"'Twas a lucky go," said another, "that them two fellers wot he picked out as deserters come back to get their dunnage." "Yes, and they'd never come back if it hadn't been that the officer had lost his head with the captain's rum-bottle. They ought to take that rum-bottle and tie it all around with ribbons, and set it up as an idol to worship, just as the heathen do." "Oh, nonsense, you can't expect good Americans to act like heathen! It would have been a clear case of impressment if those men had been taken on board the British ship, and the officer knew it just as well as the men knew it themselves." Various other comments were made which I do not remember at this moment. After a while the conversation turned to Joe Waller, the man who disappeared at the time the crew was mustered. Nobody knew exactly what became of him, and every one was careful to make no surmise as to his probable nationality. It was pretty generally believed that he was British born, and had served on a king's ship. The captain probably had an inkling of the matter, and told Waller where he could hide. There was a linen-locker opening out of the captain's cabin, and the top of it was finished so as to afford sufficient space for a small man to climb up there, and stow himself away against the deck. Nobody would ever think of looking there for a man, and it is just possible that the place was originally designed for purposes of concealment. 'Twas lucky for Joe that he was small, or he never could have got in there. Waller came up as usual with his watch, and went on duty. Two or three of us asked him where he was when the British officer came aboard; at every question he assumed a wild appearance, and said he had been taken up in the air by the Flying Dutchman, carried to the North Pole, and then to the South Pole, and then back again to the Washington. The Dutchman held him by the scruff of the neck all the time, and he felt rather stiff and uncomfortable. The fact is, he was cramped so in the linen-locker that it's no wonder he didn't have the use of his joints for a day or so. After he had quizzed a few of us that way with his yarn about the Flying Dutchman, we quit talking with him on the subject. He was scared, and no mistake, and certainly he had good reason to be. Haines suggested that he hoped my shipmate, Waller, was the only one on board to make any acquaintance with the Flying Dutchman. I had seen mention of this individual in some of the books I had read, but no explanation as to who he was; so I asked Haines about him. "Does he have wings to fly with?" I inquired, "or does he float about the sky on a machine of some sort? Perhaps he isn't a man, but just the ghost of one." CHAPTER V. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN AND HIS HISTORY.--MEETING A SHIP WITH A STARVING CREW.--RELIEF AND SAILING IN COMPANY.