Still no reply but this dismal moaning “Oh!” a piteous appeal in its way, which made Mark shudder.
“I’ll try again,” said the first-mate. “Here, hi! Where are you?”
He paused, and they all listened. He shouted again and again, but with no result, and turning to the second-mate he said:
“The poor wretch is insensible, I’m afraid.”
“Yes, he seems beyond answering. Where do you make him out to be?”
“That’s what I can’t make out,” said the first-mate. “It’s just as if he were practising ventriloquism. Sometimes it sounds to the right and sometimes to the left.”
“Yes, that’s how it strikes me,” said the second-mate. “Listen, youngster. Here: silence there on deck!”
A pin fall might have been heard the next moment, and the silence was broken by the low piteous moan.
“It seems down here at one time, and then more forward there,” said Mark.
“Yes, it does now,” said the first-mate. “Here, Billy Widgeon, Small, you come and try.”