A MYSTERIOUS VOICE.
This was an incident to give one a deal to think and talk about.
Certainly little imaginable could be stranger than that we, being in
chase of a fore-and-aft schooner yacht, should fall in with a vessel so
resembling the object of our pursuit as to deceive the sight of men who
professed to know the ‘Shark’ well. I should have been glad to ask the
Dutchman about his craft, yet it was a matter of no moment whatever.
The thing had happened, it was passing strange, and there was an end.
Likely enough she was an English vessel purchased for some opulent
trader in the island of Curaçoa, and on her way to that possession in
charge of the porpoise who had honoured us with a visit. The incident
signified only as a disappointment. All dinner time I had been fretting
over it, for since sunrise I had been thinking of the vessel ahead as
the ‘Shark’; counted, in a sort of unreasoning, mechanical, silent way,
upon capturing Lady Monson out of her, which, of course, would mean a
shift of helm for us, and home again.
Wilfrid bore the blow better than I had dared to expect. He made a good
dinner, for which he had the excuse of having fasted since breakfast,
and broke into a noisy roar of laughter out of the air of gloomy
resentment with which he had arrived from his cabin on my describing
the Dutchman, and repeating his questions and my answers. In short,
his weak mind came to his rescue. With the schooner had vanished an
inspiration of thought that had served his intellect as an anchor to
ride by. His imagination was now fluent again, loose, draining here and
there like water on the decks of a rolling ship; and though he spoke
with vehement bitterness of his disappointment, and with indignation
and rage even of Finn’s ignorance in pursuing a stranger throughout the
day, he dwelt very briefly at a time on the subject. Indeed, his talk
was just an aimless stride from one thing to another. If he recurred
to the Dutch schooner, it was as if by mere chance; and, though the
subject would blacken his mood, in a very short while he had passed
on to other matters with a cleared face. Miss Laura afterwards said
to me that the strain of the day had been too great for him, and that
when the tension was relaxed the strings of the instrument of his mind
dropped into slack fibres, out of which his reason could fiddle but
very little music. Well, I could have wished it thus for everybody’s
sake. Better as it was than that he should have shrunk away scowling
and hugging a dark mantle of madness to him, and exaggerated the
abominably uncomfortable behaviour I had witnessed in him all day.
He arrived on deck after dinner to smoke a cigar, and whilst I sat
with Miss Jennings--for it was a quiet night after the stormy blowing
of the day, with a tropic tenderness of temperature in the sweet
gushing of the southerly wind, the curl of moon gone, and the large
stars trembling through the film of their own radiance like dew-drops
in gossamer--I could hear my cousin chatting briskly near the wheel
with Finn with intonations of voice that curiously proclaimed the
variableness of his moods to the ear, sometimes speaking with heat,
sometimes in a note of sullen expostulation, sometimes surprising the
attention with a loud ha, ha! that came floating back again to the deck
in echoes out of the silent canvas, whilst Finn’s deep sea-note rumbled
a running commentary as the baronet talked.
‘What do you think of this chase now?’ said I to Miss Laura.
‘I wish it were over,’ she answered. ‘I want to see my sister rescued
from the wretch she has run away with, Mr. Monson; but this sort of
approaching her recovery is dreadful.’
‘It is worse than dreadful,’ said I; ‘it is tedious with the threat
of a neat little tragical complication by-and-bye--any day indeed--if
Wilfrid doesn’t stow that gun in his hold or heave it overboard. The
Dutchman might very well have answered our shot had he mounted a piece
or two or driven alongside and plied us, as they used to say, with
small arms. Now one isn’t here for _that_ sort of thing, Miss Jennings.’
‘No. Is there no way of losing the cannon?’
I laughed. ‘If Wilfrid will reserve his fire until he is sure of the
“Shark” instead of blazing away at the first craft that resembles her,
the weapon might yet prove something to usefully serve his turn; for
I doubt if anything will hinder the Colonel from cracking on when he
catches sight of us, short of iron messages from the forecastle there.
But we shall not meet with the “Shark” this side the Cape, if _there_.’
‘I fear it will prove a long voyage,’ said she, with the sparkle of the
starlight in her eyes.
‘You will be glad to return?’
‘Not without my sister.’
‘But shall you be willing, Miss Jennings, supposing us to arrive at
Cape Town without falling in with the “Shark,” to persevere in this
very singular and unpromising sea quest?’
‘I will remain with Wilfrid certainly,’ she answered quietly. ‘My duty
is to help him in this search, and where he goes I shall go.’
