—"Pardieu! it half-woke me up," added the second.
—"But I've looked about, and it's no use; I don't see any thing."
—"Nor I."
The couple were leaning over the sea, which kept up its gentle murmurings, and on which only light undulations were visible, fringed with half-phosphorescent foam. The second man of the watch seemed all at once to be seized with inquietude, that caused his voice to tremble.
—"I say, Morvan," he cautiously began, "those Roscanvel and Lanvoc barks haven't passed by, without leaving some christian soul under water here—don't you think so?"
—"Why so?" asked Morvan.
—"Why so?" returned the sailor, who seemed half-afraid and half-ashamed; "why, parbleu! ... you know what they say ... I didn't invent it ... there are some people who tell you that shipwrecked men, dying in mortal sin, leave their souls upon the waves that drowned them: and that every year, on the day and at the exact time of the accident, they utter a cry of anguish, just by way of asking prayers for themselves."
—"And you believe that, you, Lascar?" said Morvan with a laugh more blustering than assured.
—"It isn't I," rejoined the sailor, "it's our mess-mates.... But, none the less, the voice wasn't like any body else's; it was sharp and thin, as one might say that of a child."
—"Get out, nonsense!" interrupted the first seaman, evidently disquieted by his comrade's explanation; "you see there's nothing more to be heard, and there is nothing afloat but the moonlight, and the night-chill that will make us sneeze. It's well that we both kept our allowance of wine. Come on, let's go and drink it; that'll put your morality into trim again."