"Bill," he said, "did you ever hear that noise before?"
"Ony once, massa."
"When was that, Bill?"
"When you trow my—"
"Hold your tongue, you black scoundrel, or I'll break every bone in your body!" roared his master, cutting off the boy's sentence in the middle.
The boy was going to say:
"When you trow'd my fadder into the sea."
The captain now examined every portion of the cavern, to see if he could discover anything that could account for the production of the strange sound.
In every part he tried his voice, to see if he could produce those remarkable echoes, which had so startled him, on the previous night, but without success.
The walls, in various parts of the cavern, gave back echoes, but nothing like those of the previous night.