In the silence of the night this strange music had its charm.

Unluckily Miss Lydia did not understand perfectly what the sailor was singing.

Amid a good deal that was commonplace, a passionate line would occasionally excite her liveliest curiosity.

But just at the most important moment some words of _patois_ would occur, the sense of which utterly escaped her.

Yet she did make out that the subject was connected with a murder.
Curses against the assassin, threats of vengeance, praise of the dead were all mingled confusedly.