Most of the book is taken up with a story about the plight of the British members of a small garrison, during the Indian Mutiny.The second story is about half as long, and is a well-written and extremely plausible story about a house owned by an old gentleman, where there is a collection of gold plate said to be an “incubus”, that is, the subject of a curse. The third story is about a couple of smugglers who get trapped in a”gowt”,– an exit to the sea from one of the great land-drains ofEastern England, constructed by the great Dutch engineer Vandermuydenin the seventeenth century.The last story is about a new and well-found ship that nearlyfounders in an Atlantic storm. The captain takesto the bottle, and command is passed to a junior officer.