Moby Dick; or, The Whale (version 2) — 43: Hark!

“Hist!

Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?

” It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in a cordon, extending from one of the fresh-water butts 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 the quarter-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 steady hum 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 sleepers turning over, now!

” “Caramba!

have done, shipmate, will ye?

It’s the three soaked biscuits 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 old Quakeress’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 is somebody 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 was something of that sort in the wind.

” “Tish!

the bucket!

” CHAPTER XLIV.