darkness a strange-looking structure, that with its lights seemed bent
upon running them down. They signalled for help, and the grotesque
vessel was hove to.

"What do you want?" asked a gruff voice, to their great delight, in
English. "What are you a haling us for?"

"We are shipwrecked travellers," explained the spokesman of the party;
"and we ask for conveyance to a place of safety."

"A place of safety--sounds like a cab-stand," muttered the other.
"Well, jump in." Thus invited, the shipwrecked travellers entered what
seemed to them to be a welcome harbour of refuge. But they had not
proceeded far when the man who had already spoken to them again
addressed them.

"Come--all of you--turn out--but first pay me," and then he mentioned
a considerable sum of money.

"Have you no mercy?" cried a fair-haired girl, pointing to the white
and rain-drenched locks of her ancient parents.

"Not a bit, Miss," returned the semi-savage, with a hideous grin.

"And who are you, rude man?" she asked, plucking up in her very
despair some spirit. "Are you the Captain?"

"Much the same thing--I am called the Conductor."

"And what is the name of this dreadful conveyance?" again questioned