It
was the face of the ballad-singer.
The shadow drew nearer to him, with a strange gliding motion. The
shadow lifted a white, transparent hand, and pointed.
To what?
To a tombstone, which glimmered cold and white through the gloom of sky
and waters.
The starlight shone upon the tombstone, and on it the sleeper read this
inscription--"_In memory of Valentine Jernam, aged 33_."
The sailor awoke suddenly with a cry, and, looking up, saw the man they
called Black Milsom sitting on the opposite side of the table, looking
at him earnestly.
"Well, you are a restless sleeper, captain!" said this man: "I dropped
in here just now, thinking to find Dennis Wayman, and I've been looking
on while you finished your nap. I never saw a harder sleeper."
"I had a bad dream," answered Jernam, starting to his feet.
"A bad dream! What about, captain?"
"About your daughter!"
CHAPTER II.
DONE IN THE DARKNESS.
Before Thomas Milsom, otherwise Black Milsom, could express his
surprise, the landlord of the 'Jolly Tar' returned from his business
excursion, and presented himself in the dingy little room, where it was
already beginning to grow dusk.
Milsom told Dennis Wayman how he had discovered the captain sleeping
uneasily, with his head upon the table; and on being pressed a little,
Valentine Jernam told his dream as freely as it was his habit to tell
everything relating to his own affairs.
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