"Now," thought I, "if those sounds originated outside my own imagination some of those fellows for'ard will certainly have heard them, and will mention it." But my call elicited nothing more than the stereotyped "Ay, ay, sir!" and a faint momentary shuffling of feet--meant, no doubt, to convey to me the impression that the look-outs were on the alert and then deep silence, as before, so far as any report of suspicious sounds was concerned. I stood for quite two minutes listening intently for any further sounds out of the darkness, but none came to me, nor could I detect any light or other evidence of another craft in our neighbourhood. At length, fully confirmed in my conviction that my imagination had been playing a trick with me, I returned to the chair in which I had been sitting, and there finished out the watch, merely leaving my seat to strike six, and finally eight, bells. But I placed my chair in such a position that while still sitting in it I could keep my eye on the clock, and as the hands crept round its face, marking first three and then four o'clock, I strained my listening powers to their utmost in the hope that those elusive bell-strokes might again come stealing across the sea to me, but without result. When four o'clock came round, after striking eight bells with perhaps a little more vigour than usual, I called Marcel, resigned the deck to him, and went below. Yet, although I had felt drowsy enough on deck, and although Tourville's ravings had ceased and he seemed to have fallen asleep, when I flung off my clothes and stretched myself on top of the bedding in my bunk, expecting to instantly drop off to sleep, I found, to my annoyance, that I had never been less inclined to slumber than I was just then. The fact was that in spite of myself those ghostly tinklings were still worrying me. Were they, or were they not, imaginary? If they were-- well, there was an end of it. But if they were not imaginary; if, as I now perversely began to think, they were actual sounds, then it followed, of necessity, that there must be a craft of some sort not very far from us. If this were the case, what, I asked myself, was she likely to be? She could but be one of three things--either a trader, a slaver, or a craft belonging to the Slave Squadron; the chances, therefore, were about even that on the morrow I might be able to effect my escape from _La Mouette_--always provided, of course, that those strokes of the bell had been real. For if the craft on board which they had been struck happened to be a trader, the odds were in favour of her being British; and the same might be said presuming her to be a man-o'-war. On the other hand, she might of course be a slaver; in which case I was fully resolved to endure the ills I had, rather than fly to others which might conceivably be worse.