"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?"
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