“Yes. I’ve got enough to give Zangorri a pleasanter reception than he usually gets from a merchant-ship; and my lads are the boys that can use them.”
“I wonder what has become of that other ship that passed me on the island,” said Brandon, after a pause.
“She can’t be very far away from us,” replied the Captain, “and we may come up with her before we get to the Cape.”
A silence followed. Suddenly the Captain’s attention was arrested by something. He raised his hand to his ear and listened very attentively. “Do you hear that?” he asked, quickly.
Brandon arose and walked to where the Captain was. Then both listened. And over the sea there came unmistakable sounds. The regular movement of oars! Oars out on the Indian Ocean! Yet the sound was unmistakable.
“It must be some poor devils that have escaped from shipwreck,” said the Captain, half to himself.
“Well, fire a gun.”
“No,” said the Captain, cautiously, after a pause. “It may be somebody else. Wait a bit.”
So they waited a little while. Suddenly there came a cry of human voices—a volley of guns! Shrieks, yells of defiance, shouts of triumph, howls of rage or of pain, all softened by the distance, and all in their unison sounding appallingly as they were borne through the gloom of the fog.
Instantly every man in the ship bounded to his feet. They had not heard the first sounds, but these they heard, and in that superstition which is natural to the sailor, each man’s first thought was that the noises came from the sky, and so each looked with a stupefied countenance at his neighbor.