"Still there was nothing to be seen, save the unlucky boat standing on its props in the broad moonlight; but in the lulls or intervals of the breakers that rolled upon the distant beach, he heard moans of distress, sighs of fatigue, and faint mutterings, which seemed to proceed from the boat itself. "Such was the history of our new longboat, a story still current in the north of Scotland; and such was the craft in which I found myself at midnight, alone amid the North Sea, marooned and abandoned by my shipmates on a charge of murder. "You may imagine what I felt in such a situation. "Despising the stories that were current concerning the boat, our skipper had it shipped, paid Magnus Sigurdson his money, and we sailed from Scrabster Roads for the whale fishery. Four days after we were becalmed in the North Sea, some fifty miles or so beyond the Skaw of Unst. "Day succeeded day, night succeeded night, and there came no wind. Around us--strange it was in such a latitude--the sea seemed like oil, so still, so glassy and waveless. Loose in its brails, the canvas flapped against the masts and yards; and now, when too late, the men whispered anew, and murmured about the bewitched boat of Magnus Sigurdson. "At the far horizon we more than once saw craft passing under easy sail, but the breeze that bore them on never reached us. "From murmuring, the crew became clamorous; so, yielding to their entreaties, and being perhaps a little impressed or scared himself, our skipper ordered the mysterious boat to be shoved overboard and cast adrift; and heavily, with a thundering plunge, she fell bow-foremost into the glassy sea; but by that power of attraction which larger bodies possess over smaller in the water, she lay close to the ship, and jarred there with every roll she gave on the long oily ridges that swelled up from time to time. "Three days followed, and still no wind. "In vain the captain whistled and consulted the dog-vane; in vain the first mate blew up a feather, and cast bits of burnt wood over the side, to watch which way the stream went. "Some urged that we should sink the boat by scuttling her; but at last Harold Trasnaldson, an old Orkney whaler, red-faced and yellow-bearded, from the Isle of Stronsay, said, openly: "'This will never do, mates; there's one aboard of us with human blood upon his hands, and the mark of Cain upon his brow, though we can see neither. So here this ship will float, mayhap, till doomsday, for who ever heard of such a calm in these seas?' "So, in five minutes after this, we were all casting lots at the capstan-head. "Three times we drew, and three times the fatal lot fell upon me.