"As I was a-sayin', the force of the wind was orful. Howsomdever, we had as jolly a little craft as ever cut blue water, and we weathered it bravely. Sometimes, when the wind would sort of sink away a little, we would drive right through the big waves, until even our main-tops were all under water; but, as our hatches were clewed down and our deck was pretty tight, we allers came out of our bath as fresh as ever. Then the gale would start up again, and away we would go over the tops of the waves. "It was on one of these occasions that our lookout sung out, 'Lights on the starboard bow!' In course, we was all curious enough at first; but, jist as we rose up on a big crest, what should we see but the Phantom Ship, holdin' right across our course, and we jist ready to run inter her larboard bulwarks with the next pitch we made. She had all her blue lights burnin', and there was a sort of yaller haze all around her. Notwithstandin' we was under bare poles, and found it hard work to keep from bein' blown skywards at that, the stranger had every stitch of canvas spread, and didn't seem to suffer anywise nuther. We hadn't time to make many observations, howsomdever, before we struck the cussed thing right in her side, and began to shoot through her, jist as if she was made of smoke. I was standin' in the bows of the Jolly Admiral at the time. 'Now or never!' I sings out to myself; and, simultaneous, I made a jump and caught the ratlin's of the stranger, while the Jolly Admiral passed on her way and left me swingin' like a pendulum in the air. "I fell down on the deck of the stranger, but immejiately resumed my legs and took a survey of things in gineral. All the crew moped about the deck, attendin' to their duties, while the captain bellered out his orders through a trumpet made of condensed wind, lined with p'izen and streaks of lightning. "At first none on 'em paid any attention to me. But at last the first mate--an orful-lookin' cuss--came right up to me, grabbed me by the gullet, and dragged me to the quarter-deck, and stood me up afore the skipper of the Phantom Ship. "'Here, Cap,' says he, 'is a little cuss of a cabin-boy, as was left behind by that infernal craft as jist ran through us.' "(I forgot to mention as how the hole, which the Jolly Admiral made in passin' through the stranger, healed itself up ag'in in the most supernatural way in the world.)