"All right, yew kin go," muttered Black Davis. "It's thet softy of a carpenter been eatin' too much!" he went on half to himself, half aloud. Suddenly, right over his head called a voice: "_I'm comin' fer yew, Davis, I'm comin' fer yew!_" Then, after a short interval, "_I'm burning! I'm burning! I'm burning!_" The effect on the superstitious men was stupendous. The voice was the late second mate's to the life, and seemed to come from the mizzen-top. Sam, the oracle on ghosts, threw himself to the deck, groaning in absurd terror. "De ship am doomed! De ship am doomed!" he shrieked. Angelino crossed himself nervously, and a shiver ran through the quaking crowd. But there is not much superstition in a Yankee bucko, and Black Davis, tilting back his head, hailed the mizzen-top with a roar loud enough to wake the dead. "Who's thet skylarkin' up thar? Come down, yew ratty hoodlum, or I'll break yew all ter pieces." Dead silence! "Up the mizzen riggin', some er yew swine, an' fetch him outer that!" roared the angry mate. Not a man stirred. Suddenly the tall form of the bosun appeared on the edge of the group of frightened men, awakened out of his light sleep by the commotion. "What's up now?" he asked, as he shouldered his way through the men. "Hell is up an' fizzlin'," burst out the exasperated mate. "Some d----d scowbanker monkeyin' aloft has got this crowd o' softies scared; but he ain't scared Black Davis--oh no! not by the Holy Pope--an' I pities him when he comes down." "Jump aloft, bosun," he continued, "and see if yew kin rake him out by his eye-teeth; he's somewhere up the mizzen." "Aye, aye, sir," replied the bosun in his deep voice, and turning, he swung himself over the rail into the rigging and went up the ratlines. All heads turned upwards, anxiously watching him. "He's a dead man," quavered one. "Shut up, yew brayin' booby!" grunted the mate. Up went the intrepid bosun. They watched him clamber out on the futtock shrouds and haul himself into the top; for a moment he disappeared behind the mast, and then reappeared, and with one hand on the topmast rigging, leant over the edge of the top and shouted down: "There ain't nobody up here, sir. Are you sure you heard a voice?" "Didn't I done tole you?" jerked Sam, his teeth rattling. "Heard er voice!" howled the mate. "W'y, the swab called me by me name." "It were Mister Barker's voice!" put in some one in an undertone. "It were de voice ob de debble!" declared the darkey. "By gorry, dis bleedin' hooker am doomed!" "Hell!" roared the mate. "If thet coffee-coloured Jamaica slush-bucket shoots off his bazoo again, I'll jump down an' whang his hide off." This snuffed out any further assertions by Sam. In vain the bosun searched aloft; he even shinned on to the skysail yard, and the fore and main were likewise searched, but without success. There were no further utterances of the ghostly voice, and the matter remained an unexplained mystery.