And well might he ask.  With his eyeballs staring, his teeth chattering, his body half bent, and his arms thrown forward, yet pendent as if suddenly arrested in that position while in the act of reaching the rope, the terrified sailor stood gazing on the stern of the canoe; in which, by the faint light of the dawning day, was to be seen an object well calculated to fill the least superstitious heart with terror and dismay.  Through an opening in the foliage peered the pale and spectral face of a human being, with its dull eyes bent fixedly and mechanically upon the vessel.  In the centre of the wan forehead was a dark incrustation, as of blood covering the superficies of a newly closed wound.  The pallid mouth was partially unclosed, so as to display a row of white and apparently lipless teeth; and the features were otherwise set and drawn, as those of one who is no longer of earth.  Around the head was bound a covering so close, as to conceal every part save the face; and once or twice a hand was slowly raised, and pressed upon the blood spot that dimmed the passing fairness of the brow.  Every other portion of the form was invisible.

“Lord have mercy upon us!” exclaimed the boatswain, in a voice that, now elevated to more than its natural tone, sounded startlingly on the stillness of the scene; “sure enough it is, indeed, a ghost!”

“Ha! do you believe me now?” returned Fuller, gaining confidence from the admission of his companion, and in the same elevated key.  “It is, as I hope to be saved, the ghost I see’d afore.”

The commotion on deck was now every where universal.  The sailors started to their feet, and, with horror and alarm visibly imprinted on their countenances, rushed tumultuously towards the dreaded gangway.

“Make way—­room, fellows!” exclaimed a hurried voice; and presently Captain de Haldimar, who had bounded like lightning from the deck, appeared with eager eye and excited cheek among them.  To leap into the bows of the canoe, and disappear under the foliage, was the work of a single instant.  All listened breathlessly for the slightest sound; and then every heart throbbed with the most undefinable emotions, as his lips were heard giving utterance to the deep emotion of his own spirit,—­

“Madeline, oh, my own lost Madeline!” he exclaimed with almost frantic energy of passion:  “do I then press you once more in madness to my doting heart?  Speak, speak to me—­for God’s sake speak, or I shall go mad!  Air, air, —­she wants air only—­she cannot be dead.”

These last words were succeeded by the furious rending asunder of the fastenings that secured the boughs, and presently the whole went overboard, leaving revealed the tall and picturesque figure of the officer; whose left arm encircled while it supported the reclining and powerless form of one who well resembled, indeed, the spectre for which she had been mistaken, while his right hand was busied in detaching the string