steady and strong. One by one, mates, we got astride of the mast, and
lashed ourselves with odds and ends of broken rope; and then we began,
as we rose and fell on the sea, to look about and muster how many we
were. The crew, including the captain, was seven hands, but we were
sure there were eight men sitting on the mast. It was too dark to see
faces; but you could see the dark figures clinging to the spar.

'Answer to your names, mates,' says Bartholomew, who somehow took the
lead. And so he called over the list till he came to the captain.

'Captain Goss?'

'Here,' says the captain's voice.

We now knew there was somebody behind him who was not one of the crew.
It was too dark, however, to see distinctly, and Goss interrupted our
view such as it was.

'Who is the man on the end of the mast, Captain Goss?' says
Bartholomew.

'You might be old enough to guess that!' replied the captain, and his
voice was husky-like, but quite clear; and it never trembled. 'Some
men call him one thing, some another; and we of the sea call him Davy
Jones.'

Mates, at that we clustered up together as well as we could, and
fixing our eyes on what was passing at the other end of the mast, we
hardly attended to the seas that broke over and over us. At last, we
saw Captain Goss, by the light of the beds of bursting foam, fumbling