‘But he will be acting cruelly to carry you on from the Cape unless
able to certainly tell where to find the fugitives, fixing the date too
for that matter.’
‘I see you will leave us at the Cape, Mr. Monson,’ she exclaimed with
an accent that could only come from the movement of the lips in a smile.
‘Not unless I prevail upon you to accompany me home,’ said I.
She shook her head lightly, but made no answer. Perhaps it was her
silence that rendered me sensible of the unpremeditated significance of
my speech. ‘Well,’ said I, lighting a second cigar, ‘whilst you feel it
your duty to stick to my cousin I shall feel it mine to stick to you.
Not likely I should leave you alone with him. No.’
At that instant the harsh, surly voice of old Jacob Crimp hailed the
skipper, who still stood aft talking with Wilfrid. All was in darkness
forward; it was hard upon two bells; the canvas rose as elusive to
the eye in its wanness as a dim light in windy gloom far out at sea,
and the shadow of it plunged a dye as opaque as blindness into the
obscurity from the mainmast to the forecastle rail, where the stars
were sliding up and down like a dance of fire-flies to the quiet lift
and fall of the close-hauled yacht upon the invisible folds brimming to
her port bow.
‘Capt’n,’ sung out Crimp’s melodious voice--plaintive as the notes of
a knife upon a revolving grindstone--from the heart of the murkiness
somewhere near the galley.
‘Hallo!’ answered Finn.
‘Can I speak a word with ye?’
‘Who is it wants me?’
‘The mate.’
‘Tell him to come aft,’ Wilfrid bawled out. ‘If there’s anything wrong
I must know it. Step aft, Crimp, step aft, d’ye hear?’ he cried.
Old Jacob’s stunted figure came out of the darkness and walked along to
where Finn stood.
‘What is the matter, I wonder?’ said Miss Laura.
I cocked my ear, for there is something in a hail of this sort at sea
on a dark night to put an alertness into one’s instincts and nerves.
Besides, there was no sounder snorer on board than old Jacob, and his
merely coming up on deck during his watch below, though he should have
stood mute as a ghost, was something to raise a little uneasy sense
of expectation. His voice rumbled, but I could not hear what he said.
Wilfrid shouted ‘_What_ d’ye say?’ with an expression of astonishment
and incredulity. Finn laughed in a sneering way, whilst old Jacob again
rumbled out with some sentence. Then my cousin bawled out, ‘Charles,
Charles, come here, will you?’
‘What the deuce is the matter _now_?’ said I, and Miss Laura followed
me as I went over to the group.
‘Here’s a nice pickle we’re in, Charles,’ cried Wilfrid. ‘What think
you? Crimp swears the yacht’s haunted.’
‘So she be,’ said Crimp.
‘Pity your mother didn’t sell vinegar, Jacob, that you might have
stayed at home to bottle it off,’ exclaimed Finn. ‘Haunted! That may do
for the marines, but you won’t get the sailors to believe it.’
‘That’s jist what they do then,’ remarked Crimp. ‘All the watch below
have heard it, and can’t sleep in consequence.’
‘Heard what?’ I asked.
‘The woice,’ answered Jacob, ‘the same as you and me heard t’other
night.’
‘Have _you_ heard a voice, Charles?’ exclaimed Wilfrid, suddenly
fetching a deep breath.
‘A mere fancy,’ said I.
‘Ye didn’t like it anyhow,’ said Crimp gruffly, as though speaking
aside.
‘For God’s sake, tell me about this voice, Charles,’ cried Wilfrid,
agitated all on a sudden and restless as a dog-vane, with the twitching
of his figure and the shifting of his weight from one leg to another.
I related the incident, making light of it, and tried to persuade him
that the mere circumstance of my having said nothing about it proved
that I regarded it as a deceit of the hearing.
‘Did you know of this, Laura?’ said Wilfrid.
‘As a joke only,’ she answered.
‘A joke,’ cried he, breathing deep again. ‘The voice sounded off the
sea, hey? and two of you heard it? What did it say?’ and I could see
him by the starlight looking towards the starboard quarter in the
direction whence the syllables had floated to us. ‘What did it say?’ he
repeated.
‘Why, that this here yacht was cussed,’ rattled out Jacob defiantly,
‘and dum me if I don’t think she be now that the blooming corpse
belonging to the wreck is a-jawing and a-threatening of all hands down
in the forepeak.’
‘What is this man talking about?’ I exclaimed, believing that he must
either be drunk or cracked.
