“Oh, they’re quiet enough, sir. That cask o’ water settled ’em.”
“But are they not too quiet, Tom? I mean there is no danger of their suffering from the hatch being closed?”
“Now look here, Mr Vandean, sir; ’scuse me, but you’re too easy and soft over ’em. I don’t say they’re comfortable, for I wouldn’t like to sleep down there without having the hatch opened, but the air they’ve got’s quite good enough for such as them.”
“But you said they were very quiet, and it is startling.”
“As I told you afore, sir, they won’t die without hollering; so make your mind easy, and go below, and have something to eat. I’ve had some coffee made, and it’s all ready. Sort o’ breakfast upside down. Go and eat and drink well, and then you’ll feel ready for anything, sir.”
“Yes. I’ll go forward, though, first.”
Mark smiled and felt brightened directly as a low murmured chorus of sound arose from the blacks, the men showing their teeth and the women smiling at him.
He stopped by the forecastle hatch, and listened, but there was not a sound to be heard, and feeling startled, in spite of Tom Fillot’s words, he cautiously approached the ventilator, and listened there.
The silence was ominous, and a chill of horror came over him as he turned his eyes upon his companion, while his active brain pictured before him the bottom of the forecastle, with a party of suffocated men lying one over the other, just as they had fallen in their last struggle for air.
Tom smiled encouragement, but an angry frown made the lad’s brow look rugged, and he was about to give orders for the hatch to be removed, when there was a yawn, and a smothered voice said,—