"Williams!"
No answer.
"Williams!" more loudly.
Still no answer.
Then:
"Damn you, you jumped-up cockney crocodile! Can't you hear? Are you blooming-well deaf?"
There was no answer, and the Second Mate turned to me.
"Jump aloft, smartly now, Jessop, and see what's wrong!"
"i, i, Sir," I said and made a run for the rigging. I felt a bit queer. Had Williams gone mad? He certainly always had been a bit funny. Or—and the thought came with a jump—had he seen—I did not finish. Suddenly, up aloft, there sounded a frightful scream. I stopped, with my hand on the sheerpole. The next instant, something fell out of the darkness—a heavy body, that struck the deck near the waiting men, with a tremendous crash and a loud, ringing, wheezy sound that sickened me. Several of the men shouted out loud in their fright, and let go of the haulyards; but luckily the stopper held it, and the yard did not come down. Then, for the space of several seconds, there was a dead silence among the crowd; and it seemed to me that the wind had in it a strange moaning note.
The Second Mate was the first to speak. His voice came so abruptly that it startled me.