II
"D'ye hear, Ben? D'ye hear?"
Ben woke up with a start and rubbed his eyes.
"Did you speak, quartermaster?"
"Speak? Lor' bless you, lad, I've been a-speakin' this half-hour past. What in thunder's all that noise? Listen! I've heard it ever since daybreak. I can't make it out nohow."
Ben sat up and listened. A prolonged half-roaring, half-musical sound filled the air from without.
"It do sound queer, don't it?" he said. "I wonder what 'tis?"
"Best tumble up and find out," advised the quartermaster. "I'd say 'twas birds if it wasn't so loud. Birds couldn't make all that row."
Ben pulled on his boots and went up to the forecastle deck. The sight and sounds that met him were such as he had never before encountered in all his three years' voyaging.
