"Ah, there's old Jack o' lantern!" he answered composedly.  "Not a bad sign either.  A gale seldom lasts long after he has come.  Look at him, he is rather playful to-night."  He was indeed.  Sometimes the light would ascend and then descend the masts, then run along the yards, and waiting a little at each yard-arm, would be back again and slip down one of the stays to the fore-mast, and mount up in a second to the fore-topmast head.  Sometimes, when the ship rolled very much, the mast-head would leave it floating in the air, but as she rolled back again it would quickly re-attach itself.  More than once it got divided into several parts, as it flew about the rigging, but was very speedily re-united again.  Cousin Silas laughed when I told him that I thought it might do us some injury.