are somehow quizzical; and, though I fears nothing in
the shape of flesh and blood, still, when it comes to
having to do with those as is gone to Davy Jones's locker
like, it gives a fellow an all-overishness as isn't quite
the thing. You understand me?"

"I'm damned if I do!" was the brief but energetic rejoinder.

"Well, then," continued Fuller, "if I must out with it,
I must. I think that 'ere Ingian must have been the devil,
or how could he come so sudden and unbeknownst upon me,
with the head of a 'possum: and then, agin, how could he
get away from the craft without our seeing him? and how
came the ghost on board of the canoe?"

"Avast there, old fellow; you means not the head of a
'possum, but a beaver: but that 'ere's all nat'r'l enough,
and easily 'counted for; but you hav'n't told us whose
ghost it was, after all."

"No; the captain made such a spring to the gunwale, as
frighted it all out of my head: but come closer, Mr.
Mullins, and I'll whisper it in your ear.--Hark! what
was that?"

"I hears nothing," said the boatswain, after a pause.

"It's very odd," continued Fuller; "but I thought as how
I heard it several times afore you came."