There was much talk of the mysterious ship that night, and many strange theories were offered to account for it. Davie Paine, in his deep, rolling voice, sent shivers down our backs by his story of a ghost-ship manned by dead men with bony fingers and hollow eyes, which had sailed the seas in the days of his great-uncle, a stout old mariner who seemed from Davie's account to have been a hard drinker. Kipping was reminded of yarns about Malay pirates, which he told so quietly, so mildly, that they seemed by contrast thrice as terrible. Neddie Benson lugubriously recalled the prophecy of the charming fortune-teller and argued the worst of our mysterious stranger. "The lady said," he repeated, "that there'd be a dark man and a light man and no end o' trouble. She was a nice lady, too." But Neddie and his doleful fortune-teller as usual banished our gloom, and the forecastle reechoed with hoarse laughter, which grew louder and louder when Neddie once again narrated the lady's charms, and at last cried angrily that she was as plump as a nice young chicken. "If you was to ask me," Bill Hayden murmured, "I'd say it was just a sail." But no one asked Bill Hayden, and with a few words about his "little wee girl at Newburyport," he buried himself in his old blankets and was soon asleep. During the mid-watch that same night, the cook prowled the deck forward like a dog sneaking along the wharves. Silently, the whites of his eyes gleaming out of the darkness, he moved hither and thither, careful always to avoid the second mate's observation. As I watched him, I became more and more curious, for I could make nothing of his veering course. He went now to starboard, now to larboard, now to the forecastle, now to the steerage, always silently, always deliberately. After a while he came over and stood beside me. "It ain't right," he whispered. "Ah tell you, boy, it ain't right." "What's not right?" I asked. "De goin's on aboa'd dis ship." "What goings on?" "Boy, Ah's been a long time to sea and Ah's cooked foh some bad crews in my time, yass, sah, but Ah's gwine tell you, boy, 'cause Ah done took a fancy to you, dis am de most iniquitous crew Ah eveh done cook salt hoss foh. Yass, sah." "What do you mean?" The negro ignored my question. "Ah's gwine tell you, boy, dis yeh crew am bad 'nough, but when dah come a ha'nt boat a-sailin' oveh yondeh jest at dahk, boy, Ah wish Ah was back home whar Ah could somehow come to shoot a rabbit what got a lef' hind-foot. Yass, sah." For a long time he silently paced up and down by the bulwark; but finally I saw him momentarily against the light of his dim lantern as he entered his own quarters.