They are singing within, with their voices dear,
    To tunes which are dear as well;
And we sit and dream while the words we hear,
    Having tale of our own to tell—
Of a far midnight on the terrible sea,
Which comes back on the tune of their blithe old glee.

As old as the hills, and as old as the sky,—
    As the King on his throne,—as the serf on his
      knee,
   A song wherein rich can with poor agree,
With its chorus to make them laugh or cry—
Which the young are singing, with no thought nigh,
    Of a night on a terrible sea:
            "I care for nobody; no, not I,
             Since nobody cares for me."

The storm had its will. There was wreck—there was
       flight
O'er an ocean of Alps, through the pitch-black
      night,
When a good ship sank, and a few got free,
To cope in their boat with the terrible sea.

And when the day broke, there was blood on the sea,
     From the wild hot eye of the sun outshed,
For the heaven was a-flame as with fire from Hell,
     And a scorching calm on the waters fell,
As if Ruin had won, and with fiendish glee,
     Sailed forth in his galley to number the dead.

And they rowed their boat o'er the terrible sea,
As mute as a crew made of ghosts might be:
For the best in his heart had not manhood to say,
That the land was five hundred miles away.

A day—and a week—There was bread for one man;
   The water was dry. And on this, the few
Who were rowing their boat o'er the terrible sea,
To murmur, to curse, and to crave began.
   And how 'twas agreed on, no one knew,
But the feeble and famished and scorched by the
      sun,
With his pitiless eye, drew lots to agree,
What their hideous morrow of meat must be.

O then were the faces frightful to read,
    Of ravening hope, and of cowardly pride
    That lies to the last, its sharp terror to hide;
And a stillness as though 'twere some game of the
       Dead,
    While they waited the number their lot to decide—
There were nine in that boat on the terrible sea,
And he who drew NINE, was the victim to be.

You may think what a ghastly shiver there ran,
From mate to his mate, as the doom began.

SIX—had a wife with a wild rose cheek;
   TWO—a brave boy, not a year yet old;
EIGHT—his last sister, lame and weak,
   Who quivered with palsy more than with cold.

You may think what a breath the respited drew,
And how wildly still, sat the rest of the crew;
How the voice as it called spoke hoarser and slower;
The number it next dared to speak was—FOUR.

Twas the rude black man, who had handled an oar
   The best on that terrible sea of the few.
And ugly and grim in the sunshine glare
   Were his thick parched lip, and his dull small
      eyes,
And the tangled fleece of his rusty hair—
   'Ere the next of the breathless the death-lot drew,
   His shout like a sword pierced the silence through.

"Let the play end, with your Number Four.
    What need to draw? Live along, you few
Who have hopes to save and have wives to cry
    O'er the cradles of children free!
What matter if folk without home should die.
    And be eaten by land or sea?
           I care for nobody; no, not I,
              Since nobody cares for me!"

And with that, a knife— and a heart struck through—
     And the warm red blood, and the cold black clay,
And the famine withdrawn from among the few,
     By their horrible meal for another day!

So the eight, thus fed, came at last to land,
    And the tale of their shipmate told,
As of water found in the burning sand,
    Which braves not the thirsty, cold.
But the love of the listener, safe and free,
Goes forth to that slave on that terrible sea.

For, fancies from hearth and from home will stray,
    Though within are the dance and the song;
And a grave tale told, if the tune be gay,
    Says little to scare the young.
While they sing, with their voices clear as can be,
Having called, once more, for the blithe old glee—
           "I care for nobody, no, not I,
           Since nobody cares for me."

But the careless tune, it saith to the old,
Who sit by the hearth as red as gold,
When they think of their tale of the terrible sea:
"Believe in thy kind, whate'er the degree,
Be it King on his throne, or serf on his knee,
While Our Lord showert good from his bounty free,
Over storm, over calm, over land, over sea,"

Mr. Parvis had so greatly disquieted the
minds of the Gentlemen King Arthurs for some
minutes, by snoring with strong symptoms of
apoplexy—which, in a mild form, was his normal
state of health—that it was now deemed expedient
to wake him and entreat him to allow himself
to be escorted home. Mr. Parvis's reply to
this friendly suggestion could not be placed on
record without the aid of several dashes, and is
therefore omitted. It was conceived in a spirit
of the profoundest irritation, and executed with
vehemence, contempt, scorn, and disgust. There
was nothing for it, but to let the excellent
gentleman alone, and he fell without loss of time
into a defiant slumber.

The teetotum being twirled again, so buzzed
and bowed in the direction of the young fisherman,
that Captain Jorgan advised him to be
bright and prepare for the worst. But, it started
off at a tangent, late in its career, and fell before
a well-looking bearded man (one who made
working drawings for machinery, the captain was
informed by his next neighbour), who promptly
took it up like a challenger's glove.

"Oswald Penrewen!" said the chairman.

"Here's Unchris'en at last!" the captain
whispered Alfred Raybrock. " Unchris'en goes
ahead, right smart; don't he?"

He did, without one introductory word.

MINE is my brother's Ghost Story. It
happened to my brother about thirty years ago,