“Well, as nigh as we can make it out, that very night poor Bill was murdered by that very Malay feller: leastways, his body was found in his boat. He'd been stabbed, and all his money and watch and things taken, and this Malay was gone nobody knew where. That's all that was ever known about it.”
“But surely,” said my chum, who was of a very literal and rationalistic turn of mind, “it couldn't have been his voice you heard: he must have been down to the other end of the Sound, close by New York, by that time.”
“Well,” said the mate, “all I know is, that I was waked out of sleep by Bill's voice calling my name, screaming in a real agony. It went through me like lightning; and then I find he was murdered that night. Now, I don't know any thing about it. I know I heard him calling me; I know he was murdered: but how it was, or what it was, or why it was, I don't know.”
“These 'ere college boys can tell ye,” said the captain. “Of course, they've got into sophomore year, and there ain't nothing in heaven or earth that they don't know.”
“No,” said I, “I say with Hamlet, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.'”
“Well,” said my chum, with the air of a philosopher, “what shakes my faith in all supernatural stories is, that I can't see any use or purpose in them.”
“Wal, if there couldn't nothin' happen nor be except what you could see a use in, there wouldn't much happen nor be,” quoth the captain.
A laugh went round at the expense of my friend.
“Wal, now, I 'll tell ye what, boys,” piped the thin voice of the deacon, “folks mustn't be too presumptuous: there is providences permitted that we don't see no use in; but they do happen,—yes, they do. Now, what Jim Larned's been a-tell-in' is a good deal like what happened to me once, when I was up to Umbagog, in the lumberin' business.”
“Halloo!” called out Jim, “here's the deacon's story! I told you every man had one.—Give it to us, deacon! Speak out, and don't be bashful!”