“God knows. But no human being alive knew of that P. C. money. _Ann did._” His face was colorless and his teeth chattered. We went to the woman. She was apparently stolid, and but half educated; I saw no sign of cunning, even shrewdness, about her. “The message had been given to her,” she said. “How, she did not know.” “From a spirit?” “She could not say that. She supposed so. They called her a writing medium.” Afterward she said, “This thing would ruin her,” crying in a feeble, stupid way. She had been an operative in some mill in Cincinnati, we were told, and was discharged in consequence of it. The “manifestations” were followed by attacks of something resembling paralysis, which would soon leave her helpless. I left the old man talking to her. Warrick came to me that evening. He had heard of the affair. “Captain,” he said, “I’m going to try if no tidings can be had from Joe Wylie. Have I your permission?” I nodded, shortly. Warrick’s broad face was pale and anxious. I sat for a while looking at the closed door of the little office into which they had gone. Then I got up and followed them. The woman (Lusk was her name) was there, Warrick, and the wife of the carpenter,--a shrewd, sensible woman,--who had been a friend of Wylie’s, as most women were. She and the girl sat facing each other at a table on which flared a dirty oil lamp. Warrick leaned on the back of a chair with both hands, watching the girl’s face. “She knows what she’s got to do, Captain,” vigorously chewing and spitting, but not lifting his eyes. “I told her to consult her familiar spirit, or whatever it is. Let’s have him up! Let’s know what’s become of Joe, good or bad.” I had seen Warrick cool and grave when a burning boat was drifting with all aboard right into the rapids; but now he was a coward in every bone of his body; his very voice grew piping and boisterous as the woman turned her square, heavy face toward him, and the gray eyes, which they said saw the dead, fell on his. For the girl, I observed that she had the appearance of extreme nervous dejection; her breath was uncertain and feeble; her lips blue. I touched her and found that the blood had almost ceased to circulate. Her temples were hot; hands icy cold; the pupils of the eyes contracted. The look was _fastened into_ Warrick. I can describe it in no other way. I shook her, but could not loosen the hold of it. It was as if she drew the life out of his burly big body with her dull eyes. “Bring up the spirit of Wylie, my woman,” he said, with a loud, uneasy laugh that suddenly died into profound silence. She shook her head; raised her forefinger slowly, pointing into the shadow behind him. “What do you see?” “I see a ship--three-masted--a bark.” (Warrick started, nodding his head with a muttered oath.) “The sea is frozen; the ship is wedged between masses of ice; the sky is like a bronze plane above; there is neither sun nor wind.”