CHAPTER XXI.

THE GHOST OF THE STATE-ROOM.

When the other steak was ready, Capt. Bendig came down to attend to it. By this time Wade had made away with his share of the late dinner; and he was sure, if the captain was as hungry as he had been, he enjoyed the meal. As the captain had all he wanted, he could not complain of Wade; and up to the present time he had not done so. The “Housatonic” was in sight, and this cruise would soon come to an end. Wade thought it was possible that he might get back to New York without being discovered; for the captain seemed to have no use for the old garments under the berth.

The captain finished the second edition of his dinner, and then went into the cabin. The passengers seemed to stay there from the fear that some passing vessel might see them; at least, Wade wondered that they did not go on deck when the weather was so fine. Even in his hiding-place, he could realize the nervousness of the party.

“I think we shall have to keep moving till after dark,” said Capt. Bendig, as he passed into the cabin.

“Why so?” asked Mrs. Wallgood, who seemed to be more inclined to talk than the rest of the party.

“It is hardly safe to put you on board of the ship in broad daylight, when there are so many vessels about,” replied the skipper of the yacht.

“But no one will know who we are,” suggested the lady.

“That is very true; but if a vessel should report in New York that a yacht had transferred several passengers to an outward-bound ship, somebody would want to know what it all meant; and there are pilot-boats about here which may know the ship. We can just as well wait till after dark; and we shall not have to wait long. Besides, there is a steamer off to the southward of us, that looks like the revenue-cutter; and these fellows are always poking their noses in where they are not wanted.”

“I was rather anxious to get on board of the ship as soon as possible,” added Mr. Wallgood, with something like a shudder.

“What is the matter with you?” asked his wife; and Wade thought her tones were not as kindly as they might have been.

“I’m not very well. The excitement of this affair seems to take hold of me,” added the cashier, with another quiver. “I am cold; and my overcoat has been left behind.”

“Why didn’t you bring it with you? You knew that we were going upon a sea-voyage, if I did not,” said the wife; and it was plain enough to Wade that she was not yet wholly reconciled to the future, even though it included a residence in Italy.

“I didn’t think of it. I had enough on my mind, without considering my bodily comfort.”

“If that’s all that ails you, I think we can get over that,” interposed the captain. “I can fit you out with an old coat that will keep you warm, though it will not be as handsome as you have been in the habit of wearing.”

“If it only keeps me warm, that is all I want of it,” replied Mr. Wallgood, with an audible shiver.

“We keep a lot of old clothes on board for just such cases as this. The owner sends all his own old duds to the yacht for this purpose; and I stow them away under the berth in my state-room. Some of them are very good coats,” said the captain, as he returned to his room.

“Just my luck!” exclaimed Wade to himself; and the hope of getting back to New York without being discovered broke down all at once.

But there was a chance for him even yet; for he had piled most of the old garments in front of him, forming a barricade; and the captain might find the coat he wanted without disturbing or discovering him.

“Let me see: you are smaller than I am; and I know the size of every coat in the batch. I think I can fit you as well as an up-town tailor,” continued the captain, pausing at the door as if to take the measure of the cashier.

“I don’t care for the fit, if it only keeps me warm,” said the quaking defaulter. “Capt. Crogick will let me have one as soon as I get on board of the ship.”

Capt. Bendig came into the state-room, and began to pull out the coats which Wade had arranged to conceal himself. He was a good deal more particular in making his selection than Wade thought was necessary under the circumstances. He pulled out one, and examined it; and then another. He seemed to know exactly what he desired; and he was not to be satisfied till he found it, though his passenger was shivering all the time for the want of it. Wade considered this very stupid conduct on his part, and thought it cruel to let the poor man suffer so long. At last he had pulled out all the garments which had concealed the stowaway; and, if he had stooped down, he could not have helped seeing the intruder.

“Just my luck!” said Wade, with something like a shudder. “He wants the coat I am lying on.”

He had been measuring the captain all the morning; not for the size of his body, as the skipper did the defaulter, but for the quality of his temper; and he was sure he was a bully, from the way he treated Pollish and the cook. He had a good deal of sympathy with the steward, for he knew he had been misjudged, though he had told some abominable lies. He even felt, that, if he could keep out of the captain’s clutches till after dark, he might be able to come out of his hiding-place, and make friends with Pollish; for that worthy would not care to have him tell the captain that the yacht was deserted when he came on board of her at dark the evening before. The steward would have a motive for protecting him; and he was not human if he did not look out for himself.

