CHAPTER XLIII. HARK!
	
	
	Hist! Did you hear that noise, Cabaco?
	
	It was the middle-watch; a fair moonlight; the seamen were standing in
	a cordon	 extending from one of the fresh-water butts in the waist	 to
	the scuttle-butt near the taffrail. In this manner	 they passed the
	buckets to fill the scuttle-butt. Standing	 for the most part	 on the
	hallowed precincts of the quarter-deck	 they were careful not to speak
	or rustle their feet. From hand to hand	 the buckets went in the
	deepest silence	 only broken by the occasional flap of a sail	 and the
	steady hum of the unceasingly advancing keel.
	
	It was in the midst of this repose	 that Archy	 one of the cordon	
	whose post was near the after-hatches	 whispered to his neighbor	 a
	Cholo	 the words above.
	
	Hist! did you hear that noise, Cabaco?
	
	Take the bucket, will ye, Archy? what noise d'ye mean?
	
	There it is again--under the hatches--don't you hear it--a cough--it
sounded like a cough.
	
	Cough be damned! Pass along that return bucket.
	
	There again--there it is!--it sounds like two or three sleepers turning
over, now!
	
	Caramba! have done, shipmate, will ye? It's the three soaked biscuits
ye eat for supper turning over inside of ye--nothing else. Look to the
bucket!
	
	Say what ye will, shipmate; I've sharp ears.
	
	Aye, you are the chap, ain't ye, that heard the hum of the old
Quakeress's knitting-needles fifty miles at sea from Nantucket; you're
the chap.
	
	Grin away; we'll see what turns up. Hark ye, Cabaco, there is somebody
down in the after-hold that has not yet been seen on deck; and I
suspect our old Mogul knows something of it too. I heard Stubb tell
Flask, one morning watch, that there was something of that sort in the
wind.
	
	Tish! the bucket!