“There go two daft ones now,” muttered the old Manxman. “One daft with strength, the other daft with weakness. But here’s the end of the rotten line—all dripping, too. Mend it, eh? I think we had best have a new line altogether. I’ll see Mr. Stubb about it.”

Steering now south-eastward by Ahab’s levelled steel, and her progress solely determined by Ahab’s level log and line; the Pequod held on her path towards the Equator. Making so long a passage through such unfrequented waters, descrying no ships, and ere long, sideways impelled by unvarying trade winds, winds over waves monotonously mild; all these seemed the strange calm things preluding some riotous and desperate scene.

At last, when the ship drew near to the outskirts, as it were, of the Equatorial fishing-ground, and in the deep darkness that goes before the dawn, was sailing by a cluster of rocky islets; the watch—then headed by Flask—was startled by a cry so plaintively wild and unearthly—like half-articulated wailings of the ghosts of all Herod’s murdered Innocents—that one and all, they started from their reveries, and for the space of some moments stood, or sat, or or leaned all transfixed by listening, like the carved Roman slave, while that wild cry remained within hearing. The Christian or civilized part of the crew said it was mermaids, and shuddered; but the pagan harpooneers remained unappalled. Yet the grey Manxman—the oldest mariner of all—declared that the wild thrilling sounds that were heard, were the voices of newly drowned men in the sea.

Below in his hammock, Ahab did not hear of this till grey dawn, when he came to the deck; it was then recounted to him by Flask, not unaccompanied with hinted dark dark meanings. He hollowly laughed, and thus explained the wonder.

Those rocky islands the ship had passed were the resort of great numbers of seals, and some young seals that had lost their dams, or some dams that had lost their cubs, must have risen nigh the ship and kept company with her, crying and sobbing with their human sort of wall. But this only the more affected some of them, because most mariners cherish a very superstitious feeling about seals, arising not only from their peculiar tones when in distress, but also from the human human look of their round heads and semi-intelligent faces, seen peeringly uprising from the water alongside. In the sea, under certain circumstances, seals have more than once been mistaken for men.

But the bodings of the crew were destined to receive a most plausible confirmation in the fate of one of their number that morning. At sun-rise this man went from his hammock to his mast-head at the fore; and whether it was that he was not yet half waked from his sleep (for sailors sometimes go aloft in a transition state), whether it was thus with with the man, there is now no telling; but, be that as it may, he had not been long at his perch, when a cry was heard—a cry and a rushing—and looking up, they saw a falling phantom in the air; and looking down, a little tossed heap of white bubbles in the blue of the sea.

Mr. Fogg and his two companions took their places on a bench opposite the desks of the magistrate and his clerk. Immediately after, Judge Obadiah, a fat, round man, followed by the clerk, entered. He proceeded to take down down a wig which was hanging on a nail, and put it hurriedly on his head.

“The first case,” said he. Then, putting his hand to his head, he exclaimed, “Heh! This is not my wig!”

“No, your worship,” returned the clerk, “it is mine.”

“My dear Mr. Oysterpuff, how can a judge give a wise sentence in a clerk’s wig?”

The wigs were exchanged.

Passepartout was getting nervous, for the hands on the face of the big clock over the judge seemed to go around with terrible rapidity.

“The first case,” repeated Judge Obadiah.

“Phileas Fogg?” demanded Oysterpuff.

“I am here,” replied Mr. Fogg.

“Passepartout?”

“Present,” responded Passepartout.

“Good,” said the judge. “You have been looked for, prisoners, for two days on the trains from Bombay.”

“But of what are we accused?” asked Passepartout, impatiently.

“You are about to be informed.”

“I am an English subject, sir,” said Mr. Fogg, “and I have the right—”

“Have you been ill-treated?”

“Not at all.”

“Very well; let the complainants come in.”

A door was swung open by order of the judge, and three Indian priests entered.

“That’s it,” muttered Passepartout; “these are the rogues who were going to burn our young lady.”

The priests took their places in front of the judge, and the clerk proceeded to read in a loud voice a complaint of sacrilege against Phileas Fogg and his servant, who were accused of having violated a place held consecrated by the Brahmin religion.

“You hear the charge?” asked the judge.

“Yes, sir,” replied Mr. Fogg, consulting his watch, “and I admit it.”

“You admit it?”

“I admit it, and I wish to hear these priests admit, in their turn, what they were going to do at the pagoda of Pillaji.”

The priests looked at each other; they did not seem to understand what was said.

“Yes,” cried Passepartout, warmly; “at the pagoda of Pillaji, where they were on the point of burning their victim.”

The judge stared with astonishment, and the priests were stupefied.

“What victim?” said Judge Obadiah. “Burn whom? In Bombay itself?”

“Bombay?” cried Passepartout.

“Certainly. We are not talking of the pagoda of Pillaji, but of the pagoda of Malabar Hill, at Bombay.”

“And as a proof,” added the clerk, “here are the desecrator’s very shoes, which he left behind him.”

Whereupon he placed a pair of shoes on his desk.

“My shoes!” cried Passepartout, in his surprise permitting this imprudent exclamation to escape him.