CHAPTER 43
Hark!
"HIST! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?
It was the middle-watch: a fair moonlight; the seamen werestanding in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-waterbutts in the waist, to the scuttle-butt near the taffrail.In this manner, they passed the buckets to fill the scuttle-butt.Standing, for the most part, on the hallowed precincts of thequarter-deck, they were careful not to speak or rustle their feet.From hand to hand, the buckets went in the deepest silence,only broken by the occasional flap of a sail, and the steadyhum of the unceasingly advancing keel.
It was in the midst of this repose, that Archy, one of the cordon,whose post was near the after-hatches, whispered to his neighbor,a Cholo, the words above.
"Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?"
"Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?"
"There it is again--under the hatches--don't you hear it--a cough--it sounded like a cough."
"Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket."
"There again--there it is!--it sounds like two or three sleepersturning over, now!"
"Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soakedbiscuits ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye--nothing else.Look to the bucket!"
"Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears."
"Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the oldQuakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket;you're the chap."
"Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there issomebody down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck;and I suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too.I heard Stubb tell Flask, one morning watch, that there wassomething of that sort in the wind."
"Tish! the bucket!"