For several hours both remained wrapped in slumber, oblivious of the
perils through which they had passed,--equally unconscious of the
dangers that surrounded and still lay before them.
What a picture was there,--with no human eye to behold it! Two human
forms, a sailor and a sailor-boy, lying side by side upon a raft scarce
twice the length of their own bodies, in the midst of a vast ocean,
landless and limitless as infinity itself both softly and soundly
asleep,--as if reposing upon the pillow of some secure couch, with the
firm earth beneath and a friendly roof extended over them! Ah, it was a
striking tableau, that frail craft with its sleeping crew,--such a
spectacle as is seldom seen by human eye!
It was fortunate that for many hours they continued to enjoy the sweet
unconsciousness of sleep,--if such may be termed enjoyment. It was long
after midnight before either awoke: for there was nothing to awake them.
The breeze had kept gentle, and constant in the same quarter; and the
slight noise made by the water, as it went "swishing" along the edge of
the raft, instead of rousing them acted rather as a lullaby to their
rest. The boy awoke first. He had been longer asleep; and his nervous
system, refreshed and restored to its normal condition, had become more
keenly sensitive to outward impressions. Some big, cold rain-drops
falling upon his face had recalled him to wakefulness.
Was it spray tossed up by the spars ploughing through the water?
No. It was rain from the clouds. The canopy overhead was black as ink;
but while the lad was scrutinising it, a gleam of lightning suddenly
illumined both sea and sky, and then all was dark as before.
Little William would have restored his cheek to its sail-cloth pillow
and gone to sleep again. He was not dismayed by the silent lightning,--
for it was that sort that had flickered over the sky. No more did he
mind the threatening rainclouds. His shirt had been soaked too often,
by showers from the sky and spray from the sea, for him to have any
dread of a ducking.
It was not that,--neither the presence of the lightning nor the prospect
of the rain,--that kept him awake; but something he had heard,--or
fancied he had heard,--something that not only restrained him from
returning to repose, but inspired him with a fear that robbed him of an
inclination to go to sleep again.
What was it he had heard or fancied? A noise,--a _voice_!
Was it the scream of the sea-mew, the shriek of the frigate-bird, or the
hoarse note of the nelly?
None of these. The boy-sailor was acquainted with the cries of all
three, and of many other sea-birds besides. It was not the call of a
bird that had fallen so unexpectedly on his ear, but a note of far
different intonation. It more resembled a voice,--a human voice,--the
voice of a child! Not of a very young child,--an infant,--but more like
that of a girl of eight or ten years of age!
Nor was it a cry of distress, though uttered in a melancholy tone. It
seemed to the ear of the lad--freshly awakened from his sleep--like
words spoken in conversation.
But it could not be what he had taken it for! Improbable,--impossible!
He had been deluded by a fancy; or it might be the mutterings of some
ocean bird with whose note he was unacquainted.
Should he awake his companion and tell him of it? A pity, if it should
prove to be nothing, or only the chattering of a sea-gull. His brave
protector had need of rest. Ben would not be angry to be awaked; but
the sailor would be sure to laugh at him if he were to say he had heard
a little girl talking at that time of night in the middle of the
Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps Ben might say it was a mermaid, and mock him in
that sort of style?
No: he would not run the risk of being ridiculed, even by his best of
friends. Better let the thing pass, and say nothing about it.
Little William had arrived at this resolution, and had more than half
determined to treat the sound he had heard as an _aurical_ delusion. He
had even replaced his cheek upon the sail-cloth pillow, when the very
same sound again fill upon his ear,--this time more distinctly heard, as
if either the utterance had been clearer or the being that made it was
nearer!
If it was not the voice of a girl,--a very young girl,--then the
boy-sailor had never listened to the prattling of his younger sister, or
the conversation of his little female playmates. If it was a young
mermaid, then most assuredly could mermaids talk: for the sound was
exactly like a string or series of words uttered in conversation!
Ben must be aroused from his slumber. It could not be an illusion.
Either a talking mermaid, or a little girl, was within earshot of the
raft.
There was no help for it: Ben must be aroused.
"Ben! Ben!"
"Ho--hah--ow--aw--what's the row?--seven bells, I bean't on the
dog-watch. Hi, hi, oh! it's you, little Will'm. What is't, lad?"
"Ben, I hear something."
"Hear somethin'! Well, what o' that, boy? Theer 's allers somethin' to
be heerd: even here, in the middle o' the Atlantic. Ah! boy, I was
dreamin' a nice dream when ye woke me. I thought I war back on the ole
frigate. 'T wa'nt so nice, eyther, for I thought the bos'n war roustin'
me up for my watch on deck. Anyhow, would a been better than this watch
here. Heerd something ye say? What d'ye mean, little Will'm?"
"I heard a voice, Ben. I think it was a voice."
"Voice--o' a human, do ye mean?"
"It sounded like that of a little girl."
"Voice o' a little girl! Shiver my timbers, lad, you're goin' demented!
Put yer face close to mine. Let me see ye, boy! Are ye in yer senses,
Will'm?"
"I am, Ben. I'm sure I heard what I've said. Twice I heard it. The
first time I wasn't sure; but just now I heard it again, and if--"
"If there hadn't been gulls, an' boobies, an' Mother Carey's chickens,
as squeals and chitters just like little childer, I'd a been puzzled at
what ye be a tellin' me; but as I knows there be all o' these creators
in the middle o' the broad ocean,--and mermaids too, I dare say,--then,
ye see, little Will'm, I must disbelieve that ye heard anything more
than the voice of--a man, by--!"
As the sailor terminated his speech with this terrible emphasis, he
started into an upright attitude, and listened with all his ears for
another utterance of that harsh monotone that, borne upon the breeze and
rising above the "sough" of the disturbed water, could easily be
distinguished as the _voice of a man_.
"We're lost, Will'm!" cried he, without waiting for a repetition of the
sound; "we're lost. It's the voice of Le Gros. The big raft is a
bearin' down upon us wi' them bloodthirsty cannibals we thought we'd got
clear o'. It's no use tryin' to escape. Make up your mind to it, lad;
we've got to die! we've got to die!"