"Whereaway is he?"
"I can't see him—can you?"
"There—he has just sunk in the trough—no! it was not he."
"Hillo!"
"Hil-hil-loa!"
While these cries were following each other, the skipper himself came on deck, and springing on the tafferel cast a rapid glance around the horizon. I thought his eye had lighted on me, for, unlike the rest, he turned to windward; but, after a hasty glance in the right direction, he, too, looked off to leeward. How my heart sunk within me! Was I to perish, and within hearing too, in consequence of this mistake of my messmates? I raised my voice and shouted. I could still hear the answers.
"Ahoy!—aho-o-y!"
"There—that was his voice certainly—can't you see him yet?"
"Ahoy!—ahoy!—aho-o-y!" I repeated, straining my lungs to the utmost.
"Hillo!" replied the stentorian voice of the skipper, the words struggling faintly against the wind.