It was a tropical night. The moon had gone down, but the stars shone clear and lustrous, with a brilliancy unknown to more temperate climes, painting a myriad of silvery lines along the smooth swell of the sleeping ocean. A light breeze was murmuring across the waters, now and then rippling the waves in the starlight, and flapping the reef-points occasionally against the sails. A heavy dew was falling, bringing with it, from the island that lay far up to windward, a thousand spicy odors mingled into one delicious perfume. On the extreme verge of the horizon hung a misty veil, shrouding the sea-board in obscurity. Up to windward the same delicate gauze-like vapor was perceptible, and the position of the island which we had made at twilight, was only to be told from the denser masses of mist, that had gathered in one particular spot on the horizon in that quarter.
It was the morning watch and I was standing, wrapped up in my monkey jacket, looking out dreamingly on the ripples that played under our side in the starlight, when the bluff voice of the boatswain addressed me, at the same time that the old fellow wrung an enormous piece of tobacco from a still larger mass that he held in his brawny hand.
“A still night, Mr. Cavendish,” began Hinton—“it looks as if the old salt-lake was dreaming, and had drawn around her that fog as a sort of curtain to keep herself quiet, as I’ve heard King George and other big folks do when they go to sleep. For my part I’ve no notion of such sort of sleeping, for I’d stifle to death if I had to be wrapt in every night like the Egyptian mummies that I’ve seen up the straits. Give me a hammock for sleeping comfortable like in—I never slept out of one since I went to sea but once, and then I’d as lief have slept head downwards, for I didn’t get a wink all night.”
“You mean to say that you tried to sleep,” said I smiling.
“Exactly—I’m no scollard, and none the worse for that I think. Them as is born to live by head work ought to be sent to ’cademies and colleges and such high places,—but them as have to get a living by their hands had better leave book-larnin’ alone, for—take my word for it—it only ends in making them rascals; and there’s other ways of killing a dog without choking him to death with bread and butter. Them’s my sentiments, and so when I’ve got to speak, instead of skulking about the business in search of big words, like the cook in the galley, I come out at once in the plain style my fathers taught me. The devil fly away with them that can’t speak without shaking in their shoes lest they make a mistake. What’s not to be expected of them can’t be, and big words don’t make an honest man much less a good boatswain—the proof of the pudding is in the chewing,” and the old fellow paused and looked in my face for a reply. He had scarcely done so when he started, looked around and turned as pale as ashes. A low melancholy strain, seeming to pervade the air, and coming now from above and now from some other quarter, could be distinctly heard rising solemnly across the night. The phenomenon baffled even myself, but on Hinton it had an extraordinary effect. Sailors are at all times superstitious, and the bluff boatswain possessed a large share of this faculty. These singular sounds, therefore, appealed to one of the strongest feelings in his bosom. He looked at me doubtingly, turned around on tip-toe, and listened attentively a moment in every direction. His scrutiny did not satisfy him, but rather increased his wonder. There could be no doubt that the sounds existed in reality, for although they died away for a moment now and then, they would almost instantly be heard again, apparently coming from a different quarter of the horizon. The burden of the strain could not indeed be distinguished, but I fancied I could recognize human voices in it, although I was forced to confess that I had never heard from mortal lips such exquisite melody, for as the strain rose and fell across the night, now swelling out clear and full as if sung almost at our ears, and then melting away in the distance until it died off like the faintest breathing of a wind-harp, I was tempted almost to attribute the music to angelic visitants. The old boatswain seemed to assign the sounds to the same cause, for drawing nearer to my side, he ran his eye cautiously and as if in awe, up to the mast-head; and then looked with a blank and puzzled gaze, in which, perhaps, some supernatural fear might be detected, into my face.
My own astonishment, however, was but momentary. Hastily scanning the horizon, I had noticed that the mist in the direction of the island had been, during the fifteen minutes that I had been idly looking over the ship’s side, slowly creeping up towards us, although in every other direction, except down in the extreme distance, the sky was as clear as before. At first moreover my imagination had yielded to the impression that, as the strain died away on the night, it came out again from a different quarter of the horizon; but when, divesting myself of the momentary influence of my fancy, I began to analyze the causes of this phenomenon I became satisfied that the sounds in reality arose out of the bank of clouds, to windward, and the illusion had been produced by the rising and falling of the strain upon the night. When therefore, the old boatswain turned to me with his baffled look, I had made up my mind as to the real causes of that which puzzled the veteran seaman.
“There is a craft up yonder in that fog,” I said, pointing to windward, “and there are women on board, for the voices we hear are too sweet for those of men.”
I said this with a calm smile, which at once dissipated the fear of my companion, for after thinking a moment in silence, the puzzled expression of his face gradually cleared away, and he replied with a low laugh, which I thought, notwithstanding, a little forced.
“You are right—and that’s a reason for book-larnin I never thought of before. Here have I sailed for a matter of forty years or so, and yet I couldn’t exactly come at the cause of them same sounds, when you, who havn’t been ten years on the water,—though you’re a smart sailor, I must say, for your years—can tell at once all about it, just because you’ve had a riggilar eddication. Book-larnin ain’t to be despised arter all,” he continued shaking his head, “even for a boatswain, and, by the blessing of God, I’ll borrow the good book of the parson, to-morrow, and go at it myself; for when I was a youngster I could spell, I calculate, at the rate of a ten knot breeze. But mayhap,” he continued, his thoughts suddenly changing, “that craft up yonder may turn out a fat prize—we could soon overhaul her if the wind would only breeze up a little.”
The wind, however, had now fallen to a dead calm and the sails hung idly from the masts, while the ship rolled with a scarce perceptible motion upon the quiet sea. A current was setting in however, to the island, and we were thus gradually borne nearer to the unseen craft. This soon became evident from the greater distinctness of the sounds, and at length I thought I could distinguish a few of the words sung, which seemed to be those of a Spanish air. As the night advanced the music ceased; but the silence did not long continue. Suddenly a shriek was heard rising fearfully on the air, followed by a strange mixture of noises, as if oaths, groans and entreaties, and even sounds of mortal strife were all mingled in one fearful discord. The shriek was now repeated, with even more fearful vehemence; and then came the report of a pistol across the darkness. Our hearts beat with strange feelings. What nefarious deeds were being done on board the unseen craft? Hitherto the captain, who had strolled on deck to enjoy the music, had said that he should await the dawn, or at least the appearance of a breeze, before overhauling the stranger, but now he came to the determination of ordering out the boats, and learning the cause of those fearful outcries.