"D----n me, Tom, I say, what sort of a devil's drawing-room have we here?" muttered another, as he stood turning over a mop of oakum with his toe; "and what sort of a damnable smell is this?" snuffing at a box of composition. "The devil's _own_ smell--brimstone, by ----!" cried a fourth, shaking a cloud of sulphur from his fingers; and one fellow rummaging through the troughs pulled up a bundle of reeds and tossed them out on the floor, exclaiming, "Nothing but rush-lights in these here lockers, Master Hiram--rush-lights and mouldings of white biscuit, as I take it--light diet that, I may say, sir, for a ship's company." Just then some lumber getting loose, rolled out of an upper berth among them, and three or four smart cuts were made at it before they saw what it was. I had taken them as a hint to lie quiet a little longer, when their leader started suddenly, and, after standing for a moment at the heel of the mizen-mast, gave a strong shudder, and ordered the men out of the cabin. "Off, off to the forecastle every man of you!--off, I say, and send Captain Forrest here." The men withdrew, muttering exclamations of amazement as he drove them out on deck, whence he presently returned, accompanied by the other. He locked and bolted the door after him, and led his companion up to the mast, then throwing the light full on it, asked in a whisper, that thrilled through me where I lay, "Do you know that?" "What?" "That splinter of steel buried in the wood." The elder Forrest, without one word of reply, snatched up the lantern and ran round the cabin, holding the light over his head, and gazing at everything with a strong expression of astonishment; then stuck the lantern down upon a barrel-head, slapped his hands against his thighs, and exclaimed, "Hah!--Now may I be damned if it is not the old Phoenix come back again!--but Hiram, I say, by Heaven I cannot understand this--she is not the same boat, and yet she is--I thought I knew her deck although it is strangely altered--but what is the matter with you?" for the younger one stood pale and trembling, and here grasped him convulsively by the arm. "What ails you, Hiram? I say,--I hope you are not _afraid_?" "Yes, by ----" (with a slow and solemn asseveration), "I _am_ afraid, Adam Forrest!" the other answered, gasping; "I _am_ afraid, for I saw him there as plainly as I see you, clinging round the mast as he did that night, when he held on till you shore through his wrist with your cutlass, and snapped it an inch deep in the solid wood below! and if I go in _there_" (pointing to the after-cabin without even raising his averted face),--"if I go in _there_, I will see the others!--Come on deck--I am sick."