Savage storms of sleet and snow are rare, indeed, in Wilmington, North Carolina. But not long after the Civil War a Christmas season came which was long remembered for its icy gales and inclement weather.

Broken branches and signs were strewn everywhere along the deserted streets. Many of the older buildings had been unroofed and torn by the fierce winds. Each day brought news of shipwrecks along the coast from Hatteras to Cape Fear. And every mail brought word of more lives lost at sea.

But the Southport mail boat Wilmington made her daily runs without a break, although there were times when the gale winds would toss her about until her upper rail was almost hidden by foam.

On December 24th there were indications that the weather would change. The Wilmington was due to sail at 5 o’clock and long before the warning whistle blew, a group of passengers bound for Southport boarded the boat with armloads of Christmas parcels. But before the steamer could leave the dock trouble had already begun. The voyage could not be made until a kettle in the engine room was mended. Captain Harper announced to his passengers that it would take at least six hours to repair the damage.

As darkness came the wind and snow increased. All the passengers but one decided to leave for more comfortable quarters on shore. Not averse to some sociability, the captain began to chat with his lone passenger. And soon the stranger began telling of colonial times.

“My great-grandfather was William McMillan of Edinburgh, who enlisted with the Camerons in the Rebellion of ’45 and after the battle of Culloden was compelled to leave his country.

“He was a personal friend of Governor Gabriel Johnston of North Carolina. Johnston had invited him to come and make his home among the Cape Fear Scotsmen already settled in what is now Robeson county. On his way McMillan stopped at Waddell’s Ferry where he became an ardent Whig sympathizer. Many of his countrymen were here at the Ferry and they had never forgiven the British oppression.

“Unfortunately, McMillan and the two Highland Scots who had been marked as doomed men were captured by the cruel Tory Colonel, David Fanning. The Scots were to be put to death for their so-called treason in violating the oath of allegiance to the British crown—an oath reluctantly given which bound them to a hostile sovereign.”

“After several agonizing and fruitless efforts to escape its gloomy hold they were brought to shore, given a mock trial and sentenced by Fanning to immediate execution. The place of execution was near Brunswick. Here the two Highlanders were bound together to a large pine tree.

“A platoon of unwilling soldiers drew up before them and fired. Their quivering, bleeding bodies were then unbound from the tree which it is said still marks the spot where these martyrs to freedom died. Then McMillan was brought forward, held by guards, to meet the same fate. But, an exceptionally powerful man, he struck one of them senseless, broke away from the other and managed to escape into the woods. From there he made his way back to Robeson county.

“The Orton people hold an old tradition that on stormy nights ghosts of the two Scotsmen walk abroad. They have also been seen on their phantom boat in search of rescuers.”

By now the moaning wind and crackling sleet conspired to chill the flow of conversation. Harper had begun to think of the dangerous run ahead of him through the storm. It was almost midnight. But repairs were completed and the boat pulled away from the dock. The night was so thick that even the river lights were obscured. At times the Captain slowly felt his way without a guiding mark while the mate, Peter Jorgenson, kept the lead line going constantly.

“Of all the nights I ever saw this is the worst,” complained Harper. “The snow is coming down faster than ever and I’m afraid we’re off course.” At this moment the wheel refused to budge. “Here’s worse luck still,” he exclaimed, “the rudder chains are jammed.”

“We are out of the channel, sir!” shouted Jorgenson from the deck. “She shoals again!—two fathoms, one, a half one fathom. We’ve hit the lower jetty, sir!” And the ship went crashing over the rotted timbers of the old submerged pier which had not felt a keel in over seventy years.

All hands but Peter Jorgenson sought the comfort of the furnace fires. The mate walked the upper deck restlessly, immersed in the memories of the Christmas season in his own land. A sudden, icy gust of wind broke his reverie. As he turned in his pacing to and fro, he saw the dripping figure of a man leaning against the weather rail. The hair and beard were flecked with snow and the face was distorted with suffering.

“How did you get here? What do you want?” cried Peter, going forward with his hand outstretched to grasp the man. There was no answer. The figure raised a bony arm and pointed out over the water looking like some weird scarecrow of the deep.

“Who are you? Are you mad?” shouted Peter. As he reached out to lay hold of the figure his fingers met nothing but air. Where a man had stood a moment before there was now just the falling snow and darkness.

“I am far from drunk,” declared the mate. “I have not touched a drop. On my word, I have seen a ghost!”

“Now I know you’re drunk!” exclaimed the Captain. “Who ever saw a ghost? McMillan, have you ever seen a ghost?”

