ighbours. They
were not friends, but dire enemies,--the very enemies they so much
dreaded.

The discovery was not delayed. It was made soon after, and in the
following manner:--

The three--Snowball, the sailor, and little William--had kept their
place on the carcass of the _cachalot_, all three attentively
listening,--the two last standing up, and the former in a reclining
attitude, with his huge ear laid close to the skin of the whale,--as
though he believed that to be a conductor of sound. There was no need
for them to have been thus straining their ears: for when a sound
reached them at length, it was that of a voice,--so harsh and loud, that
a deaf man might almost have heard it.

"_Sacre_!" exclaimed the voice, apparently pronounced in an accent of
surprise, "look here, comrades! Here's a dead man among us!"

Had it been the demon of the mist that gave utterance to these speeches,
they could not have produced a more fearful effect upon those who heard
them from the back of the _cachalot_. The accent, along with that
profane shibboleth, might have proceeded from anyone who spoke the
language of France; but the tone of the voice could not be mistaken. It
had too often rung in their ears with a disagreeable emphasis. "Massa
Le Grow, dat am," muttered the negro. "Anybody tell dat."

Snowball's companions made no reply. None was required. Other voices
rose up out of the mist.

"A dead man!" shouted a second. "Sure enough. Who is it?"

"It's the Irishman!" proclaimed a third. "See! He's been killed!
There's a knife sticking between his ribs! He's been murdered!"

"That's his own knife," suggested some one. "I know it; because it once
belonged to me. If you look you'll find his name on the haft. He
graved it there the very day he bought it from me."

There was an interval of silence, as if they had paused to confirm the
suggestion of the last speaker.

"You're right," said one, resuming the informal inquest. "There's his
name, sure enough,--_Larry O'Gorman_."

"He's killed himself!" suggested a voice not hitherto heard. "He's
committed suicide!"

"I don't wonder at his doing so," said another, confirmingly. "He
expected to have to die anyhow; and I suppose he thought the sooner it
was off his mind the better it would be for him."

"How's that?" inquired a fresh speaker, who appeared to dissent from the
opinions of those that had preceded him. "Why should he expect to die
any more th