The Ocean Waifs Part 19

"Wha is it, Lilly Lally?" interrogated the black, with an air of eagerness; "you see someting. Golly! am it de _Cat'maran_?"

"No,--it is not that. It's only a barrel floating on the water."

"Only a ba'l,--what sort o' a ba'l you tink 'im?"

"I think it's one of the empty water-casks we had tied to the raft. I'm sure it is: for I see ropes upon it."

"It is," echoed Ben, who, having poised himself aloft, had also caught sight of the cask. "Shiver my timbers! it do look like as if the Cat had come to pieces. But no! Tain't that has set the cask adrift. I set it all now. Little Will'm be at the bottom o' this too. He has cut away the lashin's o' the barrel, so as to gie us one more chance, in the case o' our not comin' across the chest. How thoughtful o' the lad!

Just like 'im, as I said it war!"

"We bess swim for de cask an' take 'im in tow," suggested the sea-cook; "no harm hab 'im 'longside too. If de wind 'pring up, de ole chess be no use much. De cask de berry ting den."

"You're right, Snowy! we musn't leave the cask behind us. If the kit have served us a good turn, the other 'ud be safer in a rough sea. It be dead ahead, so we may keep straight on."

In five minutes after, they were alongside the cask,--easily recognised by its rope lashings, as one of those they had left attached to the raft. The sailor at the first glance saw that some of the chords encircling it had been cut with a knife, or other sharp instrument,--not severed with any degree of exact.i.tude, but "haggled," as if the act had been hurriedly performed.

"Little Will'm again! He's cut the ropes wi' the old axe, an' it were blunt enough to make a job for him! Huzza for the n.o.ble lad!"

"Tay!" cried s...o...b..ll, not heeding the enthusiastic outburst of the sailor. "You hold on to de chess, Ma.s.sa Brace, while I climb up on de cask, and see what I can see. May be I may see de _Catamaran_ herseff now."

"All right, n.i.g.g.e.r. You had better do that. Mount the barrel, an' I'll keep a tight hold o' the kit."

s...o...b..ll, releasing his arm from the sennit loop, swam up to the floating cask; and, after some dodging about, succeeded in getting astride of it.

It required a good deal of dexterous manoeuvring to keep the cask from rolling, and pitching him back into the water. But s...o...b..ll was just the man to excel in this sort of aquatic gymnastics; and after a time he became balanced in his seat with sufficient steadiness to admit of his taking a fair survey of the ocean around him.

The sailor had watched his movements with a sage yet hopeful eye: for these repeated indications of both the presence and providence of his own _protege_ had almost convinced him that the latter would not be very distant from the spot. It was nothing more than he had prepared himself to expect, when the Coromantee, almost as soon as he had steadied himself astride of the water-cask, shouted, in a loud voice--

"The _Cat'maran_!--the _Cat'maran_!"

"Where?" cried the sailor. "To leuart?"

"Dead in dat same direcshun."

"How fur, cookey? how fur?"

"Not so fur as you might hear de bos'n's whissel; not more dan tree, four length ob a man-o'-war cable."

"Enough, Snowy! What do you think best to be done?"

"De bess ting we can do now," replied the negro, "am for me to obertake dat ere craff. As you said, de sail am down; an' de ole Cat no go fa.s.ser dan a log o' 'hogany wood in a calm o' de tropic. If dis child swim affer, he soon come up; and den wif de oar an' de help ob lilly w.i.l.l.y, he meet you more dan half-way,--dat fo' sartin."

"You think you can overtake her, s...o...b..ll?"

"I be sartin ob dat ere. You tay here wif Lilly Lally. Keep by de chess and de cask boaf,--for de latter am better dan de former. No fear, I soon bring de _Cat'maran_ long dis way, once I get 'board o'

her."

So saying, the negro gave the cask a "cant" to one side, slipped off into the water; and, with a final caution to his comrade to keep close to the spot where they were parting, he stretched out his muscular arms to their full extent, and commenced surging through the water,--snorting as he went like some huge cetacean of the tribe of the _Mysticeti_.

CHAPTER FORTY.

LAUNCHING THE LIFE-PRESERVER.

It is scarce necessary to say that, during all this time. Little William, on board the _Catamaran_, was half wild with anxious thoughts.

He had obeyed the first instructions shouted to him by Ben Brace, and taken to the steering-oar; but, after struggling for some time to get the craft round, and seeing that his efforts were of no avail, he dropped it to comply with the still later orders given by the sailor: to let loose the halliards and lower the sail. Ben had wondered, and with a slight feeling of chagrin, why this last order had not been executed,--at least more promptly,--for at a later period he knew the sail had been lowered; but Ben was of course ignorant of the cause of the delay.

His conjecture, however, afterwards expressed, when he half-remembered having put "a ugly knot on the haulyards"; which he, little William, "maybe warn't able to get clear as fast as mout a been wished," was perfectly correct; as was also the additional hypothesis that the sail had been got down at last, "either by loosin' the belay or cuttin' the piece o' rope."

