going of a spark on the forecastle,
where one of the watch sucked meditatively at his pipe, all was opaque
darkness, unrelieved by even the occasional glimpse of so much as a
solitary star.

The night was as quiet as it was dark, for the wind, light all through
the preceding twenty hours, had at length fallen away to nothing, and
the ship was motionless, save for the slight heave of the swell which,
stealing along through the blackness, would occasionally take her under
the counter and give her a gentle lift that would cause all her spars to
creak and her canvas to rustle with a pattering of reef-points, a jerk
and rattle of hemp and chain sheets, and a faint click of cabin doors
upon their hooks, the whole accompanied, perhaps, with a discordant bang
of the wheel chains to the kick of the rudder as the black water swirled
and gurgled round it. In the midst of it all there would come the
clear, metallic clang of a bell--a single stroke, as though someone away
out there in the offing were tolling for a funeral. It was a ship's
bell that was being struck, there could be no doubt about that; but why
was it being tolled? That was the question that puzzled me, and, as I
could clearly see, had excited the superstitious alarm of the carpenter
and the hands forward. The sound was so clear and distinct that I felt
convinced it must emanate from a craft at no very great distance, and
Chips and I accordingly united our voices in a stentorian hail of "Ship
ahoy!" repeating it at least half a dozen times. But no reply came to
us out of the darkness, save the occasional "ting" of the bell; nor was
any light shown to indicate the whereabouts of our mysterious neighbour.
This being the case, and feeling satisfied that the stranger could do
us no harm so long as she came no closer to us than she was, I
instructed Chips to report the matter to the boatswain when the latter
came on deck at eight bells, requesting him to keep a sharp lookout
during the remaining hours of darkness, and to call me at daylight, and
then went back to my cabin and turned in again.

I had scarcely closed my eyes, as it seemed to me, when I was awakened
by Polson, who was shaking me by the shoulder as he reported:

"It's just gone four bells, Mr Troubridge, and there's daylight enough
abroad to show us that the ringin' that have been worryin' us comes from
a barque 'bout half a mile to the east'ard of us. Her mizenmast is over
the side, and she looks as i