‘He’s come aft to tell us, Mr. Monson,’ answered Finn, ‘that he and
others of the watch below have been disturbed by a woice in the hold
saying that there’s a ghost aboard, and that the only way to get rid of
him is to sail straight away home and end this woyage which, saving the
lady’s presence, it calls blarsted nonsense.’
I observed old Jacob’s head vigorously nodding.
‘_You’ve_ heard the voice, too, Charles?’ said Wilfrid, flitting in
short, agitated strides to and fro beside us.
‘Mr. Monson heard it twice,’ growled Jacob, ‘off the wreck as well as
off the quarter.’
‘Speak when you’re spoken to,’ cried Finn. ‘Why, spit me, Mr. Monson,
if it ain’t old Jacob’s grandmother as has signed on instead of Crimp
himself.’
‘Look here,’ said Crimp, ‘let them what disbelieves step forrards and
listen themselves.’
‘Charles, inquire into this matter with Finn, will you?’ exclaimed
Wilfrid. ‘I--I--’ he stopped and passed his hand through Miss Jennings’
arm, immediately afterwards saying with a short, nervous laugh, ‘the
sound of a supernatural voice would cost me a night’s rest.’
‘Come along, Finn,’ said I. ‘Come along, Crimp. If there be a ghost,
as our friend here says, he must promptly be laid by the heels and
despatched to the Red Sea.’
‘What did ’ee want to go and tell Sir Wilfrid about that woice you and
Mr. Monson heard t’other night?’ grumbled Finn, as we moved forwards
into the darkness towards the forehatch.
‘Cause it’s true,’ answered Crimp in his sullenest manner. ‘’Sides,
it’s time to end this here galliwanting ramble, seems to me, if we’re
going to be talked to and cursed by sperrits.’
Finn made no answer. We arrived at the forehatch and descended. The
‘Bride’s’ forecastle was a large one for a vessel of her size. On
either hand abaft was a small cabin partially bulk-headed off from
the sailors’ sleeping-room, respectively occupied by Jacob Crimp and
Cutbill. Whether the mate ate with the captain, whose berth was just
forward of the one that had been occupied by Muffin, with access by
means of a sliding door to a small living room through which he could
pass into the forecastle, I cannot say. It was a rough scene to light
upon, after the elegance, glitter, and rich dyes of the fittings of our
quarters aft, but the more picturesque for that quality as I found it
now, at least on viewing the homely and coarse interior by the light
of a small oil lamp of the shape of a block-tin coffee-pot with a
greasy sort of flame coming out of the spout, and burning darkly into a
corkscrew of smoke that wound hot and ill-flavoured to the upper deck.
There were bunks for the seamen and two or three hammocks slung right
forward; suits of oilskins hung by nails against the stanchions, and
swung to the motion of the vessel like the bodies of suicides swayed by
the wind. The deck was encumbered by sea-chests cleated or otherwise
secured. Here and there glimmering through the twilight in a bunk I
took notice of a little framed picture, a pipe rack, with other odds
and ends, trifling home memorials, and the artless conveniences with
which poor Jack equips himself. There were seamen lying in their beds,
a vision of leathery noses forking up out of a hedge of whisker, with
bright wide-awake eyes that made one think of glow-worms in a bird’s
nest; other equally hairy-faced figures in drawers and with naked feet,
huge bare arms dark with moss and prickings in ink, sat with their legs
over the edge of their bunks. It was with difficulty that I controlled
my gravity when on casting a hurried glance round the forecastle on
entering it my gaze lighted on the visage of Muffin, whose yellowness
in the dull lamplight showed with the spectral hue of ashes. His bunk
was well forward; his bare legs hung from the edge like a couple of
broomsticks: his hands were clasped; his head slightly on one side;
his posture one of alarm, amid which, however, there still lurked a
native quality of valet-like sleekness with a suggestion of respectful
apology for feeling nervous. Sweet as the ‘Bride’ was, no doubt, as a
pleasure vessel compared with other craft of those times, the odour of
this interior, improved as it was by the flaring snuff of the lamp,
not to mention a decidedly warm night, was by no means of the most
delicious. Added to this was the lift and fall of the yacht’s bows
which one felt here so strongly, that, coming fresh from the tender
heavings of the after-deck, you would have imagined a lively head sea
had sprung up on a sudden. That Muffin should have stood it astonished
me. Sleeping as he did, right in the ‘eyes,’ he got the very full of
the motion. Besides, such an atmosphere as this must needs prove the
severer as a hardship after the luminous and flower-sweetened air of
the cabin. Finn took a leisurely survey of the occupants of the bunks.
