--"Why so?" returned the sailor, who seemed half-afraid and half-ashamed; "why, parbleu! ... you know what they say ... I didn't invent it ... there are some people who tell you that shipwrecked men, dying in mortal sin, leave their souls upon the waves that drowned them: and that every year, on the day and at the exact time of the accident, they utter a cry of anguish, just by way of asking prayers for themselves." --"And you believe that, you, Lascar?" said Morvan with a laugh more blustering than assured. --"It isn't I," rejoined the sailor, "it's our mess-mates.... But, none the less, the voice wasn't like any body else's; it was sharp and thin, as one might say that of a child." --"Get out, nonsense!" interrupted the first seaman, evidently disquieted by his comrade's explanation; "you see there's nothing more to be heard, and there is nothing afloat but the moonlight, and the night-chill that will make us sneeze. It's well that we both kept our allowance of wine. Come on, let's go and drink it; that'll put your morality into trim again." The two sailors went off. After waiting a moment, Mathieu replaced the child on his shoulders, enjoined strict silence, at the same time cheering her up, and let go the boom for the purpose of regaining the causeway; but he had lost the direction, and his feet encountered only empty space. Forced to swim with his precious burden, he hoped that a few fathoms' distance would bring him back to his pathway on the reefs; he had already gone beyond it. Fresh attempts were not more successful; and twenty times did he renew his search, finding only, at each, deep water.