For a long time they had not noticed the sound that puzzled them, and now, in the silence, they remembered it again, and strained their ears to catch it once more. The fog-horn boomed out at regular intervals; only the noises of the rolling brig were also heard.
While they still stood listening, all at once Medbury thought he felt a puff of wind. Yet it was not so much wind as it was a suggestion of wind: it seemed to him that a hand, wet and cold, had been thrust close to his face and then withdrawn. He could not explain the chill that seemed to run through his frame. Then he shook off the feeling, and turned to Captain March.
"Did you feel a puff, sir?" he asked, and held his finger above his head.
"No," replied the captain. "If we get a stir of air, I'll put the canvas on her. I don't want to slat the sails all to pieces, but if we get enough for steerageway, we'll try it. I don't like loafing about in a fog like this with my hands in my pockets."
Then, even while he was speaking, out of the darkness and the fog and the subdued murmurs of the ocean, without other warning than the intangible beat that had mystified them, a long roller came sweeping in, lifted them in its mighty arms, slipped past, and dropped them with a shock that shook the brig, and forced a cry from the lips of every soul aboard.
X
The group on the quarter-deck staggered together in a huddled bunch, then fell apart as Medbury and the captain slipped out and ran forward. Then the brig rose on another swell, and came up bumping, with a snarling sound along the fore-chains.
"It's some barnacled old derelict," Medbury turned to shout to the captain, who was following him with surprising swiftness, but with short, quick strides, like a waddling duck, and breathing heavily. Medbury was on the rail, peering over into the darkness, when the captain reached the fore-rigging. A group of sailors huddled about the rail.