WACOUSTA;
or
THE PROPHECY.

Volume Three of Three




CHAPTER I.

The night passed away without further event on board the
schooner, yet in all the anxiety that might be supposed
incident to men so perilously situated. Habits of long-since
acquired superstition, too powerful to be easily shaken
off, moreover contributed to the dejection of the mariners,
among whom there were not wanting those who believed the
silent steersman was in reality what their comrade had
represented,--an immaterial being, sent from the world
of spirits to warn them of some impending evil. What
principally gave weight to this impression were the
repeated asseverations of Fuller, during the sleepless
night passed by all on deck, that what he had seen was
no other, could be no other, than a ghost! exhibiting in
its hueless, fleshless cheek, the well-known lineaments
of one who was supposed to be no more: and, if the story
of their comrade had needed confirmation among men in
whom faith in, rather than love for, the marvellous was
a constitutional ingredient, the terrible effect that
seemed to have been produced on Captain de Haldimar by