Page:Quiller-Couch--Old fires and profitable ghosts.djvu/146

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
138
OLD FIRES AND PROFITABLE GHOSTS

other never came to land); and there buried them, two days later, in separate graves, but all close together. The boat being worthless, we sawed it in two just abaft the mast and set the fore-part over the centre grave, which was that of Captain Pedersen, the young man we had carried up with Margit. The mast rotted and fell, some years ago, although carefully stayed: but the boat, with the names painted on it, remains to this day. Also we set up a small wooden cross by each man's grave, with his name upon it. Margit was able, from our description, to plan out the right name for each.

On the third day an interpreter came over from Penzance. Margit could not yet leave her bed: and before he stepped up to question her, I took him aside and showed a small Norwegian Bible we had found in the pocket of the seaman's jacket to which she owed her life. On the first page was some foreign writing which I could not make out. The interpreter translated it: first the names "Margit Hansen to Nils Pedersen": and after them, this strange verse from the Song of Solomon—strange, I mean, to find written in such a place—"Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine."

The interpreter, Mr. Scammel, went upstairs, and she told him her story. "Our vessel," she said (I give it in brief) "was the Margit Pedersen, brig. She belonged to me and was called after me. We were bound for the Tagus with a cargo of salted fish