Within the next half-hour or so the heavens, which had previously been bright with myriads of stars overhead, became obscured with a thick darkness, while the slight land breeze slowly died away.
Then, a hoarse, rumbling sound was heard under the sea, and the ship was violently heaved up and down in a sort of quick, violent rocking motion, unlike any thing I had ever felt, even in the heaviest storm.
“An airthquake, I guess,” said Captain Snaggs, nonchalantly; “thet is, if thaar’s sich a thing ez an airthquake at sea!”
He sniggered over this joke; but, just then, I heard the same strange, weird music, like Sam’s banjo, played gently in the distance, similarly to what we heard before the burst of the storm off Cape Horn.
“Lord, save us!” cried the captain, in hoarse accents of terror. “Thaar it air agen!”
Even as he spoke, however, the ship seemed to be lifted aloft on a huge rolling wave, that came up astern of us without breaking; and, then, after being carried forwards with wonderful swiftness, she was hurled bodily on the shore of some unknown land near, whose outlines we could not distinguish through the impenetrable darkness that now surrounded us like a veil.
We knew we were ashore, however, for we could feel a harsh, grating noise under the vessel’s keel.
Still, beyond and above this noise, I seemed yet to hear the wild, sad chaunt that haunted us.
There was a light hung in the galley, and I looked in again to see if the negro’s banjo was in its accustomed place, so as to judge whether the sound was due to my imagination or not.
Holding up the lantern, I flashed its light across the roof of the galley.