by the tiller. "I say, Billy, did you speak?"

Billy, seated on the thwart and leaning with both arms on the weather
gunwale, turned his head lazily. "Not a word this half-hour," he
answered.

"Well now, I thought not; but somebody, or something--spoke just now."
The boy blushed, for Billy was looking at him quizzically. "It's not
the first time I've heard it, either," he went on; "sometimes it sounds
right astern, and sometimes close beside me."

"What does it say?" asked Billy, re-lighting his pipe.

"I don't know that it _says_ anything, and yet it seems to speak out
quite clearly. Five or six times I've heard it, and usually on smooth
days like this, when the wind's steady."

Billy nodded. "That's right, sonny; I've heard it scores of times.
And they say. . . . But, there, I don't believe a word of it."

"What do they say?"

"They say that 'tis the voice of drowned men down below, and that they
hail their names whenever a boat passes."

The boy stared at the water. He knew it for a floor through which he
let down his trammels and crab-pots into wonderland--a twilight with
forests and meadows of its own, in which all the marvels of all the
fairy-books were possible; but the terror of it had never clouded his
delight.