“Phew!” he ejaculated, forgetting all about the tarpaulin in the sensation of wonder evoked by the strangeness of the effluvium—“what in the world doth this mean? Dost catch it, Dyer?”
“Catch what?” demanded Dyer, also rising to his feet. “Phew!” he continued, as the smell struck his nostrils—“Catch it? That do I, with a murrain on it! Now, what doth this portend? There’s no land nearer to us than our treasure island, and it cometh not thence, I dare swear, the smell’s too strong for that; indeed I’d say that it cometh from close alongside—and maybe it doth, too; the smell’s not unlike to stinking fish, yet there be something else to it beside. And it ’tis a dead fish, cap’n, then all I can say is that it’s a mighty big one. Maybe ’tis a dead whale, yet I don’t exactly think it. I’ve passed to leeward of a dead whale, wi’ a cloud o’ gulls and what not feedin’ upon un, and the smell was different from this; just so strong, but different, and if my memory sarves me—even wuss. And if ’twas a whale, the gulls’d be swarmin’ about un, fillin’ the air wi’ their cries, but I don’t hear a sound. And, as to seein’—well, I wish ’twould come on to lighten a bit, then us might—”
“Aft there!” came a hail at this moment from the fore deck. “Do ’e happen to smell anything strange in the air, sir?”
“Ay, ay, we do,” answered George; “the odour is strong enough, goodness knows. Who is it who is hailing?”
“Drew, the bo’s’un, sir,” came the answer, with a sharpness in it which effectually prevented its recognition by the two officers upon the poop. There was a note of alarm in the voice, and it was apparent that the men who had been endeavouring to sleep had risen to their feet and were excitedly discussing the phenomenon, for a low murmur of many voices came floating aft from the forecastle.
“Light a lantern, Drew,” ordered George, “bend it on to a rope’s end, and sling it overside. Maybe the light will show us something.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” floated back the answer, with that faint, elusive suggestion of sadness in its tone which seems to characterise the human voice when heard in the midst of the lonely ocean on a night of darkness and calm. There followed a slight scuffling of feet, another subdued murmur of voices, a pause of a few moments, then the sharp clink of flint and steel, a tiny spark of light, and finally the mellow glow of a ship’s lighted lantern.
“Sling it over the bows, to start with,” ordered George, “and then, if you can see nothing, walk slowly aft with it.”
Another “Ay, ay,” was quickly followed by the disappearance of the lantern over the fore extremity of the topgallant forecastle, and then in the faint upward sheen from the lamp the dimly illuminated outline of the boatswain’s face and form appeared, his outstretched right hand grasping the line to which the lantern was attached, while his left held the spare coil. His eyeballs gleamed as his gaze went out searching to its utmost confines the small space of illuminated water, apparently without result, for he presently began to move slowly aft, pausing for a short space of time in the foot of the fore-rigging, outside which he passed. Then, as he paused and the light grew steady, the two men on the poop caught wavering glimpses of a long line of very faintly lighted figures leaning over the larboard rail, from the after extremity of the forecastle to the fore end of the poop, all eagerly scanning the gleaming, oil-like surface of the water, while here and there one pointed as though he believed he saw something. But although both George and Dyer were straining their eyesight to the utmost they could find nothing to reward their search, nay, even although at that moment a flicker of sheet-lightning gleamed for an instant along the north-western horizon. But the ship was at that moment swung with her head to the south-west, consequently the lightning was on the wrong side of her to afford any assistance. Moreover, it was no sooner come than it was gone again, yet not so soon but that George, and perhaps half a dozen others, raising their heads at the momentary illumination of the sky, saw, suspended overhead, an enormous mass of black, impending cloud, with jagged, ragged edges so wonderfully suggesting rent and tottering rocks about to fall upon and crush the ship and all in her, that quite involuntarily he uttered a low cry and cringed as though to escape an expected blow. And at that precise moment, as the young captain cowered and crouched, he felt a slight movement in the stagnant air about him, very much as though a great wing had swept immediately over his head so close that it had all but touched him, indeed he believed that it—whatever it might have been—had actually touched him, for unless his imagination had begun to play tricks with him he could have sworn that he felt the cap on his head move as though it had been grazed by some passing object.
“What was that?” he gasped, starting back from the rail over which he had been leaning, and flinging up his hand to his head. “Dyer, did you see or feel anything?”