true, that the bare sight of those candlesticks
in the hands of this good company set me
in a tremble, and made last night, a night's
bad dream instead of a night's good sleep. The
fact of the matter is—and I give you leave,
ladies and gentlemen, to laugh at it as much as
you please that the ghost which haunted me
last night, which has haunted me off and on for
many years past, and which will go on haunting
me till I am a ghost myself (and consequently
spirit-proof in all respects), is, nothing more or
less than—a bedroom candlestick.

Yes, a bedroom candlestick and candle, or a
flat candlestick and candle — put it which way you
like — that is what haunts me. I wish it was
something pleasanter and more out of the
common way; a beautiful lady, or a mine of gold
and silver, or a cellar of wine and a coach and
horses, and such-like. But, being what it is,
I must take it for what it is, and make the best
of it — and I shall thank you all kindly if you
will help me out by doing the same.

I am not a scholar myself; but I make bold
to believe that the haunting of any man, with
anything under the sun, begins with the frightening
of him. At any rate, the haunting of me
with a bedroom candlestick and candle began
with the frightening of me with a bedroom
candlestick and candle — the frightening of me half
out of my life, ladies and gentlemen; and, for the
time being, the frightening of me altogether out
of my wits. That is not a very pleasant thing to
confess to you all, before stating the particulars;
but perhaps you will be the readier to believe
that I am not a downright coward, because you
find me bold enough to make a clean breast of it
already, to my own great disadvantage, so far.

These are the particulars, as well as I can
put them.

I was apprenticed to the sea when I was
about as tall as my own walking-stick; and I
made good enough use of my time to be fit for
a mate's berth at the age of twenty-five years.

It was in the year eighteen hundred and
eighteen, or nineteen, I am not quite certain
which, that I reached the before-mentioned age
of twenty-five. You will please to excuse my
memory not being very good for dates, names,
numbers, places, and such-like. No fear,
though, about the particulars I have
undertaken to tell you of; I have got them all
ship-shape in my recollection; I can see them,
at this moment, as clear as noonday in my
own mind. But there is a mist over what
went before, and, for the matter of that, a mist
likewise over much that came after—and it's
not very likely to lift, at my time of life, is it?

Well, in eighteen hundred and eighteen, or
nineteen, when there was peace in our part of
the world—and not before it was wanted, you
will say—there was fighting, of a certain
scampering, scrambling kind, going on in that old
fighting ground, which we seafaring men know
by the name of the Spanish Main. The possessions
that belonged to the Spaniards in South America
had broken into open mutiny and declared for
themselves years before. There was plenty of
bloodshed between the new government and
the old ; but the new had got the best of it, for
the most part, under one General Bolivar— a
famous man in his time, though he seems to
have dropped out of people's memories now.
Englishmen and Irishmen with a turn for fighting,
and nothing particular to do at home, joined
the general as volunteers ; and some of our
merchants here found it a good venture to send
supplies across the ocean to the popular side.
There was risk enough, of course, in doing this ;
but where one speculation of the kind succeeded,
it made up for two, at the least, that failed. And
that's the true principle of trade, wherever I
have met with it, all the world over.

Among the Englishmen who were concerned
in this Spanish-American business, I, your
humble servant, happened, in a small way, to be
one. I was then mate of a brig belonging to
a certain firm in the City, which drove a sort of
general trade, mostly in queer out-of-the-way
places, as far from home as possible; and which
freighted the brig, in the year I am speaking of,
with a cargo of gunpowder for General Bolivar
and his volunteers. Nobody knew anything
about our instructions, when we sailed, except
the captain; and he didn't half seem to like
them. I can't rightly say how many barrels of
powder we had on board, or how much each
barrel held — I only know we had no other cargo.
The name of the brig was The Good Intent — a
queer name enough, you will tell me, for a
vessel laden with gunpowder, and sent to help
a revolution. And as far as this particular
voyage was concerned, so it was. I meant that
for a joke, ladies and gentlemen, and I'm sorry
to find you don't laugh at it.

The Good Intent was the craziest old tub of
a vessel I ever went to sea in, and the worst
found in all respects. She was two hundred
and thirty, or two hundred and eighty tons burden,
I forget which; and she had a crew of eight, all
told—nothing like as many as we ought by
rights to have had to work the brig. However,
we were well and honestly paid our wages; and
we had to set that against the chance of foundering
at sea, and, on this occasion, likewise, the
chance of being blown up into the bargain. In
consideration of the nature of our cargo, we were
harassed with new regulations which we didn't
at all like, relative to smoking our pipes and
lighting our lanterns; and, as usual in such
cases, the captain who made the regulations
preached what he didn't practise. Not a man
of us was allowed to have a bit of lighted candle
in his hand when he went below — except the
skipper; and he used his light, when he turned
in, or when he looked over his charts on the
cabin table, just as usual. This light was a
common kitchen candle or "dip," of the sort
that goes eight or ten to the pound; and it
stood in an old battered flat candlestick, with all
the japan worn and melted off, and all the tin
showing through. It would have been more
seamanlike and suitable in every respect if he
had had a lamp or a lantern; but he stuck to
his old candlestick; and that same old candlestick,