He drew his eyes away, glanced around, and spied a black portmanteau propped beside a packing-case in the angle made by the wall and the flooring. In mad haste to reach the open air, but dimly remembering Geraldine's caution, he grasped the handles, flung a look behind him, and clambered up the ladder again, and out upon deck. The worst was over; but he could not rest until again in his boat. As he untied the painter, he noticed the ray of his lantern dancing wildly up and down the opposite bank with the shaking of his hand. Cursing his forgetfulness, he turned the slide, slipped the lantern into his pocket, and, lowering himself gently with the portmanteau, dropped, seized the paddles, and rowed away as for dear life. He had put three boats' lengths between him and the hull, and was drawing a sigh of relief, when a voice hailed him, and then-- A tongue of flame leapt out, and a loud report rang forth upon the night. He heard something whistle by his ear. Catching up the paddles again, he pulled madly out of the creek, and away for the opposite bank of the river; ran his boat in; and, seizing the portmanteau, without attempt to ship the oars or fasten the painter, leapt out; climbed, slipped, and staggered over the slippery stones; and fled up the hill as though a thousand fiends were at his heels. CHAPTER XIX. THAT A SILVER BULLET HAS VIRTUE: WITH A WARNING TO COMMODORES. "Well, sir," remarked Caleb at ten o'clock that evening, after an hour's watching had passed and brought no sign of a ghost, "I wish this 'ere sperrit, ef sperrit et be, wud put hissel' out to be punkshal. They do say as the Queen must wait while her beer's a-drawin'; but et strikes me ghost-seein' es apt to be like Boscas'le Fair, which begins twelve an' ends at noon." Caleb caressed a huge blunderbuss which lay across his knee, and caused Mr. Fogo no slight apprehension. "Et puts me i' mind," he went on, as his master was silent, "o' th' ould lidden [1] as us used to sing when us was tiny mites:--" Riddle me, riddle me, riddle me right, Where was I last Sat'rday night? I seed a chimp-champ champin' at his bridle, I seed an ould fox workin' hissel' idle. The trees did shever, an' I did shake, To see what a hole thic' fox did make. "Now I comes to think 'pon et, 'tes Sat'rday night too; an' that's odd, as Martha said by her glove." Still Mr. Fogo was silent.