to a man of stone. The next, with an irrepressible shout that denoted the very anguish of fear, he sprang through the door, upsetting and extinguishing the candle in his flight, and hurried downstairs, closely, though silently followed by the monster, who thus escaped from the room before Malletort, alarmed at the disturbance, could re-enter it with a light.
"He's not heart of oak, isn't that chap!" said Slap-Jack, as he turned noiselessly into the stable, where he proceeded to divest himself of the bullock's hide he had worn for his masquerade, and so much of the filth it had left as could be effaced by scraping his garments and washing face and hands with soap and water. But the jest which had been compiled so merrily with his friend and sweetheart seemed to have lost all its mirth in the execution, for the seaman looked exceedingly grave and thoughtful, stealing quietly into the bar in search of his shipmate, with whom he presently disappeared to hold mysterious conference outside the house, secure from all eavesdroppers.
Captain Bold, though for a short space well-nigh frightened out of his wits, was not so inexperienced in the maladies of those who, like himself, applied freely and continuously to the brandy bottle, to be ignorant that such jovial spirits are peculiarly subject to hallucinations, and often visited by phantoms which only exist in their own diseased imaginations. He had scarcely reached the bar, therefore—a refuge he sought unconsciously and by instinct—ere he recovered himself enough to remember that alcohol was the only specific for the horrors, and he proceeded accordingly to swallow glass after glass till his usual composure of mind should return. He was nothing loth to use the remedy, yet each succeeding draught, while it strung his nerves, seemed to increase his depression, and for the first time in his life, he felt unable to shake off an uncomfortable conviction, that whether the phantom was really in the chimney or only in his own brain, he had that night received a warning, and was doomed.
There was little leisure, however, either for apprehension or remorse. Malletort, booted and well armed beneath his cassock, was already descending the stairs, and calling for his horse. To judge by his open brow and jaunty manner,
