I had scarcely stood a moment in the atmosphere of this hatch, when I became sensible of a faint smell as of burning, yet too subtle to be detected by a nostril that was not particularly keen. As I was sniffing to make sure, there came a hollow, dull noise of knocking, distinct, and unmistakably produced by some one immediately under the hatch striking at it with a heavy instrument. Mr. Prance hung in the wind for a second or two snuffling and hearkening with the countenance of one who discredits his senses. ‘Why’ he exclaimed, ‘there _is_ somebody below, and--and’---- Here he sniffed up hard with much too much energy, methought, to enable him to taste the faint fumes. ‘Carpenter,’ he exclaimed to the withered old Scotchman who made one of the crowd of onlookers, ‘get this hatch stripped and the cover lifted--quickly, but _quietly_, if you please.’ He looked sternly round upon the men; and then sent a hurried glance aft, where stood Captain Keeling in the spot we had just vacated, with Mrs. Radcliffe on his arm. The battens were nimbly drawn, the tarpaulin thrown aside, and some seamen stooped to raise the hatch cover. A few seconds were expended in prising and manœuvring, in the midst of which the knocking was repeated with a note of violence in it, accompanied by a general start and a growl of wonder from all hands. ‘Heave!’ cried the carpenter, and up came the cover, followed by a small cloud of blue smoke, and immediately after by the figure of the hideous sailor Crabb, who sprang from off the top of a layer of white-wood cases with a loud curse and a horrible fit of coughing. CHAPTER XIV CRABB The atmosphere was still red with the sunset, though the luminary was below the horizon, and there was plenty of light to see by. An extraordinary shout went up from amongst the men at the sight of Crabb, as he leapt out of the hatch in the heart of the little cloud of smoke. Those who were on the side of the deck on to which he jumped recoiled with a positive roar of horror and fright, one or two of them capsizing and rolling over and over away from the hatch, as though they were in too great a hurry to escape to find time to get upon their legs. I very well remember feeling the blood desert my cheek, whilst my heart seemed to come to a stand, and my breathing grow difficult at the apparition of the fellow. _Crabb!_ Why, I had _seen_ him lying dead in his bunk! I had heard of him as lying stitched up in a hammock on this very fore-hatch! I had beheld that same hammock flash overboard, and I had watched it lifting and frisking away astern! Who, then, was yonder hideous creature that had jumped in hobgoblin fashion out of the hold? Could he be the buried Crabb himself?