244 THE JEESEY COAST. 



see ; he pulled away nervously on his pipe, which 

 had gone out, but answered not. 



" Bill's afraid ;" was the tantalizing suggestion. 



"There's Sam," said Bill suddenly ; "he's not afeard 

 of man or devil ; ask him what he saw." 



The person referred to was a large, broad-shoul- 

 dered, pleasant-faced man, with a clear blue eye that 

 looked as though it would not quail easily, and he 

 responded at once : 



" I never saw anything ; but one night when I was 

 coming by the cove where the Johanna was cast 

 away, and where three hundred bodies were picked 

 up and buried, I heard a loud scream. It sounded 

 like a woman's voice, and was repeated three or 

 four times ; but I couldn't find anything, although I 

 spent an hour hunting among the sand-hills, and it 

 was bright moonlight. It may have been some sort 

 of animal, but I don't know exactly what." 



" Bill's adventure happened in the same neighbor- 

 hood, so let's have it," continued the persistent 

 man. 



"As Sam says," commenced Bill, at last, "the 

 Johanna went ashore one awful north-easter in winter 

 about six miles above here, near Old Jackey's tavern ; 

 she broke up before we could do anything for her, 

 and three hundred men, women, and children — for 

 she was an emigrant ship — were washed ashore dur- 

 ing the following week ; most of them had been 

 drifted by the set of the tide into the cove, and they 

 were buried there ; so you see it ain't a nice place of 

 a dark night. 



