Once more arose that awful cry. It was as a shriek of unutterable despair and agony; faint, but easily to be distinguished when the lull came between one roller and another.
"What is it?"
Baptiste himself turned white at the sound. "I know not; it makes one's blood run cold. See, they too have heard it."
The Spaniards came up.
"Oh, sir!" cried El Toro, his voice indistinct with terror, "let us make sail at once and leave behind us this horrible place. Hark! that cry again! It is as the shrieks of the doomed in hell. That island is the abode of evil spirits who are mocking us."
"We cannot set sail in a flat calm. We must wait," said Carew, in a low voice.
They stood on the deck and listened in silence. For half an hour or more those appalling cries continued; then they died away, and nothing was heard but the roaring of the ocean upon an iron-bound coast.