"Who's dah?" asked softly the old cook, who had barricaded himself for the night according to his custom, and was smoking a villainously rank pipe. "It's Ben Lathrop," I whispered. "What you want heah?" the cook demanded. "The pie you promised me," I answered. "Humph! Ain't you fo'got dat pie yet? You got de most miraculous memorizer eveh Ah heared of. You wait." I heard him fumbling inside the galley; then he opened the door and stepped out on deck as if he had just decided to take a breath of fresh air. Upon seeing me, he pretended to start with great surprise, and exclaimed rather more loudly than before:-- "What you doin' heah, boy, at dis yeh hour o' night?" But all this was only crafty by-play. Having made sure, so he thought, that no one was in sight, he grabbed me by the collar and yanked me into the galley, at the same time shutting the door so that I almost stifled in the rank smoke with which he had filled the place. Scowling fiercely, he reached into a little cupboard and drew out half an apple pie that to my eager eyes seemed as big as a half moon on a clear night. "Dah," he said. "Eat it up. Mistah Falk, he tell stew'd he want pie and he gotta have pie, and stew'd he come and he say, 'Frank,' says he, 'dat Mistah Falk, his langwidge is like he is in liquo'. He _gotta_ have pie.' 'All right,' Ah say, 'if he gotta have pie, he gotta wait twill Ah make pie. Cap'n, he et hearty o' pie lately.' Stew'd he say, 'Cap'n ain't had but one piece and Mistah Thomas, he ain't had but one piece, and Mistah Hamlin, he ain't had any. Dah's gotta be pie. You done et dat pie yo'se'f,' says he. 'Oh, no,' says Ah. 'Ah never et no pie. You fo'get 'bout dat pie you give Cap'n foh breakfas'.' Den stew'd he done crawl out. He don' know Ah make two pies yestidday. Dat's how come Ah have pie foh de boy. Boys dey need pie to make 'em grow. It's won'erful foh de indignation, pie is." I was appalled by the hue and cry that my half-circle of pastry had occasioned, and more than a little fearful of the consequences if the truth ever should transpire; but the pie in hand was compensation for many such intangible difficulties in the future, and I was making great inroads on a wedge of it, when I thought I heard a sound outside the window, which the cook had masked with a piece of paper. I stopped to listen and saw that Frank had heard it too. It was a scratchy sound as if some one were trying to unship the glass. "Massy sake!" my host gasped, taking his vile pipe out of his mouth. Although it was quite impossible for pallor to make any visible impression on his surpassing blackness, he obviously was much disturbed. "Gobble dat pie, boy," he gasped, "gobble up ev'y crumb an' splinter." Now, as the scratchy noise sounded at the door, the cook laid his pipe on a shelf and glanced up at a big carving-knife that hung from a rack above his head. "Who's dah?" he demanded cautiously. "Lemme in," said a mild, low voice, "I want some o' that pie."