“There again!” cried I.
“Was it in English?” said Greaves.
“It was ‘ship ahoy,’ sir, very plain indeed, but thin, more distant than before, I fancy, and still off the larboard bow.”
At this instant there was a great commotion forward; I heard laughter, the cackling of affrighted cocks and hens, followed by a shout in the voice of the boy Jimmy:
“Here’s the chap as has been a-hailing, master.”
A singular noise of the beating of wings approached us, and I discerned the figure of the boy Jimmy, as he stood before us grasping something.
“Shall I wring un’s neck, master?” he cried, with a note of idiotic mirth in his voice.
“What the devil is all this about?” shouted Greaves. “What have you there?”
“The big Chaney cock with the croup, master,” answered the boy.
I burst into a laugh, but a laugh that, perhaps, was not wanting in a little touch of hysteria, so poignant was the feeling of relief after the deep uneasiness of the last quarter of an hour. The men, heedless of the discipline of the vessel, had come pressing aft in the wake of the boy, and forward there continued a wild concert of cocks and hens cackling furiously.