Sometimes when the weather was stormy
they remained out all night. Occasionally, but only on stormy and dark
nights, they stayed on shore, and then they went hunting on the moors,
whence the cry of their hounds was often heard in the midnight hours.
[Illustration: ROCKY COAST NEAR LAND'S END.]
At length the mysterious stranger died and was buried, the coffin being
carried to the grave followed by the servant and the dogs. As soon as
the grave was filled in with earth the servant and the dogs suddenly
disappeared, and were never heard of again, while at the same time the
boat vanished from the cove.
Since this episode a ghostly vessel had occasionally appeared in the
night, floating through the midnight air from the direction of the
sea--a black, square-rigged, single-masted barque, sometimes with a
small boat, at other times without, but with no crew visible. The
apparition appeared on the sea about nightfall, and sailed through the
breakers that foamed over the dangerous rocks that fringed the shore,
gliding over the sands and through the mist that covered the "Bottoms,"
and proceeding in awful silence and mystery to the pirate's grave, where
it immediately disappeared; and it is an ill omen to those who see that
ghostly vessel, the sight of which forebodes misfortune!
It was near St.
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