'Was it a strange man they saw?' I asked. 'If so, how did he come into the ship?' and I own a chill ran through me as I asked the question. The mystery and awe of this wonderful, beautiful night of moonlight and trance of ocean, glazed by the nightbeam as though it were an ice-field, was in this hour to heighten into a sort of horror the fancy of a strange man with a wet face walking forward; and then again there was the memory of the death in the morning and the burial before sundown. Mrs. Burke was silent, and I saw her watching her husband as he uneasily moved here and there. 'Pity it's happened,' said Mr. Owen. 'It's all nonsense, of course. They'll find nobody. A very small optical illusion will carry conviction into the brain of a noodle. All sailors are noodles in superstition. And now all hands'll think there's a ghost aboard.' Captain Burke rejoined us abruptly, and seated himself. 'They'll find nothing,' said he. 'So I was just saying,' said the doctor. 'But that'll be the worst of it,' exclaimed the captain. 'I wish it had been that confounded seaman's watch below. I don't like such things as this to happen in my ship.' 'Why, Captain Burke, you don't mean to tell me----?' said Mr. Owen, catching, as I did, the note of awe and nervousness in the other's utterance. 'I tell you what it is,' burst out the captain irritably; 'it's devilish hot to-night, I know. Is this the Red Sea?' 'Would it were, for that's where all the ghosts are laid,' said the doctor good-humouredly. 'I'm no infidel,' said the captain. 'I thank God I have my faith. There's testimony enough in the Bible to the existence of ghosts to satisfy any Christian man.' 'Why, Edward,' cried Mrs. Burke, 'do you want to frighten Miss Marie?' and she poured out a small tumbler of brandy and seltzer for him; he swallowed the draught and said: 'They'll find nothing; which will prove, of course,' said he, looking at me, 'that there is nothing.' And then he began to talk a little mysteriously of a brig that had sailed out of Cork; the crimps or runners had bundled a man stone drunk into the forecastle, where the captain let him lie for a day or two, guessing he would rally and turn to; instead of which they found him dead, and there was no doubt he had been dead when put on board, the crimps shipping the corpse in order to secure the man's wages. They buried the loathly thing, but every night throughout the voyage the apparition of it moved in the forepart of the vessel, and always its ghostly hand struck one bell, which is half an hour past midnight at sea, after which the shape disappeared, and the watch on deck breathed freely again. I say Captain Burke talked of this brig a little mysteriously, as though he secretly believed in the story, yet was ashamed we should think he did so. Whilst Mr. Owen was trying to make Mrs. Burke and me laugh with some silly story of a spectre, the boatswain came aft. 'Well,' said the captain. 'There's no strange man forward, sir.'