“Well, as nigh as we can make it out, that very night poor Bill _was_ murdered by that very Malay feller: leastways, his body was found in his boat. He'd been stabbed, and all his money and watch and things taken, and this Malay was gone nobody knew where. That's all that was ever known about it.” “But surely,” said my chum, who was of a very literal and rationalistic turn of mind, “it couldn't have been his voice you heard: he must have been down to the other end of the Sound, close by New York, by that time.” “Well,” said the mate, “all I know is, that I was waked out of sleep by Bill's voice calling my name, screaming in a real agony. It went through me like lightning; and then I find he was murdered that night. Now, I don't know any thing about it. I know I heard him calling me; I know he was murdered: but _how_ it was, or _what_ it was, or _why_ it was, I don't know.” “These 'ere college boys can tell ye,” said the captain. “Of course, they've got into sophomore year, and there ain't nothing in heaven or earth that they don't know.” “No,” said I, “I say with Hamlet, 'There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamed of in your philosophy.'” “Well,” said my chum, with the air of a philosopher, “what shakes my faith in all supernatural stories is, that I can't see any use or purpose in them.” “Wal, if there couldn't nothin' happen nor be except what _you_ could see a use in, there wouldn't _much_ happen nor be,” quoth the captain. A laugh went round at the expense of my friend. “Wal, now, I 'll tell ye what, boys,” piped the thin voice of the deacon, “folks mustn't be too presumptuous: there is providences permitted that we don't see no use in; but they do happen,--yes, they do. Now, what Jim Larned's been a-tell-in' is a good deal like what happened to me once, when I was up to Umbagog, in the lumberin' business.” “Halloo!” called out Jim, “here's the deacon's story! I told you every man had one.--Give it to us, deacon! Speak out, and don't be bashful!” “Wal, really, it ain't what I like to talk about,” said the deacon, in a quavering, uncertain voice; “but I don't know but I may as well, though. “It was that winter I was up to Umbagog. I was clerk, and kep' the 'counts and books, and all that; and Tom Huly,--he was surveyor and marker,--he was there with me, and we chummed together. And there was Jack Cutter; he was jest out o' college: he was there practising surveyin' with him. We three had a kind o' pine-board sort o' shanty, built out on a plain near by the camp: it had a fire-place, and two windows, and our bunks, and each of us had our tables and books and things.