Marshall County independent. (Plymouth, Marshall County, Ind.) 1897-1902, 1899-03-03

Still the idea of the two dead men
with their pale faces and Enclosed eyes,
would come before me again and again,
and could have groaned but for dread
Of some similar response that might
make my heart wither up and my
flesh creep. And creep it soon did,
for, just as this horrid idea of an over
strained fancy fOstered by magma
ton and fashioned out of the silence
and darkness. became strongest within
me, what We're my emotions-how
painful the throbbing Of my heart-on
behciding a strange. green, CHASTITY
light glimmering about. and playing
within each of the side berths.
While shrinking into d corner of
the cabin. with eyeballs straining. |
gazed at them alternately with a spe-
cies Of hOrrid fascination. The two
lights were weird. wavering and pale;
they seemed to me as two warnings
from the land of spirits. for they play
ed upon the curtain and in the recess
of each berth, port and starboard in
which dead man had been found.
And while these lights shone, there
came upon my ear the palpable sound
OF heavy breathing and snorting. az
from the oppressed chest Of some one,
close by me.
Il placed my hands upon my eyes
and on my ears to shut out these hor-
rid lights and sounds; but when l
looked again the former had diseap
peared, and all was opaque darkness.
On putting forth my hand to rise,
cry Of uncomfortable terror escaped
me-a yell that rang in wild echoes
through the silent polacca-when my
fingers came in contact with something
icy. and then a cold, clammy, and wet
head of hair.
Then TWO glistening eyes seemed to
peer and to glare into mine.
In horror and bewilderment. and
followed by something, l knew not
what. sprang up the companion, and,
half fainting, reached the deck of the
pOlacca. Then | turned to find that
the object which had excited so much
dismay wGs no other than my poor dog
Hector, which had swan off 60 the brig
III pursuit or me.
The eyes that in the dark seemed TO
glare into mine. were his; the icy OBJ
ject, from which my fingers shrank,
was his honest black nose; and what
seemed wet head of hair, was his
own curly front; while the lights-the
mysterious lambent liGhts-that had
flicekered about the dead mems berths,
proved to be nothing more than the
green beacon on the prOmontOry OF
Santa Cruz, which snone at times
through the two stern windows OF the
polacca.
Being moored with the chain cable
ahead and MANILA warp from her
port quarter TO a buoy astern. she
swung TO and fro a little with the
ebb and flow of the tide: hence the
oscillation which caused the moving
CLEANS that terrified me-
Ha. ha.' said |, on descending in
10 the cabin wiser and a more
sleepy man, scared by my own dog
Hector. | have been as great gull
as ever touched salt water
A fortnight afterwards | shipped
with old Jack Hislop as second mate.
and the fifteenth day saw us running
before a smart tOpgallant breeze into
the Gulf of Florida bound with a car
go of rum, sugar and molasses for tho
Clyde.
so that is my ghost yarn. It con-
yeys a moral. does it not? Or
der them to strike the bell forward
Hislop, call the watch: see how her
head bears. and les us turn in"
(To be continued)