A smile played over the faces of the men. But again the voice sang:
| “Fifteen men on the dead man’s chest, Yo—ho—ho, and a bottle of rum. Fifteen men and the dark and damp, My men ’tis better to shun.” |
Again came a rattle. A puzzled expression passed over Johnny’s face. The same song was repeated over and over till the record was finished.
A hoarse laugh came from one corner. It died half finished. No one joined in the laugh. There was something uncanny about this record which had drifted in from nowhere with its song of pirate days and of death. Especially did it appear so, coming at such a time as this.
“Well, what do you make of it?” Johnny smiled queerly.
“It’s a spirit message!” exclaimed Jarvis, “I read as ’ow Sir Oliver Lodge ’as got messages from ’is departed ones through the medium of a slate. ’Oo’s to say spirits can’t talk on them wax records as well. It’s a message, a warnin’ to us in this ’ere day of death.”
Smiles followed but no laughing. In a land such as this, every man’s opinion is respected.
“More likely some whaler made a few private records of his own singing and gave this one to the natives,” suggested Dave Tower. “They’d take it for something to eat, but, when they tried boiling it and had no success, they’d throw it away. That’s probably what’s happened and here we have the record.”
“Anyway,” said the doctor, “if he’s a sailor, you’ll have to admit he had a very fine voice.”
There the matter was dropped. But Johnny took it up again before he slept. He could not help feeling that this was sent as a warning not from the spirit world, but from some living person. Who that person might be, he had no sort of notion. And the message gave no clue. He repeated it slowly to himself.