Jim Larned, the mate, was a lusty youngster, a sister's son whom he had taken in training in the way he should go. Jim had already made a voyage to Liverpool and the East Indies, and felt himself also quite an authority in his own way. The evenings were raw and cool; and we generally gathered round the cabin stove, cracking walnuts, smoking, and telling stories, and having a jolly time generally. It is but due to those old days to say that a most respectable Puritan flavor penetrated even the recesses of those coasters,--a sort of gentle Bible and psalm-book aroma, so that there was not a word or a joke among the men to annoy the susceptibilities even of a deacon. Our deacon, somewhat consoled and amended, lay serene in his berth, rather enjoying the yarns that we were spinning. The web, of course, was many-colored,--of quaint and strange and wonderful; and, as the night wore on, it was dyed in certain weird tints of the supernatural. “Well,” said Jim Larned, “folks may say what they're a mind to: there are things that there's no sort o' way o' 'countin' for,--things you've jist got to say. Well, here's suthin' to work that I don't know nothin' about; and, come to question any man up sharp, you 'll find he's seen _one_ thing o' that sort' himself; and this 'ere I'm going to tell's _my_ story:-- “Four years ago I went down to aunt Jerushy's at Fair Haven. Her husband's in the oysterin' business, and I used to go out with him considerable. Well, there was Bill Jones there,--a real bright fellow, one of your open-handed, lively fellows,--and he took a fancy to me, and I to him, and he and I struck up a friendship. He run an oyster-smack to New York, and did a considerable good business for a young man. Well, Bill had a fellow on his smack that I never looks of. He was from the Malays, or foreign crittur, or other; spoke broken English; had eyes set kind o' edgeways 'n his head: homely as sin he was, and I always mistrusted him. 'Bill,' I used to say, 'you look out for that fellow: don't you trust him. If I was you, I'd ship him off short metre.' But Bill, he only laughed. 'Why,' says he, 'I can get double work for the same pay out o' that fellow; and what do I care if he ain't handsome?' I remember how chipper an' cheery Bill looked when he was sayin' that, just as he was going down to New York with his load o' oysters. Well, the next night I was sound asleep in aunt Jerusha's front-chamber that opens towards the Sound, and I was waked right clear out o' sleep by Bill's voice screaming to me. I got up and run to the window, and looked liked the some out, and I heard it again, plain as any thing: 'Jim, Jim! Help, help!' It wasn't a common cry, neither: it was screeched out, as if somebody was murdering him. I tell you, it rung through my head for weeks afterwards.” “Well, what came of it?” said my chum, as the narrator made a pause, and we all looked at him in silence.