The latter was in reality the mode by which the sailor-lad had succeeded in lowering the sail.

As Ben had conjectured, the belaying loop had proved too much for the strength of William's fingers; and, after several fruitless efforts to untie the knot, he had at length given it up, and, seizing the axe, had severed the halliard by cutting it through and through.

Of course the sail came down upon the instant; but it was then too late; and when William again looked out over the ocean, he saw only the ocean itself, with neither spot nor speck to break the uniformity of its boundless bosom of blue.

In that glance he perceived that he was alone,--he felt for the first time that he was alone upon the ocean!

The thought was sufficient to beget despair,--to paralyse him against all further action; and, had he been a boy of the ordinary stamp, such might have been the result. But he was not one of this kind. The spirit which had first impelled him to seek adventure by sea, proved a mind moulded for enterprise and action. It was not the sort of spirit to yield easily to despair; nor did it then.

Instead of resigning himself up to fate or chance, he continued to exert the powers both of his mind and body, in the hope that something might still be done to retrieve the misfortune which had befallen the crew of the _Catamaran_. He again returned to the steering-oar; and, hastily detaching it from the hook upon which it had been mounted as a rudder, he commenced using it as a paddle, and endeavoured to propel the raft against the wind.

It is scarce necessary to say that he employed all his strength in the effort; but, notwithstanding this, he soon became convinced that he was employing it in vain. The huge _Catamaran_ lay just as s...o...b..ll had characteristically described her,--"like a log o' 'hogany wood in a calm ob de tropic."

Even worse than this; for, paddle as he would, the sailor-lad soon perceived that the raft, instead of making way against the wind, or even holding its ground, still continued to drift rapidly to leeward.

At this crisis another idea occurred to him. It might have occurred sooner, had his mind not been monopolised with the hope of being able to row the raft to windward. Failing in this, however, his next idea was to throw something overboard,--something that might afford a support to the swimmers struggling in the water.

The first object that came under his eyes promising such rapport was the sea-kit of the sailor. As already stated, it was amidships,--where its owner had been exploring it. The lid was open, and little William perceived that it was wellnigh empty; since its contents could be seen scattered on all sides, just as the sailor had rummaged them out, forming a _paraphernalia_ of sufficient variety and extent to have furnished the forecastle of a frigate.

The sight of the chest, with its painted canvas covering, which Little William knew to be water-tight, was suggestive. With the lid locked down, it might act as a buoy, and serve for a life-preserver. At all events, no better appeared to offer itself; and, without further hesitation, the lad slammed down the lid, which fortunately had the trick of locking itself with a spring, and, seizing the chest by one of the sennit handles, he dragged it to the edge of the raft, gave it a final push, and launched it overboard into the blue water of the ocean.

Little William was pleased to see that the kit, even while in the water, maintained its proper position,--that is, it swam bottom downwards. It floated buoyantly, moreover, as if it had been made of cork. He was prepared for this; for he remembered having listened to a conversation in the forecastle of the _Pandora_, relating to this very chest, in which Ben Brace had taken the princ.i.p.al part, and in which the sea-going qualities of his kit had been freely and proudly commented upon.

William remembered how the _ci-devant_ man-o'-war's-man had boasted of his _craft_, as he called the kit, proclaiming it "a reg'lar life-buoy in case o' bein' cast away at sea," and declaring that, "if 't war emp'y,--as he hoped it never should be,--it would float the whole crew o' a pinnace or longboat."

It was partly through this reminiscence that the idea of launching the chest had occurred to little William; and, as he saw it receding from the stern of the _Catamaran_, he had some happiness in the hope, that the confidence of his companion and protector might not be misplaced; but that the vaunted kit might prove the preserver, not only of _his_ life, but of the life of one who to little William was now _even_ dearer than Ben Brace. That one was Lilly Lalee.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

A LOOKOUT FROM ALOFT.

After launching the kit, little William did not think of surrendering himself to inaction. He bethought him that something more should be done,--that some other _waifs_ should be turned adrift from the _Catamaran_, which, by getting into the way of the swimmers, might offer them an additional chance of support.

What next? A plank? No; a cask,--one of the empty water-casks? That would be the thing,--the thing itself.

No sooner thought of than one was detached. The lashings were cut with the axe, in default of his finding a knife; and the cask, like the kit, soon fell into the wake. Not very rapidly it was true; for the _Catamaran_ now, deprived of her sail, did not drift so fast to leeward as formerly. Still she went faster than either the kit or the cask, however; on account of the breeze acting upon her stout mast and some other objects that stood high upon her deck; and William very reasonably supposed that to swimmers so much exhausted,--as by that time must be both Ben and s...o...b..ll,--even the difference of a cable's length might be of vital importance.