“East-south-east, sir,” responded the man at the wheel.
“We’re homeward bound,” said the captain laughing; “the old girl wants to get back again.”
He walked away from the group, and stood near the wheel, gazing aloft and around. The passengers continued talking and laughing, their voices sounding unreal when listened to at a distance, and with the great, desolate, silent sea breathing around. The sails flapped lazily aloft, and the wheel-chains clanked from time to time as the vessel rose and fell. Mrs. Tennent came on deck, the captain joined her, and they walked up and down. On the other side of the deck paced the second mate. Forward were the dark shadows of some of the hands upon the forecastle, smoking pipes and talking in low voices.
The night had fallen darkly; there was no moon, but the stars were large and brilliant, and glittered in flakes of white light in the sea. Presently a fiddle was played in the forecastle, and a voice sang a mournful tune that sounded weirdly in the gloom, and with a muffled note. The air and voice were not without sweetness, but there was the melancholy in it which many songs popular among sailors have, and the wailing cadence was helped out by the ghostly sails rearing their glimmering spaces, and the subdued plash of the water about the bows, as the ship sank into the hollows of the swell.
Mrs. Tennent stopped, with the captain, at the poop-rail to listen.
“What odd music!” cried Mrs. Ashton. “It sounds as if some one were playing out in the sea there.”
“Let’s have the fiddler here,” said Mr. Holland. “I like to enlarge my mind by observation, and have never yet heard a real Jack Tar sing.”
“Oh yes! oh yes!” exclaimed Mrs. Ashton, while Mr. St. Aubyn called out, “I’ll go and fetch him.”
“Better stop where you are, sir,” said the skipper, drily; “the forecastle’s a dangerous hold for landsmen to put their heads into. Mr. Thompson,” he called to the second mate, “just go and send that fiddler aft here.”
Presently came the man, followed at a respectful distance by a crowd of his mates, who drew to the capstan on the quarterdeck, and waited for what was to follow.