didn't look round. I heard a
man whistling. It was "Nancy Lee," and I could have sworn that
the man was right over my head in the crosstrees. Only somehow I
knew very well that if anybody could have been up there, and
could have whistled a tune, there were no living ears sharp
enough to hear it on deck then. I heard it distinctly, and at the
same time I heard the real whistling of the wind in the weather
rigging, sharp and clear as the steam-whistle on a Dago's
peanut-cart in New York. That was all right, that was as it
should be; but the other wasn't right; and I felt queer and
stiff, as if I couldn't move, and my hair was curling against the
flannel lining of my sou'wester, and I thought somebody had
dropped a lump of ice down my back.

I said that the noise of the wind in the rigging was real, as if
the other wasn't, for I felt that it wasn't, though I heard it.
But it was, all the same; for the captain heard it, too. When I
came to relieve the wheel, while the men were clearing up decks,
he was swearing. He was a quiet man, and I hadn't heard him swear
before, and I don't think I did again, though several queer
things happened after that. Perhaps he said all he had to say
then; I don't see how he could have said anything more. I used to
think nobody could swear like a Dane, except a Neapolitan or a
South American; but when I had heard the old man I changed my
mind. There's nothing afloat or ashore that can beat one of your
quiet American skippers, if he gets off on that tack. I didn't
need to ask him what was the matter, for I knew he had heard
"Nancy Lee," as I had, only it affected us differently.

He did not give me the wheel, but told me to go forward and get
the second bonnet off the staysail, so as to keep her up better.
As we tailed on to the sheet when it was done, the man next me
knocked his sou'wester off against my shoulder, and his face came
so close to me that I could see it in the dark. It must have been
very white for me to see it, but I only thought of that
afterwards. I don't see how any light could have fallen upon it,
but I knew it was one of the Benton boys. I don't know what made
me speak to him. "Hullo, Jim! Is that you?" I asked. I don't know
why I said Jim, rather than Jack.

"I am Jack," he answered. We made all fast, and things were much
quieter.

"The old man heard you whistling 'Nancy Lee,' just now," I said,
"and he didn't like it."

It was as if there were a white light inside