I was sailing in a vessel a long time ago, All the while dead against us the wind used to blow, And it seemed as if aboard us that nothing would go right, When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. _Chorus._ By the night, by the night, When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. In the dark, up in the rigging, or somewhere on high, “Hallo! Stand from under!” a voice used to cry; But the Being who hallooed it was always out of sight, When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. On that gloomy haunted vessel, and all among her crew, Was a dark and silent sailor whom no one ever knew; And the Voice it called the loudest when that seaman came to light, When over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. And we said to him one midnight when we heard it worst of all, “Your friend there in the rigging is giving you a call.” Then he looked up above him with such bitterness and spite, When over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. When the Voice with “Stand from under!” once again to him salamed, He hallooed back like thunder: “Let go then and be damned!” Like a man in desperation who expects a cruel fight, All over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night. And as the word was spoken—like coming to a beck— A something came a-whizzing and fell down upon the deck, And the body of a mariner was there before our sight, All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. And looking at the dead man, he said: “I do declare! An hour’s sail from Cuba I stabbed that fellow there. And now he always haunts me, though I killed him fair, in fight, All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night.” “But the devil a bit of fear have I of dead or living men, I’ve lifted him before and I can lift him up again, And pitch him in the water, and sink him out of sight, All over the Bahamas a-sailing by the night.” He grappled with the dead man in spite of all our cries, When life and awful anger came in the corpse’s eyes; It tore him to the toffrail and held him deadly tight, All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. And overboard together in a grapple went the two, And downward sunk before us into the water blue; But in and all around them shone a corpo-santo light, All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night. But from that very minute the wind blew well and fair, And everything went right with us when we had lost the pair; But I always shall remember while I live that awful sight, All over the Bahama Isles a-sailing by the night.