The tide was rising; it lipped against the seaward side of the _Highland Mary_ with a noise that was oddly like the frightened breathing of a weak creature. But there was no other sound till the lamplighter’s snores began to fill the cabin. Then came a faint rustling in the berth opposite him, a gasp as if a desperate resolve had taken away some one’s breath. The snoring kept on. In the dark there was a sound of cautious feet; feet that had no strength or weight; but if any one stole up to the lamplighter he did not hear. In his sleep he flung out his arm, and it struck something that gave; something that was bending over him, trying to reach a red cotton bundle that lay between him and the wall. It was his supper of bread and cheese that he had not eaten, and the smell of the cheese, combined with the regular snoring, had drawn a living thing to his side. He started up, sobered with terror, sweating with fear. What had touched him in the dark? What had screeched in his ear? “The place is haunted, curse it!” he said, and was frightened afresh. For the instant he spoke a low moaning broke out at his very feet. The lamplighter was a little man, and not brave. In sheer desperation and terror he remembered that he carried the tools of his trade in a bag at his side, and with a shaking hand he lit his long wax taper. As it burned blue in the close cabin he recoiled. The place was haunted, indeed! What was this on the floor, like a white-faced girl, whose long, black hair streamed over her? No living woman could be so thin, could have such strange, golden eyes. “What--what are you? Get away!” cried the lamplighter wildly. He raised his foot to kick at the thing on the floor. “Don’t! Oh, don’t hurt me!” The cry was human, utterly desolate. “I didn’t mean to steal, but I’m hungry,” cried the girl, with a sullen sob. “Hungry!” said the lamplighter stupidly, and his taper nearly fell in his surprise. “What are you doing here if you’re hungry, frightening honest folk?” He grew angry as he remembered how nearly she had sent him flying back to Margery with a bogy tale that would have made him a laughing-stock. “I’ve nowhere else to go.” At the answer he stuck his taper upright in a convenient crack in the floor of the _Highland Mary_, and with a rough kindness lifted the girl to the locker. She was a threadpaper slip of sixteen or so, with the queerest eyes he had ever seen; even the lamplighter, who was familiar with poverty, had never seen a human being so thin. “Why, you’re starved, lass!” he cried. “What ever made you come to this old hulk? You might have knowed there was no roast beef here. Where do you come from?” for his keen little eyes saw that her shoes were not the shoes of a tramp. She did not answer, except to point to the red handkerchief that smelled of cheese.