“I do not doubt that Mr. Jorgenson has real reason for his alarm,” replied McMillan. “I know of things in my experience beyond the realm of reason. But first let us search for Peter’s ghost.”

The captain agreed and the crew was called up and ordered to search the ship. McMillan joined the party and every corner was closely scrutinized by the light of the safety lamps. There was nothing to be found. Each man was questioned and all denied having seen anything out of the ordinary.

“The night is dark and perhaps you were having a dream,” said the Captain to Jorgenson.

“Does a man having a dream walk in the bitter cold with a lantern in his hand as I was doing then?” demanded Peter. “I stood within a yard of the stranger and I can never forget that fearful face. My lamp shown brightly and illuminated the figure clearly.”

“Well, if ghosts are taking their walks tonight we may see troops of them before we get out of this confounded mess,” said the Captain sarcastically. “How is the tide, Mr. Jorgenson?”

“It has been running up for quite two hours. She is already lifting a little, sir.” In less than an hour more the steamer eased off the old jetty and was on her way again.

Suddenly, attracted by the wheel house lights, a blinded gull came crashing through the glass and fell dying at McMillan’s feet.

“The foul fiend is certainly abroad tonight,” cried the Scotsman, greatly shaken. “This is the worst of all bad omens.”

“Eight years before the Boston Tea Party, of which so much is made, the minute men from Brunswick and Wilmington surrounded Tryon’s Palace and demanded the surrender of the King’s Commissioner. The Boston men disguised themselves as Indians. But Ashe and Waddell scorned such subterfuge and, seizing the British warship’s rowing barge, they placed it on wheels and carried it in a triumphal march to Wilmington.”

He had barely gotten these words out of his mouth when he and the others heard human cries.

“It is some poor castaway,” said the Captain. Reaching for the signal wire, he rang for a full stop. More desperate screams came from the water and brought McMillan from the wheel house with a look of terror on his face.

“On deck!” shouted the Captain.

“Aye, aye, sir!” came the answer from below.

Upon the troubled water, two cable lengths abeam, appeared a boat surrounded by a phosphorescent glow. It was an ancient rowing barge so foul with barnacles and slimy seaweed that Peter Jorgenson thought she must have been afloat a hundred years.

The barge was soon just a cable length away. By now the horrified crew of the Wilmington beheld two gaunt human forms in tattered Highland dress from which emaciated legs emerged. Heavy chains extended from their ankles to their bloody wrists. As the barge with its grotesque occupants drew nearer McMillan saw their worn faces. Their hands were lifted beseechingly.

The Captain stood awe stricken at the sight. But suddenly, his voice trembling, he shouted to the mate, “Stand by and heave those men a line!”

Somehow, Peter made himself obey. At that moment the barge was lifted on a swelling wave which hurled it almost into his arms. Then as he heaved the rope across the rotten hulk, it and its shocking crew were gone!

The men of the Wilmington stood silent and appalled. Without a word the course was laid again. But the ship had hardly resumed her speed when the sound of more shrieks came from the darkness just ahead. The ship was put out half speed as Peter shouted, “Starboard, hard a-starboard, sir; we are running down a wreck!”

The Captain wrenched the helm to one side, narrowly avoiding collision with what proved to be a vessel bottom up. Clinging to it were two exhausted seamen. The crew of the Wilmington helped the wretched men aboard.

As Peter held his lantern to the face of one of the seamen who had fainted on the deck, he cupped both hands around his mouth and shouted excitedly to the Captain.

“This is the man! This is the ghost I saw when we ran aground.”

The skipper and McMillan studied the seaman’s face intently. It was just as Jorgenson had described the face of the ghost—the vanishing stranger.

“How could this be?” exclaimed the Captain.

“His spirit was abroad in search of help,” replied McMillan. “I’ve read and heard of similar phenomena.”

“But how do you explain the phantom of the barge?”

“I dinna ken, I dinna ken,” answered McMillan, lapsing into the Highland manner of speech. He would say no more.

When asked if either of them had seen the Wilmington before, the seaman whom Jorgenson recognized said he had been partly conscious for a time and thought he saw a steamer coming to their aid. But he could not for a moment recall the encounter described by the mate.

The Captain’s eyes met those of McMillan, then turned away.

Between the gloomy depths of the dank South Carolina swamp and the moonlit ribbon of highway walked the solitary figure of a girl. She wore a black hat and a black suit and in her hand she carried a traveling bag.

On each side of the road beyond the shoulder was a steep drop of perhaps twenty feet to a drainage ditch. From the swamp’s watery blackness rose the incessant rasping c...