‘Well, lads!’ said he, ‘what’s the meaning of this here talk about a
woice? Mr. Crimp’s just come aft to tell me there’s somewhat a-speaking
under foot here.’
‘That’s right, sir,’ remarked Cutbill, who stood bolt upright like a
sentry in the entrance to his little berth. ‘I beg your pardon, Mr.
Monson, sir, but it’s nigh hand the same sort o’ speech as hailed us
from the wreck.’
‘’Tis the _same_!’ said a deep voice from one of the bunks.
‘Rats!’ quoth Finn contemptuously.
‘Never yet met with the rat as could damn a man’s eyes in English,’
grunted Crimp.
‘Nor in any other lingo, Mr. Crimp,’ said a singular-looking seaman,
whose face I had before taken notice of as resembling the skin of an
over-ripe lemon. He lay on the small of his back blinking at us, and
his countenance in that light, that was rendered confusing by the
sliding of shadows to the swing of the yacht, made one think of a melon
half buried in a blanket.
‘Well, but see here, my lads,’ exclaimed Finn in a voice of
expostulation, ‘what did this here woice say? _That’s_ what I want to
know. What did it _say_, men?’
‘I told ’ee,’ growled Crimp.
But old Jacob’s interpretation did not tally with that of the others.
The sailors were generally agreed that the voice had exclaimed in
effect that the yacht was cursed, and that their business was to make
haste and sail her home; but some had apparently heard more than
others, whilst a few again manifestly embellished, with a notion,
perhaps, of making the most of it; but there could be no question
whatever that human syllables, very plainly articulated, had sounded
from out of the hold; all hands were agreed as to _that_, and proof
conclusive as to the sincerity of the men might have been found in the
looks of them, one and all.
‘Silence, now!’ cried Finn; ‘let’s listen.’
We all strained our ears. Nothing broke the silence but the sulky wash
of the sea outside, seething dully, the half-stifled respirations of
the sailors, who found it difficult to control their hurricane lungs,
and the familiar creaking noises breaking out in various parts of the
fabric to her swayings. Impressed as I was by the agreement amongst
the men--and I had come besides to this forecastle with the memory
very fresh in me of the mysterious voices I had before heard--I could
scarcely hold my face as I stood listening, with my eye glancing from
one hairy countenance to another. The variety of the Jacks’ postures,
the knowing cock of a head here and there, the unwinking stare, the
strained hearkening attitude, the illustration of superstitious
emotions by expressions which were rendered grotesque by the swing
of the lamp, the half-suffocated looks of some of the fellows who
were trying to draw their breaths softly, formed a picture to appeal
irresistibly to one’s sense of the ridiculous.
Three minutes passed, it might have been hours, so long the time seemed.
‘Seems it’s done jawing, whatever it is,’ said Finn.
We listened again.
‘Tell ’ee it’s rats, lads,’ said Finn.
‘As the cuss was meant for this ’ere craft,’ exclaimed the deep voice
that had before spoken, ‘perhaps if her owner was to come below, the
sperrit, if so be it’s _that_, ’ud tarn to and talk out again.’
‘Tell ’ee, it’s rats!’ cried Finn scornfully.
‘Rats!’ exclaimed Crimp, with great irritation, ‘if that’s all why
don’t Sir Wilfrid lay forrard and listen for hisself?’
‘Won’t he come?’ said one of the men.
‘Come! no,’ rattled out Crimp, ‘and why? ’Cause he knows it’s the
truth.’
‘Well,’ exclaimed Cutbill, ‘speaking with all proper respect, seems
to me that what’s meat for the dawg ought to be meat for the man in
the likes of such a humble-come-tumble out of the maintop into the
main-hold sort o’ job as this.’
There was now some grumbling. Crimp had enabled the men to guess that
Wilfrid was afraid to enter the forecastle, and sundry sarcasms, with a
mutinous touch in them, passed from bunk to bunk.
‘Avast!’ roared Finn; ‘listen if he’ll speak now.’
But no sound resembling a human syllable entered the stillness.
‘It’s rats, I tell ’ee,’ shouted the skipper, making to go on deck.
‘Come along, Mr. Monson. Blamed now if I believe that Jacob _is_ the
only grandmother as has signed articles for this here woyage.’
