Hoarse
vague noises came over the sea, and it seemed as if certain sounds were
growing weary and swooning away. Little breaths of air came softly--oh,
so softly, and so deadly cold!--but the tiny puffs were hardly enough to
send a feather far. The birds wailed a good deal, and when the ducks
began to cry "Karm, kah-ah-arm," the men shouted, "Billee, run, Billee;
or I'll bring the policeman!" for all the chaps hate to hear the ducks
yawping.
Clouds of haze moved around, and when the moon came up she seemed to be
glowering from her shroud. Joe was anxious to take in something, but the
skipper said, "Don't think there'll be much of it. We can reef her when
it comes away. I want to be home." All the night it seemed as though
something evil were in the air, and even the men below were depressed.
Sometimes it happens that if you work long in a lonely house, you find
yourself at night living in dread of some vague ill, and every crack of
the woodwork is like an ominous message. It is just that way at sea
before a bad gale.
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