for something in his breast.

'Is it a Bible you have there?' cried Bartholomew. The captain didn't
answer, but pulled out the thing he was trying for; and we guessed
somehow, for we could hardly see, that it was the greasy pack of
cards.

'Double or quits!' he shouted, 'on all I've staked;' and in another
instant there was one horrid, unearthly screech, like what we heard in
the cabin before, and the mast, as it were, tipped the heel of it, the
cross-trees rising many feet above the water. Whether or no it was the
motion of the waves that had tossed it, no man can say; but when the
mast rolled again with the next sea, the heel came up empty: Captain
Goss and his companion were gone!

'Thank God,' says Old Bartholomew, 'for Jonah is in the sea.' In less
than half an hour, mates, we were tossed ashore, without a bruise or
scratch. We walked the beach till daylight, and then we saw that the
mast had disappeared. None ever saw more a timber or a rope's-end of
the _Lively Nan_. She had been staked and won; but the greasy cards,
mates, lay wet and dank upon the beach, and we left them to wither
there among the sea-weed.


FOOTNOTES:

[1] The smacks used to convey the fish from the traulers to the Thames
are called 'carriers.'