For six days had Snowball been leading this sort of life, along with the
little Lalee,--subsisting partly on the sea-steeped biscuit found in the
barrel, and partly upon other provisions which had turned up among the
drift; while the precious water contained in the keg had hitherto kept
them from suffering the pangs of thirst.
During these six days he had never wholly surrendered himself up to
despair. It was not the first, by several times, for the old sea-cook
to have suffered shipwreck; nor was it his first time to be cast away in
mid-ocean. Once had he been blown overboard in a storm, and left
behind,--the ship, from the violence of the wind, having been unable to
tack round and return to his rescue. Being an excellent swimmer, he had
kept afloat, buffeting with the huge billows for nearly an hour. Of
course, in the end, he must have gone to the bottom, as the place where
the incident occurred was hundreds of miles from any land. But just as
he was on the point of giving in, a hencoop came drifting past, to which
he at once attached himself, and this being fortunately of sufficient
size to sustain his weight, hindered him from sinking.
Though he knew that the hencoop had been thrown out of the ship by some
of his comrades, after he had gone overboard, the ship herself was no
longer in sight; and the unlucky swimmer, notwithstanding the help given
him by the hencoop, must eventually have perished among the waves; but
the storm having subsided, and the wind suddenly changing into the
opposite quarter, the vessel was wafted back on her old track, and
passing within hail of Snowball, his comrades succeeded in rescuing him
from his perilous situation.
With the retrospect of such an experience,--and Snowball could look back
upon many such,--he was not the man to yield easily to despair. On the
contrary, he now acted as if he believed that there was still not only
some hope, but a considerable chance of being delivered from the dilemma
in which the late disaster of the _Pandora_ had placed him.
Scarce an hour during the six days had he permitted to pass in idleness.
As already stated, he had collected ample materials from the wreck
floating around him. Out of these he had formed a good-sized raft,
having spent much time and labour in giving it strength and security.
This accomplished, and all the provisions he could find safely stored
upon it, he had devoted the rest of his time to fishing.
There were many fish in the neighbourhood of the wreck. Fearful fish
they were too: for they were sharks: the same that had made such havoc
among the unfortunate creatures who had constituted the cargo of the
slaver. These voracious monsters,--though satiated for a time with
their human prey,--had not forsaken the spot where the _Pandora_ had
gone to pieces; but on the square mile of surface strewed by the
floating fragments of the wreck they could still be seen in pairs, and
sometimes in larger numbers, with their huge sail-like fins projecting
high above the water, veering about as if once more hungry, and
quartering the sea in search of fresh victims.
Snowball had not succeeded in capturing any of the sharks, though he had
spared no pains in endeavouring to do so. There were other large fish,
however, that had made their appearance in the proximity of his raft,
attracted thither by the common prospect of food promised by the wreck
of the slaver. There were albacores, and bonitos, and dolphins, and
many other kinds of ocean fish, rarely seen, or only upon such
melancholy occasions. With a long-handled harpoon, which Snowball had
succeeded in securing, he was enabled to strike several of these
creatures; so that by the evening of the sixth day, his larder was
considerably increased,--comprising, in the way of fish, an albacore, a
brace of bonitos, with three satellites of the sharks,--a pilot-fish and
two sucking-fish.
All these had been ripped open and disembowelled, after which their
flesh, cut into thin slices, and spread out on the tops of the empty
water-casks that surrounded the raft, was in process of being cured by
drying in the sun.
Befriended by the fine weather, Snowball had succeeded, one way and
another, in accumulating no mean store of provisions; and, so far as
food went, he felt confident, both for himself and his companion, of
being able to hold out not only for days, but for weeks or even months.
He felt equal confidence in regard to their stock of water. Having
gauged the keg in his own rude way, and satisfied himself as to the
quantity of its contents, he had made a calculation of how long it might
last, and found that by a careful economy it could be depended upon for
a period of several weeks.
Reposing upon these pleasant data, on the night of the sixth day he had
gone to rest with a feeling of confidence that soon enticed his spirit
into the profoundest slumbers.
Not that Snowball had gone without sleep during the other five nights
spent upon his raft. He had slept a little on each of them. Only a
little, however; for, as most of them had been moonlight nights, he had
kept awake during the greater portion of each, on the lookout over the
surface of the ocean, lest some ship, sailing near, might glide past
silently and unseen, and so deprive him of a chance of being picked up.
The little Lalee had also borne part in these nocturnal vigils,--taking
her turn when Snowball became too weary to keep awake; and so, in
alternate watches, had the two been in the habit of tiring out the long
hours of the night. To this practice the sixth night had proved an
exception. There was no moon in the sky; there were no stars; not a
glimmer of light, either in the firmament of the heavens or on the face
of the deep. The sky above and the sea below were both of one colour,--
the hue of pitch. On such a night it was idle to keep watch. A ship
might have passed within a cable's length of the raft, and still
remained unseen; and, filled with this conviction, both Snowball and his
companion, after the night had fairly closed over them, stretched their
bodies along the pieces of sail-cloth that formed their respective
couches, and surrendered their spirits to the sweet enchantment of
sleep.