a peculiar moaning noise came over the sea.
It was like a sort of hushed sob of pain, resembling somewhat the sound
of a number of voices wailing in chorus in the far distance.

"What is that?" asked I of Mr Marline in alarm.

"I'm sure I can't tell you, my boy," he replied; "I don't think I ever
heard such a queer noise before. If we were off the banks of
Newfoundland, I should think it a fog-horn blowing somewhere about.
But, we're several hundred miles to the southward of Cape Race and the
night is too clear for fogs. It is one of those mysterious voices of
the sea that are for ever reminding the sailor that, no matter how wise
he may think himself, he does not know everything!"

"I imagine it's the wind coming, sir," observed Jackson deferentially,
after listening to what Mr Marline had said. "When I was once on a
voyage in the China Seas I noticed just such a sound before we had a
thundering typhoon upon us, giving us hardly time to clew up."

"Perhaps you're right," said the first mate; but after giving a glance
up and around the sky, and noticing that the stars still shone out from
the blue empyrean, he added, "there does not seem much chance of a gale
now, though."

"We'll see, sir," laughed Jackson, paraphrasing Mr Marline's
observation to the captain. "We'd just as clear a night off Hainan,
when our blow came on there at a moment's notice!"

"All right, we'll see," replied Mr Marline, using his stock phrase, and
the two continued to walk up and down chatting about other matters,
while I went and sat down close to the taffrail, looking out over the
sea and wondering what the moaning sound of the ocean meant. I let my
imagination wander over the old stories I had heard of the mermaids
below, and how they sang their weird songs of lament whenever a storm
was coming, anticipating the shipwrecks that would follow and the
invasion of their coral caves by the bodies of drowned mortals, over
whom they are said to weep tears of pearl; and, in the flickering light
of the stars, that seemed to come from underneath the purple deep and
not be shining down from above, I almost fancied I could distinguish the
sirens looking up at me from below the water with sad faces, as they
combed their long weed-like tresses and raised their wailing croon.

Presently, however, I observed the star reflections suddenly disappear
from view; and then, the water grew greyer and greyer, until I was
hardly able to see it at all und