But as I followed him the exclamations I caught determined me on
advising Wilfrid to come forward. He had left Miss Jennings standing
alone at the rail, and was walking swiftly here and there with an
irritability of gesture that was a sure symptom in him of a troubled
and active imagination. On catching sight of me as I emerged out of the
blind shadow on the forward part of the yacht, he cried out eagerly,
‘Well, what have you heard? Is it a voice, Charles?’
‘There is nothing to hear,’ I answered. ‘Finn disrespectfully calls it
rats.’
‘What else, your honour?’ exclaimed Finn, ‘the squeaking of rats ain’t
unlike a sort o’ language. Put the noise they make along with the
straining of bulkheads and the like of such sounds and let the boiling
be listened to by a parcel of ignorant sailors, and I allow ye’ll get
what might be tarmed a supernatural woice.’
Wilfrid burst into one of his great laughs, but immediately after
said in a grave and hollow tone, ‘But you, Charles, have before heard
something preternatural in the shape of a hail off yonder quarter, and
from the dead man you found on the wreck.’
‘Fancy, mere fancy,’ I said. ‘Gracious mercy! am I making this voyage
to carry home with me a belief in ghosts? But I wish you’d go into
the forecastle with Finn, Wilfrid, and listen for yourself. Make your
mind easy: there’s nothing to be heard. A visit from you will pacify
the men. They hold that you admit the truth of what they allege by
declining to satisfy yourself by listening. Their temper is not of the
sweetest. They should be soothed, I think, when it is to be so easily
done.’
He hung in the wind and said in a hesitating way, ‘What do you think,
Finn?’
‘Well, Sir Wilfrid, since, as Mr. Monson says, there’s nothen to hear
and nothen therefore to cause ye any agitation, I dorn’t doubt that a
wisit from you would please the sailors and calm down their minds. I’m
bound to say they’re oneasy--yes, I’m bound to say that.’
‘Come, then,’ cried my cousin, and he strided impetuously into the
darkness, followed by the skipper.
I gave Miss Laura my arm and we started on a little walk. The awning
was furled and the dew everywhere sparkled like hoar frost. The quiet
night wind sighed in the rigging, and the yacht, a point or two off her
course, and every sheet flat aft, softly broke through the black quiet
waters with dull puffs of phosphor at times sneaking by like the eyes
of secret shapes risen close to the surface to survey us. The sheen of
the binnacle light touched a portion of the figure of the fellow at the
wheel, and threw him and a segment of the circle whose spokes he held,
out upon the clear, fine, spangled dusk in phantasmal yellow outlines,
dim as the impression left on the retina by an object when the eyelid
is closed upon it.
My fair companion and I talked of the incidents of the day. One thing
was following another rapidly, I said. ’Twas like a magic-lantern show;
scarcely had one picture faded out when something fresh was brightening
in its room.
‘What manner of sound could it be,’ she asked, ‘that the sailors have
interpreted into cursings and dreadful warnings?’
‘It was no fancy on _my_ part anyway,’ said I, ‘let me put what face
I will on it to Wilfrid. If what the men profess to hear be half as
distinct as what _I_ heard, there must be some kind of sorcery at work,
I’ll swear.’
I led her to the starboard quarter, where I had stood with Crimp, and
repeated the story. The darkness gave my recital of the incident the
complexion it wanted; a tremor passed through her hand into my arm. It
was enough to make a very nightmare of the gloom, warm as it was with
the dew-laden southerly breathing, and delicate too with the small fine
light trembled into it by the stars, to think of a hail sounding out of
it from a phantasm as shapeless as any dye of gloom upon the canvas of
the night. Ten minutes passed; I then discerned the figures of Wilfrid
and Finn coming aft. My cousin’s deep breathing was audible when he was
still at a distance.
‘Well, what news?’ I called cheerily.
Wilfrid drew close and exclaimed, ‘It is true. I have heard it.’
‘Ha!’ said I, turning upon Finn.
‘By all that is blue, then, Mr. Monson, sir,’ exclaimed the worthy
fellow, ‘there _is_ somewhat a-talking below.’
‘What does it say?’ asked Miss Jennings, showing herself all on a
sudden thoroughly frightened.
‘What I heard,’ said Wilfrid in his most raven note, ‘was this, “_The
yacht is cursed. Sail her home! Sail her home!_”’
‘’Twas as plain, Mr. Monson, as his honour’s own voice,’ said Finn, in
a profoundly despondent way.
‘D’ye think, Finn,’ said I, ‘that it is a trick played off upon the
crew by some skylarking son of a gun forward?’
His head wagged against the stars. ‘I wish I could believe it, sir.
