"He was always bad enough, but he got wuss and wuss, and nothin' couldn't please him. Sometimes I'd hear the poor thing a-moaning to herself like a baby that's beat out with loud cryin' and hain't got no noise left. She was always cryin' in them days. Once the supercargo (he was a cool hand, any way) give me a bit of paper very private to give to her, and I slipped it under the door, but the old man had nailed somethin' down inside, an' he found it afore she did. Then there was a regular knockdown fight, and the supercargo was put in irons. The old man was in the middle room a long time that day, talkin' in a hissin' kind of a way, and the missus got a blow. Just after that a sort of a white squall struck the ship, and the old man give just the wrong orders. You see, he was clean out of his head. He got so worked up at last that he fell down in a fit, and they bundled him into his state-room and left him, 'cause nobody cared whether he was dead or alive. The mate took the irons off the supercargo first thing, and broke open the middle room. The supercargo went in there and stayed a long time, whispering to the missus, and she cried more'n ever, only it sounded different. "Toward night the old man come to, and begun to ask questions--as ugly as ever, only as weak as a baby. 'Bout midnight I was comin' out of his room, and I seen the missus in a gray dress, with her eyes shinin' like coals of fire, dive out of her room and up the stairs, and nobody never seen her afterward. The next morning the supercargo was gone too, and I think they just drownded themselves, 'cause they couldn't bear to live any more without each other. Mebbe the mate knew somethin' about it, but he never let on, and I dunno no more about it; only the old man had another fit when he heard it, and died without no mourners." "It might be she was saved, after all," I said, with true Yankee skepticism. "Then why should I see her ghost, if she ain't dead-drownded?" "Did you never find anything in the state-room that would explain?" "Well, I did find some bits of paper, but I couldn't read writin'." "Oh, what did you do with them?" I insisted, quivering with excitement. "You won't tell the cap'n?" "No, never." "You'll give 'em back to me?" "Yes, yes--of course." "Here they be," he said, opening his shirt, and showing a little bag hung round his neck like an amulet. He took out a little wad of brown paper, and gave it jealously into my hand. "I will give it back to you to-night," I said with the solemnity of an oath, and carried it to my room. It proved to be a short and fragmentary account of the sufferings which the "missus" had endured in the middle room, written in pencil on coarse wrapping-paper, and bearing marks of trembling hands and frequent tears. I thought I might copy the papers without breaking faith with Pedro. The outside paper bore these words: