they were all sufficiently frightened to stand for some
time trembling. Just awaking from such dreams, it was but natural they
should surrender themselves to strange imaginings; and instead of
endeavoring to identify the odd-looking animal, if animal it was, they
were rather inclined to set it down as some creature of a supernatural
kind.

The three midshipmen were but boys, not so long from the nursery as to
have altogether escaped from the weird influence which many a nursery
tale had wrapped around them; and as for old Bill, fifty years spent in
"ploughing the ocean" had only confirmed _him_ in the belief, that the
"black art" is not so mythical as philosophers would have us think.

So frightened were all four, that, after the first ebullition of their
surprise had subsided, they no longer gave utterance to speech, but
stood listening, and trembling as they listened. Perhaps, had they known
the service which the intruder had done for them, they might have felt
gratitude towards it, instead of the suspicion and dread that for some
moments kept them, as if spell-bound, in their places. It did not occur
to any of the party, that that strange summons from sleep--more
effective than the half-whispered invitation of a _valet-de-chambre_, or
the ringing of a breakfast-bell--had in all probability rescued them
from a silent, but certain death.

They stood, as I have said, listening. There were several distinct
sounds that saluted their ears. There was the "sough" of the sea, as it
came swelling up the gorge; the "whish" of the wind, as it impinged upon
the crests of the ridges; and the "swish" of the sand as it settled
around them.

All these were the voices of inanimate objects,--phenomena of nature,
easily understood. But, rising above them, were heard sounds of a
different character, which, though they might be equally natural, were
not equally familiar to those who listened to them.

There was a sort of dull battering,--as if some gigantic creature was
performing a Terpsichorean feat upon the sand-bank above them; but
sharper sounds were heard at intervals,--screams commingled with short
snortings, both proclaiming something of the nature of a struggle.

Neither in the screams nor the snortings was there anything that the
listeners could identify as sounds they had ever heard before. They were
alike perplexing to the ears of English, Irish, and Scotch. Even old
Bill, who had heard, sometime or other, nearly every