THE WINTER NIGHT 379 



up about Dutchman's Island, or Amsterdam Island, that 

 Andreas Bek and I were on shore and got in among 

 all the graves. We thought we'd like to see what was 

 in them, so we broke up some of the coffins, and there 

 they lay. Some of them had still flesh on their jaws and 

 noses, and some of them still had their caps on their 

 heads. Andreas, he was a devil of a fellow, you see, 

 and he broke up the coffins and got hold of the skulls, 

 and rolled them about here and there. Some of them 

 he set up for targets and shot at. Then he wanted to 

 see if there was marrow left in their bones, so he took 

 and broke a thigh - bone — and, sure enough, there was 

 marrow; he took and picked it out with a wooden pin.' 



" ' How could he do a thing like that ?' 



'"Oh, it was only a Dutchman, you know. But he 

 had a bad dream that night, had Andreas. All the dead 

 men came to fetch him, and he ran from them and got 

 right out on the bowsprit, and there he sat and yelled, 

 while the dead men stood on the forecastle. And 

 the one with his broken thigh-bone in his hand was 

 foremost, and he came crawling out, and wanted 

 Andreas to put it together again. But just then he 

 wakened. We were lying in the same berth, you see, 

 Andreas and me, and I sat up in the berth and laughed, 

 listening to him yelling. I wouldn't waken him, not I. 

 I thought it was fun to hear him getting paid out a little.' 



"Tt was bad of you, Peter, to have any part in that 

 horrid plundering of dead bodies.' 



