was making an awful racket and I warn’t sure. But I heard it again, the clinking of crockery like, and I looked around--back behind the steps--at last, and there, behind the stove, leaning up against the cook’s lockers-- I’d clean forgot him--was the Skipper. He was having another mug-up for himself. “‘God! ‘I said, ‘you here?’ “He half-turned, dropping a coffee mug he had in his hand. Then taking a second look: ‘Man, but I thought it was the ghost of Dan Spring. But you two look something alike. Come to think, you’re cousins, ain’t you? Man, if you could only see yourself! Blood, blood, and bruises--and your eyes, man--your eyes! But have a mug of coffee. Warn’t it lucky? here’s the coffee-boiler hove up here on the lockers, and some coffee still left in it--and hot. And there’s a pie in the grub locker--on the top shelf. If it’d been on the bottom shelf it’d be all wet and floating around. Ain’t that luck? And look here--a good half pint of whiskey left yet! It’s been an awful night, ain’t it? What d’y’ say?” “He held the bottle toward me. I took it from him and smashed it on the stove. And then I gave him a bit of my mind. ‘And so, George Hoodley, you’re so afraid, after all, to go to your death that you must go drunk, hah? The soul that the Lord gave you--that soul is going from a drunken body straight to the God that’s going to judge you. And how’ll you be judged, d’y’ think, for this night’s work, George Hoodley? Could you listen to what was said on deck to-night and not die of fright at what you’ve done? Did you hear Sam Catiss? “I’m not afraid to go, if go I must,” says Sam, “but, Lord, there’s one or two things I wish I hadn’t done,” says Sam. You heard him--we all [Illustration: He was having another mug-up for himself.] heard him--and then he was swept over. And but for you, George Hoodley, maybe he’d have had time to make his peace before he went. And up in the rigging--you warn’t there, I know--even you, if you’d heard what Peter Harkins said when we all knew her spars were going--when Peter heard the first crack and knew what it meant; and knowing he was going, with his last free breath he said things of you that if I had an enemy I wouldn’t want him to hear--not if I hated him bad enough to want to see him in the bottom of the deepest, hottest hold of hell----’ “‘Hell!’ he breaks in--‘there ain’t no hell--nor heaven, nor God, nor anything.’ “‘God forgive you for that! You----’