“Well,” said Dick, the narrator, in a quiet subdued voice, “why don’t one of you go and fetch a light? Come, jump up, Bill, you topped it out.”
“Ay, ay,” replied Bill, evidently shaking; “where’s the candle?”
“Here,” said one of the boys, handing it to him.
“Well, then, jump up yourself you young whelp, you’re younger than me.”
“I didn’t put it out,” replied the boy, whining.
“Up immediately, or I’ll break every rib in your body,” replied Bill.
The boy, who was terribly frightened, got up at this threat, and began to ascend the ladder; he was about three steps up, when we heard from the deck a horrible miaw! The boy gave a scream of terror, and fell down on his back among us all, smashing the glass and flattening the tin cans against the men’s legs, who halloed with pain. At last there was a dead silence again, and I could plainly hear the loud throbbing of more than one heart.
“Come,” said Dick again, “what was the fool frightened about? Look for the candle, some of you.”
At last Bill found it in his breast, broke in two and half melted away, and was proceeding for a light when the carpenter stepped to the hatch with his lantern, and said, “Why, you’re all in the dark there, shipmates! Here, take my lantern.”
I may as well here observe that the carpenter had been listening to the story as he sat by the hatchway on deck, and it was he who had favoured us with the miaw which had so frightened the boy. As soon as the lantern had been received and the candle relighted, Dick re-commenced.