"Call him again," said the captain, and again she called.
He advanced a step, and she saw him in the faint suffusion straining in a posture of desperate gaze, of desperate hearkening, as though his teeth were set and the sweat of blood was on his brow, and the palms of his hands were bloody with the penetration of the finger-nails.
At that moment she heard a single stroke of a bell. She started with a cry, with instant rejoicing, for she believed there were men in the vessel.
"What was that?" said the captain.
"A bell!" she exclaimed.
"O God! it may be Johnny!" he shouted, and he rushed through the open door.
She quickly followed; she was not a superstitious fool, she was a girl at sea, and, as a girl might, she supposed that if a bell were struck upon a ship's deck it was by a man.
A small bell was hung betwixt the foremast and the foremost end of the galley or caboose, and immediately under it lay, bottom up, secured to the deck, a small tub of a boat. It was easy to understand why the bell should have tolled. It had been struck by some bight of buntline or clewline in the sway of the brig as she heeled to the fold, and the sharp return of the bell jerked the tongue against the metal side in a single stroke.
But the captain was too mad to understand this, and Julia was a girl at sea without eyes for bights of running gear. She was startled, nay, a sudden horror of superstition visited her when following the captain. She stood near the bell and saw no signs of human creature. She cast looks of fear all about; one, even one, man would protect her against the horrible yokedom of this passage. The planks had the sheen of satin in the moonlight, and the power of the satellite sufficed to fling dark shadows upon the decks, and these shadows moved as the brig rolled. But she saw no man; and what ghostly hand then had struck that bell? For the night might go before the swing of the bight of gear should, by adjustment of the rolling of the vessel, exactly hit the bell again and make it ring.
The captain began to call, "Johnny, Johnny, where are you? Come out of your hiding-place, little sonny. Here's father waiting for you."