A low whistle was heard on board. They were impressed, “Why should he tell us this?” an undertone inquired.
“Why the devil shouldn’t he? It’s no great news, is it? Some scoundrelly trick. This man’s up to any dodge. Why, the ‘Jane’ was taken in broad day by two boats that pretended they were going to sell vegetables.”
“Look out, or by heavens you’ll be taken by surprise. There’s a lot of them,” I said as impressively as I could.
“Look out, look out. There’s a lot of them,” someone yelled in a sort of panic.
“Oh, that’s your game,” Sebright’s voice said to me. “Frighten us, eh? Never you mind what this skunk says, men. Stand fast. We shall take a lot of killing.” He was answered by a sort of pugnacious uproar, a clash of cutlasses and laughter, as if at some joke.
“That’s right, boys; mind and send them away with clean faces, you gunners. Jack, you keep a good lookout for that poor distressed Englishman. What’s that? a noise in the fog? Stand by. Now then, cook!...”
“All ready to dish up, sir,” a voice answered him.
It was like a sort of madness. Were they thinking of eating? Even at that the English talk made my heart expand—the homeliness of it. I seemed to know all their voices, as if I had talked to each man before. It brought back memories, like the voices of friends.
But there was the strange irrelevancy, levity, the enmity—the irrational, baffling nature of the anguishing conversation, as if with the unapproachable men we meet in nightmares.
We in the dinghy, as well as those on board, were listening anxiously. A profound silence reigned for a time.