grave. Only, here and there in the crypt, there was a rustle and

scurry and some crowing of poultry; and from behind the house

with the verandahs, he saw smoke arise and heard the crackling

of a fire.

The stone houses were nearest him upon his right. The first

was locked; in the second, he could dimly perceive, through a

window, a certain accumulation of pearl-shell piled in the far

end; the third, which stood gaping open on the afternoon, seized

on the mind of Herrick with its multiplicity and disorder of

romantic things. Therein were cables, windlasses and blocks of

every size and capacity; cabin windows and ladders; rusty tanks,

a companion hutch; a binnacle with its brass mountings and its

compass idly pointing, in the confusion and dusk of that shed,

to a forgotten pole; ropes, anchors, harpoons, a blubber dipper

of copper, green with years, a steering wheel, a tool chest with

the vessel's name upon the top, the Asia: a whole curiosity-shop

of sea curios, gross and solid, heavy to lift, ill to break,

bound with brass and shod with iron. Two wrecks at the least must

have contributed to this random heap of lumber; and as Herrick

looked upon it, it seemed to him as if the two ships' companies

were there on guard, and he heard the tread of feet and

whisperings, and saw with the tail of his eye the commonplace

ghosts of sailor men.

This was not merely the work of an aroused imagination, but

had something sensible to go upon; sounds of a stealthy

approach were no doubt audible; and while he still stood staring

at the lumber, the voice of his host sounded suddenly, and with

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