariners who had got their notions in the early part of the century, when the spirit of progress was less active than it is at present.