“Oh, here you are, sir!” he exclaimed in accents of evident relief. “I was just upon the p’int of goin’ down to ask ye to come on deck again.”
“Indeed,” said I. “Have there been any fresh developments, then, during the two or three minutes that I have been below?”
“Well, I dunno know much about ‘developments’, Mr Troubridge,” replied the boatswain; “but turn your ear to wind’ard, sir, and tell me if you hears anything at all out of the common.”
“Why?” I demanded. “Do you hear anything in particular?” And, as requested, I turned my head in a listening attitude.
Even during my brief absence from the deck the sky away to the eastward had paled perceptibly, and there was already light enough abroad to enable one not only to distinguish all the principal details of the ship’s hull and rigging, but also to render visible the heaving surface of the sea for the distance of perhaps a couple of cable’s lengths, which was as far as the eye could penetrate the still somewhat misty atmosphere. As I glanced outboard my attention was instantly arrested by the short, choppy tumble of the water, and its colour, which was a pale, chalky blue.
“Why, Polson,” I exclaimed, “what has happened to the sea during the night? Look at the colour of it! And—hark!—surely that cannot be the sound of broken water?”
“So you’ve catched it, Mr Troubridge, have ye, sir?” the man replied. “Well, you hadn’t scarcely got down off the poop just now afore I thought I heard some’at o’ the sort, but I couldn’t be sure. And what you told us last night about them there shoals that’s supposed to be somewheres ahead of us have been stickin’ in my mind all night and makin’ me— Ah! did ye hear that, sir?” he broke off suddenly.
Again the peculiar “shaling” sound, as of water breaking over some deeply submerged obstruction, came floating down to me from to windward!
“Yes, Polson, I certainly thought I did,” answered I in a state of considerable alarm; “and, to tell you the honest truth, I don’t half like it any more than I do the movement and colour of the water. Let them get the hand lead and take a cast of it.”
“Ay, ay, Mr Troubridge, I will. That’s the proper thing to do,” responded the boatswain, as he bustled away down on to the main deck and wended his way forward to bring up the lead-line.