I joined the _Mortzestus_ in 'Frisco. I heard before I signed on, that
there were some funny yarns floating round about her; but I was pretty
nearly on the beach, and too jolly anxious to get away, to worry about
trifles. Besides, by all accounts, she was right enough so far as grub
and treatment went. When I asked fellows to give it a name, they
generally could not. All they could tell me, was that she was unlucky,
and made thundering long passages, and had no more than a fair share of
dirty weather. Also, that she had twice had the sticks blown out of her,
and her cargo shifted. Besides all these, a heap of other things that
might happen to any packet, and would not be comfortable to run into.
Still, they were the ordinary things, and I was willing enough to risk
them, to get home. All the same, if I had been given the chance, I
should have shipped in some other vessel as a matter of preference.

When I took my bag down, I found that they had signed on the rest of the
crowd. You see, the "home lot" cleared out when they got into 'Frisco,
that is, all except one young fellow, a cockney, who had stuck by the
ship in port. He told me afterwards, when I got to know him, that he
intended to draw a pay-day out of her, whether any one else did, or not.

The first night I was in her, I found that it was common talk among the
other fellows, that there was something queer about the ship. They spoke
of her as if it were an accepted fact that she was haunted; yet they all
treated the matter as a joke; all, that is, except the young cockney--
Williams--who, instead of laughing at their jests on the subject, seemed
to take the whole matter seriously.

This made me rather curious. I began to wonder whether there was, after
all, some truth underlying the vague stories I had heard; and I took the
first opportunity to ask him whether he had any reasons for believing