"
"Never!" returned Barnstable, with a long breath, that announced all his
apprehensions were removed; "he will be more likely to believe it a
mermaid fanning herself this cool evening, than to suspect the real
fact. What say you, Master Coffin? will the soldier smell the truth?"
"They're a dumb race," said the cockswain, casting his eyes over his
shoulders, to ascertain that none of their own marine guard was near
him; "now, there was our sergeant, who ought to know something, seeing
that he has been afloat these four years, maintained, dead in the face
and eyes of what every man, who has ever doubled Good Hope, knows to be
true, that there was no such vessel to be fallen in with in them seas,
as the Flying Dutchman! and then, again, when I told him that he was a
'know-nothing,' and asked him if the Dutchman was a more unlikely thing
than that there should be places where the inhabitants split the year
into two watches, and had day for six months, and night the rest of the
time, the greenhorn laughed in my face, and I do believe he would have
told me I lied, but for one thing."
"And what might that be?" asked Barnstable, gravely.
"Why, sir," returned Tom, stretching his bony fingers, as he surveyed
his broad palm, by the little light that remained, "though I am a
peaceable man, I can be roused."
"And you have seen the Flying Dutchman?"
"I never doubled the east cape; though I can find my way through Le
Maire in the darkest night that ever fell from the heavens; but I have
seen them that have seen her, and spoken her, too.
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