with strange aromas of oils along with the shriek of the paroquet and the hoarse musings of the macaw. I turned to surly old Jacob. ‘Good-morning, Mr. Crimp.’ ‘Marning.’ ‘Fine ship out yonder.’ ‘Well, I’ve seen uglier vessels.’ I approached him close. ‘Heard any more voices, Mr. Crimp?’ ‘No,’ he answered, thrusting his fingers into the door-mat of oakum upon his throat, ‘and I don’t want to.’ ‘I advised you to keep your counsel,’ said I, ‘but I find that you have spoken to Captain Finn.’ ‘Who wouldn’t? My mind ain’t a demijean, smother me! It’s not big enough to hold the likes of last night’s job. Told the capt’n? ’Course I did.’ I saw that he was a mule of a man, and not proper to reason with. I said with an air of indifference, ‘Have you thought the thing over? Was it a bird, as I said at the time, or a noise breaking out perhaps from the inside of the yacht, and by deception of the hearing sounding in syllables apparently away out upon the sea?’ He eyed me dully, and after a stupid, staring pause, exclaimed, ‘I wish _you_ hadn’t heard it.’ ‘Why?’ ‘Why? ’Cause then I might ha’ believed it was _my_ fancy; but as I says to the capt’n, two collected intellects ain’t going to get the same meaning out o’ what’s got no sense. I hope that this here trip may turn out all right, that’s all. I’ve been a going to sea now for thirty year, but smite me if ever I was in a wessel afore that was damned in the first watch by a woice a-sounding out of the blackness with nothen for it to come from.’ The breakfast bell now rang, and I went below not a little surprised by this exhibition of superstitious alarm in so sour and matter-of-fact a seaman as Jacob Crimp. For my part, though I admit the thing greatly puzzled me, it was only as some conjuring trick might. Perhaps with old Crimp I should have been better satisfied had but one of us heard the voice; or, presuming us both to have caught the sound, had we each made a different sentence of it. _There_ lay the real oddness of the incident, but as to supposing there was anything supernatural in it, I should have needed the brains of my cousin, who could interpret Muffin’s stale and vulgar trick into a solemn injunction, perhaps from heaven, to think so. Wilfrid joined us at breakfast; he made a good meal, and was easy in his spirits. I asked him if he had been troubled with any more warnings. He answered no, nothing whatever had occurred to disturb him. He had slept soundly, and had not passed so good a night for days and days. ‘But,’ said he with a glance round the cabin, for the valet had been hanging about, though he did not station himself behind his master’s chair as heretofore, ‘if I were ashore I should be prepared for another kind of warning, I mean a warning from Muffin, if I may judge by his face and manner. Something is wrong with the fellow.’