“What do you mean?”
“I dunno, sir, and I ’spects—”
“Suspect what? Why, Tom, you don’t mean to tell me that a great strong sailor like you fancies that the place is haunted?”
“Oh no, sir, I don’t go so far as to say that,” said the man.
“Then what do you mean?”
“That’s what I can’t exackly tell you, sir. All I knows is that as soon as I got my head and shoulders well up among them bamboos there was a roosh as if half-a-dozen people was a-comin’ at me, and then some one whispered something to the others, and they whispered back. It was jest for all the world, sir, as if some one said ‘Hist! It ain’t him,’ and t’others whispered back and that settled ’em into going on talking together oneasy like; and then I come down.”
“Without making out what it was, Tom,” said Murray, laughing softly.
“Nay, sir; I seemed to know right enough; and it arn’t nothing to laugh at.”
“What is it, then, Tom?”
“Why, sir, I don’t go for to say as it is, but it sounded to me like oneasy slaves as had met their ends aboard some o’ they slaving craft, and couldn’t rest.”