We held our breath: all was still. Some sound had fallen upon my ear. It resembled the slapping of planks with naked feet to my fancy, that had been terrified by Abraham's sudden horrible report, before there was time for my muscles and nerves to harden into full waking strength.
'What d'ye hear?' hoarsely whispered Abraham.
'It was imagination. Helga, can we light the lantern?'
She answered 'Yes'—she was ready.
'Strike a match, Abraham, that I may see where the lantern hangs!' said I.
He did so, holding the flame in his fist. I opened the door, whipped out, took down the lantern and darted in again, bolting the door anew with a thrill of fear following upon the haste I had made through imagination of one of those yellow-skins crouching outside with naked knife in hand. I swiftly lighted the lantern, and placed it in Helga's bunk. Abraham was of an ashen paleness, and I knew my own cheeks to be bloodless.
'Ought we to fear the crew?' cried Helga. 'We have not wronged them. They will not want our lives.'
'Dorn't trust 'em, dorn't trust 'em!' exclaimed Abraham. 'Ain't there nothen here to sarve as weapons?' he added, rolling his eyes around the cabin.
'What is the story? Tell it now, man, tell it!' I cried, in a voice vehement with nerves.
He answered, speaking low, very hastily and hoarsely: 'Oi'd gone below at eight bells. Oi found Nakier haranguing some of the men as was in the fok'sle; but he broke off when he see me. Oi smoked a pipe, and then tarned in and slep' for an hour or so; then awoke and spied five or six of the chaps a-whispering together up in a corner of the fok'sle. They often looked moy way, but there worn't loight enough to let 'em know that my eyes was open, and I lay secretly a-watching 'em, smelling mischief. Then a couple of 'em went on deck, and the rest lay down. Nothen happened for some time. Meanwhile Oi lay woide awake, listening and watching. 'Twas about seven bells, Oi reckon, when someone—Oi think it was Nakier—calls softly down through the hatch, and instantly all the fellows, who as I could ha' swore was sound asleep, dropped from their hammocks like one man, and the fok'sle was empty. I looked round to make sure that it were empty, then sneaks up and looks aft with my chin no higher than the coaming. I heered a loud shriek, and a cry of "O God! O God! Help! help!" and now, guessing what was happening, and believing that the tastin' of blood would drive them fellows mad, and that Oi should be the next if Jacob worn't already gone, him being at the wheel, as I might calculate by his not being forrard, Oi took and run, and here Oi am.'