She was called the Pilgrim--of
Bristol."
Peter became excited, and a strange pallor came over his face.
"Why, what's come ower you, Peter?" asked Captain Flett. "D'ye know
the craft?"
"Know her!" said Peter; "I should think I did. She was my own ship.
I sailed in the Pilgrim as second mate for three years, and I
started with her on that same last voyage."
It was now my turn to show surprise.
"Your ship, Peter!" I said.
"Yes," he continued. "We sailed out of Bristol in the month of
February, 1830, bound for Copenhagen, calling at Iceland. But off
the Lewis--or was it Cape Wrath?--I had some o' my bones broken,
and they put me ashore at Kirkwall."
"Yes, she called at Kirkwall," I said. "I saw that on the chart."
"That was just before I joined the Falcon, captain," continued
Peter, turning to Flett. "I mind them all, those dead folk, even to
the dog that Ericson has told us about--a retriever named Bounce.
Our skipper was a Dane named Thomassen, and his wife sailed with us
that voyage. She was as fine a woman as ever I see in Denmark.
Murray was the first mate, and the man Ericson saw through the
porthole can have been none other than Jenkins, the supercargo; he
belonged to Bristol. The only thing that puzzles me is the man that
Ericson saw lying in the captain's room.
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