“Look here, Tom, I don’t understand you,” said Murray. “You’re keeping something back. Why are you hesitating? You don’t mind the dark.”
“No, sir; it’s the rustling sounds as I don’t like.”
“Pooh! Rats,” said Murray.
“Nay, nay, sir. I knows what a rat can do in a ship’s hold as well as any one who has been to sea. What I heered arn’t no rats.”
“Birds, then.”
“Tchah, sir! That arn’t no birds.”
“What is it, May, since you seem to know?”
“Some’at oncanny, sir.”
“Uncanny? What can it be uncanny?”
“I dunno, sir. Some’at as arn’t real.”