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Table of Contents
Chaper 43
HARK
Hist! Did you hear that
noise, Cabaco? It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were
standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the
waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner, they passed the
buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed
precincts of the quarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their
feet. From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence, only broken
by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steady hum of the unceasingly
advancing keel. It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the
cordon, whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor, a
Cholo, the words above. Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco? Take the
bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean? There it is again --under the
hatches --don't you hear it --a cough--it sounded like a cough. Cough be
damned! Pass along that return bucket. There again --there it is! --it sounds
like two or three sleepers turning over, now! Caramba! have done, shipmate,
will ye? It's the three soaked biscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside
of ye --nothing else. Look to the bucket! ..
2 Say what ye will,
shipmate; I've sharp ears. Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum
of the old Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket;
you're the chap. Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is
somebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I
suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell Flask, one
morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the wind. Tish! the
bucket! ..
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