I looked over my shoulder into the dusk, and shivered a little, which was not lost on Pedro. He grew more solemn if possible than before: "I see her 'most every morning, and if my back is to the door, I see her all the same. She don't never touch me, but I keep at the prayers for fear she will." "Do you never see her except in the morning?" "Once or twice she has just put her head out of the door of the middle state-room when I was waitin' on table." "In broad daylight?" "Sartin. Them as sees ghosts sees 'em any time. Every morning, just at peep o' day, she comes out of that door and makes a dive for the stairs. She just gives me one look, and holds up her hand, and I don't see no more of her till next time." "How does she look?" I almost hoped he would not tell, but he did. "She's got hair as black as a coal, kind o' pushed back, as if she'd been runnin' her hands through it; she has big shiny eyes, swelled up as she'd been cryin' a great while; and she's always got on a gray dress, silvery-like, with a tear in one sleeve. There ain't nothin' more, only a handkerchief tied round her wrist, as if it had been hurt." "Is she handsome?" "Mebbe white folks'd think so." "Why does she show herself to you and no one else, do you suppose?" "Didn't I tell you the reason before?" "Of course you didn't." "Well, you see, she looked just so the last time I seen her alive. I must go and put in the biscuit now, miss." I submitted, knowing that white folks may be hurried, but black ones never; and I could not but admire the natural talent which Pedro shared with the authors of continued stories, of always dropping the thread at the most thrilling moment. "Who was she?" said I, lying in wait for him on his return. "She was cap'n's wife, miss--a young woman, and the cap'n was old, with a blazing kind of temper. He was dreffle sweet on her for about a month, and mebbe she was happy, mebbe she wa'n't: how should I know about white folks' feelin's? All of a suddent he said she was sick and couldn't go out of the middle state-room. The old man took in plenty of stuff to eat, but he never let me go near her. We was on just such a v'y'ge as this, only hotter. The cap'n would come out of that room lookin' black as thunder, and everybody scudded out of his sight when he put his head out of the gangway.