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.
“Now that we’re gittin’ t’wards the Spanish Strand,”
Said Moses Brown, a-waving his bandana,
“I just propose that first of all I land—
As all of us have done—at the old Havanna.
Adventures there do gin’rally abound,
The natives being all sus-ceptive creeters;
For if romance upon this airth is found,
It sartinly is ’mong the senoritas.
Though he who of ’em would advantage take,
Must be on hand and al’ays wide awake:
Quien el diablo ha de engañar
Mañana ha bien de levantar.”
Meanin’ that “who the devil would deceive,
Must rise uncommon early,” I believe.
That is the precious time to pick a salad,
As happened to the fellow in my ballad;
Who carried off the booty, as the Fox
Took the fair Hen from the two fighting Cocks.