The woice was under foot. There’s nobody belonging to the ship there.
There’s no man a-missing. ’Sides, ’tain’t a human woice. Never could
ha’ believed it.’ He pulled out his pocket-handkerchief and polished
his brow.
‘Well,’ I exclaimed, ‘so long as the thing, whatever it be, keeps
forward--the deuce of it is, I’ve heard such sounds myself twice.
It can’t be fancy, then. Yet, confound it all, Wilf, there can be
nothing supernatural about it either. What is it? Shall I explore the
yacht forward? Give me a lantern, and I’ll overhaul her to my own
satisfaction anyway.’
‘You may set us on fire,’ said Wilfrid; ‘let the matter rest for
to-night. To-morrow, Finn, you can rummage the yacht.’ He started
violently: ‘_What_ can it be, though? Are we veritably haunted by the
ghost of the Portuguese?’ He tried to laugh, but the dryness of the
utterance seemed to half choke him.
‘Well, let us wait for daylight, as you say,’ cried I.
‘I am going below for some seltzer and brandy,’ said Wilfrid. ‘Finn,
you may tell the steward to give the men a glass of grog apiece.
What can it be?’ he muttered, and his long figure then flitted to the
companion, through which he vanished.
It was evident the thing had not yet had time to work in him. He was
more astonished than terrified, but I guessed that superstition would
soon be active in him, and that there was a bad night before him of
feverish imaginings and restless wandering. I could not have guessed
how frightened Miss Jennings was until I conducted her below, shortly
after Wilfrid had left the deck, where I was able to observe her scared
white face, the bewildered expression in her eyes, and a dryness of her
cherry under-lip, that kept her biting upon it. Her maid shared her
berth, and I was mighty thankful to feel that the sweet creature had
a companion. Indeed, had she been alone, one might have wagered she
would not have gone to bed that night. My cousin drank freely, but for
all that a gloom of spirits settled upon him as slowly and surely as
a fog thickens out the atmosphere and darkens down upon the view. He
talked with heat and excitement of the strange voice at the first going
off, but after a little he grew morose, absent-minded, with symptoms
of temper that made me extremely weary, and I fetched a breath with
a positive sigh of relief when he abruptly rose, bade us brusquely
good-night, and went, in long, melodramatic strides, to his cabin.
I did my best to inspirit Miss Jennings, but I was not very successful.
It may be that I was more half-hearted in my manner of going to work
than I was conscious of. It never could come to my telling her more
than that we might be quite sure, if we could only solve the mystery of
the sounds which had frightened all hands forward, and aft, too, for
the matter of that, we should be heartily ashamed of our fears in the
face of the abject commonplace of the disclosure. She shook her head.
‘It might be as you say,’ she said; ‘but if this strange voice
continues to be heard, indeed should it not speak again and yet
remain unriddled, what shall we think? I am frightened, I own it. I
do not believe in spirits, Mr. Monson, in haunting shadows, and other
inventions of old nurses; but I cannot forget that _you_ have heard
such a voice as this twice--you who are so--so----’
‘Stupid,’ said I.
‘Matter of fact, Mr. Monson.’
But talking about the thing was not going to help her nerves. She went
to bed at ten o’clock, and feeling too sleepy for a yarn with Finn I
withdrew to my cabin. I found myself a bit restless, however, when I
came to put my head upon the pillow, and would catch myself listening,
and sometimes I fancied I could hear a faint sound as of a person
talking in a low voice. Then it was I would curse myself for a fool
and turn angrily in my bed. Yet for all that, I would fall a-listening
again. It was quiet weather still, as it had been since sundown. In the
blackness of my cabin I could see a bright star sliding up and down the
ebony of the glass of the scuttle, with a pause at intervals, when it
would beam steadfastly and intelligently upon me as though it were a
human eye. Now and again the water went away from the side in a stifled
sob. I could have prayed for such another squall as I have described
to burst upon us for the life that would come to the spirit out of the
lightning flash, the roar of thunder, the shriek of wind, the fierce
blow of the black surge, and the tempestuous hiss of its dissolving
spume. I cudgelled my wits for a solution of the voice, but to no
purpose. It was ridiculous to suppose that a man lay hidden below. For
what sailor of the crew but would not be quickly missed? And then again
I had but to consider, to understand what I had not thought of on deck,
I mean that even if a pair of hurricane lungs were secreted in the
hold it was scarce conceivable that their utmost volume of sound could
penetrate through the thick, well-caulked planking of the forecastle
deck.
At last I fell asleep.