John Conroy Hutcheson

“ The other night you imagined the reflection of our own vessel, when that meteor came by, to be a ghost-ship, as you call it in your absurd folly; and to-night, when that craft to win’rd passed and lit a flare-up, hanged if you aren’t at it again with your ghost-ship! By George, it makes me sick, Masters, to think that a grown man and a good seaman like yourself should be such a confounded ass! ”

“ I did not notice all that when she burnt the flare-up just now. The light only lasted an instant.”
“There is something in that, certainly, Haldane,” answered the skipper, wavering a little, I thought, in his ideas. “Still, when one is inclined to believe in a thing, the imagination is often a great aid in turning a wish into a certainty.” ”

“ Old Masters turned his face towards me as the fleeting vision became swallowed up in the darkness that now obscured the sky to the westwards, and I saw that he looked horror-struck, staring into space spell-bound. ”