‘Why, Miss Jennings,’ I answered, ‘’tis a saint, not a light; a reverend old chap called St. Elmo who transforms himself at pleasure into a species of snapdragon for the encouragement of poor Jack.’ ‘See that corposant, sir?’ rumbled Finn out of the darkness. ‘Very well, indeed,’ I answered. ‘Finn has explained,’ I continued; ‘that light is what sailors call a corpusant--sometimes compr_ee_sant. If we were Catholics of the Columbian period we should tumble down upon our knees and favour it with a litany or oblige it with a hymn; but being bleak-minded Protestants all that we can do is to wonder how the deuce it happens to be burning on such a night as this, for I have seen scores of these corposants in my time, but always either in dead calms or in gales of wind. But there it is, Miss Jennings, an atmospheric exhalation as commonplace as lightning, harmless as the glow-worm, though in its way one of the most poetic of old ocean’s hundred suggestions; for how easy to imagine some giant figure holding that mystic lamp, whose irradiation blends the vast spirit shape with the gloom and blinds the sight to it, though by watching with a little loving coaxing of fancy one should be able after a bit to catch a glimpse of a pair of large sorrowful eyes or the outline of some wan giant face.’ ‘It is gone,’ she exclaimed with a shudder. ‘Hush!’ I exclaimed, ‘we may hear the rustling of pinions by listening.’ ‘Mr. Monson, you are ungenerous,’ she cried with an hysterical laugh. Suddenly the light glanced and then flamed at the foretopmast head, where it threw out, though very palely, the form of the lookout man on the topgallantyard, whose posture showed him to be crouching with his arm over his eyes. ‘I dare say that poor devil up there,’ I exclaimed, ‘fully believes the fire-bubble to be a man’s ghost.’ ‘It is a startling thing to see,’ exclaimed Miss Jennings. ‘But Colonials are too young as a people to be superstitious,’ said I. ‘It is only we of the old country, you know, with our moated granges----’ ‘What is the hour, Mr. Monson?’ ‘I say, Charles, are you on deck?’ shouted Wilfrid from the companion hatch. ‘Ay; here I am with Miss Jennings. What’s the time, Wilfrid, d’ye know?’ As I spoke two silver chimes, and then a third, came floating and ringing from the forecastle--three bells, half-past nine. ‘See that corposant?’ bawled Wilfrid. And he came groping up to us. ‘An omen, by George!’ he cried with an odd hilarious note in his voice. ‘Laura, mark me, that flame isn’t shining for nothing. ’Tis a signal light fired by fortune to advise us of some great event at hand.’ ‘Quarterdeck there!’ came down the voice of the lookout man, falling from sail to sail, as it seemed, in an echo that made the mysterious flame a wild thing to the imagination for a moment by its coming direct from it. ‘Hallo?’ roared Finn. ‘Can I lay down till this here blasted light’s burnt out? ’Tain’t right to be all alone with it up here.’