“The ship was then deserted?”

“Ay, the people had left her, sir, or had been washed away in the gust that had laid her over.  I never could come at the truth of them particulars.  The dog had been mischievous, I conclude, about the decks; and so he had been lashed to a timber head, the which saved his life, since, happily for him he found himself on the weather-side when the hull righted a little, after her spars gave way.  Well, sir there was the dog, and not much else, as we could see, though we spent half a day in rummaging round, in order to pick up any small matter that might be useful; but then, as the entrance to the hold and cabin was full of water, why, we made no great affair of the salvage, after all.”

“And then you left the wreck?”

“Not yet, your Honour.  While knocking about among the bits of rigging and lumber above board, says Guinea, says he, ’Mister Dick, I hear some one making their plaints below.’  Now, I had heard the same noises myself, sir; but had set them down as the spirits of the people moaning over their losses, and had said nothing of the same, for fear of stirring up the superstition of the black; for the best of them are no better than superstitious niggers, my Lady; so I said nothing of what I had heard, until he saw fit to broach the subject himself.  Then we both turned-to to listening with a will; and sure enough the groans began to take a human sound.  It was a good while, howsomever, before I could make up whether it was any thing more than the complaining of the hulk itself; for you know, my Lady, that a ship which is about to sink makes her lamentations just like any other living thing.”

“I do, I do,” returned the governess, shuddering.  “I have heard them, and never will my memory lose the recollection of the sounds.”

“Ay, I thought you might know something of the same, and solemn groans they are:  But, as the hulk kept rolling on the top of the sea, and no further signs of her going down, I began to think it best to cut into her abaft, in order to make sure that some miserable wretch had not been caught in his hammock at the time she went over.  Well, good will, and an axe, soon let us into the secret of the moans.”

“You found a child?”

“And its mother, my Lady.  As good luck would have it, they were in a birth on the weather-side and as yet the water had not reached them.  But pent air and hunger had nearly proved as bad as the brine.  The lady was in the agony when we got her out; and as to the boy, proud and strong as you now see him there on yonder gun, my Lady, he was just so miserable, that it was no small matter to make him swallow the drop of wine and water that the Lord had left us, in order, as I have often thought since, to bring him up to be, as he at this moment is, the pride of the ocean!”

“But, the mother?”