CHAPTER FIFTEEN.
A GLEAM OF HOPE.
"You one big fool!" Cuffee, the cook, screamed out at hearing Jake's startling announcement, which made us all laugh in spite of our anxiety.
"How can duppy come in de daylight, hey?
You only see yer own black face in water, an' tink um debbil." "Duppy," I may explain, is the negro's common name for what they call a ghost, or anything uncanny.
However, paying no attention to his brother darkey's reasoning as to the impossibility of such a nocturnal visitor appearing under the searching rays of the sun, Jake stoutly maintained his own opinion.
"Dere was sumfin' white dere, I swar," he said, as soon as he had secured his footing on the bulwarks again, well out of the water.

"I see sumfin' white an' cold, an' he grab me by um leg." "That must have been poor Briggs's body floating about in the fo'c's'le," observed Captain Miles.

"I forgot to tell him of it before he dived down.

Hi, Jake," he added speaking out louder, "you needn't be afraid.

I know what it was you saw." "D'ye, massa ?" said Jake somewhat distrustfully, as if only half believing this.