The reader will not be surprised to learn that all these events produced a strange and deep impression on board the Molly Swash. The few who might have thrown a little light on the matter were discreetly silent, while all that portion of the crew which was in the dark, firmly believed that the spirit of the murdered mate was visiting them, in order to avenge the wrongs which had been inflicted on it in the flesh. The superstition of sailors is as deep as it is general. All those of the Molly, too, were salts of the old school, sea-dogs of a past generation, properly speaking, and mariners who had got their notions in the early part of the century, when the spirit of progress was less active than it is at present. Spike himself might have had other misgivings, and believe that he had seen the living form of his intended victim, but for the extraordinary and ghost-like echo of his last discharge. There was nothing visible, or intelligible, from which that fire could have come, and he was perfectly bewildered by the whole occurrence. An intention to round-to, as soon as through the passage, down boat and land, which had been promptly conceived when he found that his first aim had failed, was as suddenly abandoned, and he gave the command to “board fore-tack;” immediately after his call was to “pack on the brig,” and not without a little tremor in his voice, as soon as he perceived that the figure had vanished. The crew was not slow to obey these orders, and in ten minutes the Swash was a mile from the light, standing to the northward and eastward, under a press of canvas, and with a freshening breeze. To return to the islets. Harry, from the first, had seen that every thing depended on his remaining motionless. As the people of the brig were partly in shadow, he could not, and did not, fully understand how completely he was himself exposed, in consequence of the brightness of all around him, and he had at first hoped to be mistaken for some accidental resemblance to a man. His nerves were well tried by the use of the fowling-piece, but they proved equal to the necessities of the occasion. But, when an answering report came from the rear, or from the opposite side of the islet, he darted round the tower, as much taken by surprise, and overcome by wonder, as any one else who heard it. It was this rapid movement which caused his flight to be unnoticed, all the men of the brig dodging below their own bulwarks at that precise instant. As the light-house was now between the mate and the brig, he had no longer any motive for trying to conceal himself. His first thought was of Rose, and, strange as it may seem, for some little time he fancied that she had found a musket in the dwelling and discharged it, in order to aid his escape. The events had passed so swiftly that there was no time for the cool consideration of any thing, and it is not surprising that some extravagances mingled with the first surmises of all these.