,
at least upon minds disposed to believe in such things.
    Now, we had one of these sea-prophets aboard; an old, yellow-haired fellow,
who always wore a rude seal-skin cap of his own make, and carried his tobacco in
a large pouch made of the same stuff. Van, as we called him, was a quiet,
inoffensive man to look at, and, among such a set, his occasional peculiarities
had hitherto passed for nothing. At this time, however, he came out with a
prediction, which was none the less remarkable from its absolute fulfilment,
though not exactly in the spirit in which it was given out.
    The night of the burial he laid his hand on the old horseshoe nailed as a
charm to the fore-mast, and solemnly told us that, in less than three weeks, not
one quarter of our number would remain aboard the ship - by that time they would
have left her for ever.
    Some laughed; Flash Jack called him an old fool; but among the men generally
it produced a marked effect. For several days a degree of quiet reigned among
us, and allusions of such a kind were made to recent events, as could be
attributed to no other cause than the Finn's omen.
    For my own part, what had lately come to pass was not without its influence.
It forcibly brought to mind our really critical condition. Doctor Long Ghost,
too, frequently revealed his apprehensions, and once assured me that he would
give much to be safely landed upon any island around us.
    Where we were exactly no one but the mate seemed to know, nor whither we
were going. The captain - a mere cipher - was an invalid in his cabin; to say
nothing more of so many of his men languishing in the forecastle.
    Our keeping the sea under these circumstances, a matter strange enough at
first, now seemed wholly unwarranted; and added to all was the thought that our
fate was absolutely in the hand of the reckless Jermin. Were anything to happen
to him, we would be left without a navigator, for, according to Jermin himself,
he had, from the commencement of the voyage, always kept the ship's reckoning,
the captain's nautical knowledge being insufficient.
    But considerations like these, strange as it may seem, seldom or never
occurred to the crew. They were alive only to superstitious fears; and when, in
apparent contradiction to the Finn's prophecy, the sick men rallied a little,
they began to recover their former spirits, and the recollection