Wade pushed all the garments out to the front of the berth, except the one he was lying upon; and he would have done the same by that if he could have done it without making too much noise. But Capt. Bendig had not yet found the one he wanted. He stooped down, and reached into the space beneath the berth; and Wade felt his big hand upon him. It was with the greatest effort that he prevented himself from crying out.

“What under the light of the moon is beneath this berth?” muttered the captain, as he evidently felt something that was not wholly in the woollen-goods line, but without knowing exactly what it was.

Capt. Bendig began to get down on his knees so that he could see as well as feel what was under the berth. But it was beginning to be dark in the room, though it was only four in the afternoon; but the apartment never had much light. The searcher was not satisfied with his means of observation; and it is possible he suspected something that did not belong there was concealed beneath the berth.

“Pollish!” he called.

“Here, sir!” replied the steward, who always seemed to be at hand when he was not asleep.

“Bring me a light, and don’t be more than a second about it,” said the captain, with a ripple of excitement in his tones.

Pollish lighted the lamp that swung on gimbals in the state-room, and then took it from its place, handing it to the skipper.

Wade felt that his hour had come, and it was useless to hope for any thing to turn up in his favor; it was “just his luck,” and he could only make the best of it. But he saw that nothing was to be made by being humble and submissive to a man like Capt. Bendig, who was a brute and a tyrant by nature, though he was doubtless a very good seaman, and was very attentive to his duty. Wade determined to keep a “stiff upper lip,” and he hoped he might interest the passengers in his fate.

With the lamp in his hand, the captain began to stoop down again. He pulled away the garments he had drawn from their resting-place, so that he could see under the berth.

“Is this the coat you want?” asked Wade, tossing the one he had been lying upon out into the room.

[Illustration: “IS THIS THE COAT YOU WANT?” ASKED WADE.--Page 170.]

He had not made up his mind to say just these words when he was discovered; but they came to him, and they answered his purpose as well as any thing else. Capt. Bendig was startled by the voice from this unexpected quarter; and he rose a good deal more hastily than he had stooped, for he was somewhat stiff in his joints. He even retreated towards the door of the cabin. Possibly he believed in ghosts; for he was an ignorant man, and had been at sea all his life. He may have thought it was some departed spirit he had abused in the flesh while he was the mate of a ship, returning to “spook” him for his cruelty. Certainly he was frightened; and Wade was satisfied that his presence had not been suspected, as he thought before, till he spoke. The captain may have expected to find a jug of whiskey which the cook or the steward had concealed there; but he evidently did not calculate upon finding a human being in his particular sanctum.

“What’s under that berth, Pollish?” asked the captain; and his trepidation was apparent in his tones.

“I don’t know, sir,” replied the steward promptly.

“Did you hear a voice?” continued Capt. Bendig.

“I did, sir, very distinctly,” answered Pollish, who seemed to be disturbed by the sound that had come from under the berth. “It must be the Devil. But the Devil wouldn’t hide himself under the captain’s berth on board of the ‘Moonlight.’ He has too many friends on board to put up with any such accommodations.”

Pollish meant that the captain was one of them, but he was not so imprudent as to say so. If the steward had been disturbed by the voice, he was not alarmed.

“Who is stowed away under that berth?” demanded Capt. Bendig, as soon as he realized that the captain of a vessel should not be frightened at any thing.

“I don’t know, sir: I haven’t seen anybody about the yacht but those that belong in her,” replied Pollish, who possibly realized that the blame was to fall upon him for every thing that was wrong.

“Have you or Beafbon hid one of your friends in there? If you have, you will wish you were boarding with the fellow you spoke about just now,” added Capt. Bendig.

“I haven’t any friend to hide; and, if I had, what should I put him in there for, when I could find a better place in the fo’castle?”

“Well, we will soon know who it is,” continued the skipper, approaching the berth again with the light.

“Is this the coat you want?” repeated Wade, as he sprang out into the room.