The Silken Shawl

After a series of lean years, the men of Newlyn took to piracy to earn a living.  They forced all their victims to walk the plank.  Aboard one of the ships they attacked was the captain’s wife, who was wearing a beautiful silken shawl.  One of the pirates snatched it from her just as she fell overboard, and he took it home to his wife, who knew nothing of his piracy.

The next Sunday she was admiring the shawl in her mirror, when she saw reflected in the glass the pale and tragic face of the drowned woman, pointing at her shawl.  The pirate’s wife was so terrified by the apparition that she went quite mad and died soon afterwards.  No one knows what became of the silken shawl….