excellently well cast!"

"_And a half-seven--and a half-seven--seven--seven--_"

"Ah," Abel Keeling murmured, "that last was not a clear cast--give me the
line--thus it should go ... ay, so.... Soon you shall sail the seas with
me in the _Mary of the Tower_. You are already perfect in the stars and
the motions of the planets; to-morrow I will instruct you in the use of
the backstaff...."

For a minute or two he continued to mutter; then he dozed. When again he
came to semi-consciousness it was once more to the sound of bells, at
first faint, then louder, and finally becoming a noisy clamour
immediately above his head. It was Bligh. Bligh, in a fresh attack of
delirium, had seized the bell-lanyard and was ringing the bell insanely.
The cord broke in his fingers, but he thrust at the bell with his hand,
and again called aloud.

"Upon an harp and an instrument of ten strings ... let Heaven and Earth
praise Thy Name!..."

He continued to call aloud, and to beat on the bronze-rusted bell.

_"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"_

One would have said that a veritable hail had come out of the mists; but
Abel Keeling knew those hails that came out of the mists. They came from
ships which were not there. "Ay, ay, keep a good look-out, and have a
care to your lodemanage," he muttered again to his son....