Snowball began to snore almost as soon as he had closed his eyelids, and
as if the shutting of his eyes had either occasioned or strengthened the
current of breath through his nostrils.
And such a sound as the snore of the Coromantee was rarely heard upon
the ocean,--except in the "spouting" of a whale or the "blowing" of a
porpoise.
It did not wake the little Lalee. She had become accustomed to the
snoring of Snowball,--which, instead of being a disturber, acted rather
as a lullaby to her rest.
It was only after both had been asleep for many hours after midnight,--
in fact when Lalee was herself sleeping less soundly, and when a snore,
more prolonged and prodigious than any that had preceded it, came
swelling through the nostrils of the sea-cook,--it was only then that
the young girl was awakened.
Becoming aware of what had awakened her, she would have gone to sleep
again; but just as she was about re-composing herself upon her
sail-cloth couch, a sight came before her eyes that caused her not only
to remain awake, but filled her with a feeling of indescribable awe.
On the instant of opening her eyes, the sky, hitherto dark, had become
suddenly illumined by lightning,--not in streaks or flashes, but as if a
sheet of fire had been spread for an instant over the whole canopy of
the heavens.
At the same time the surface of the sea had been equally lighted up with
the vivid gleam; and among the many objects drifting around the raft,--
the remnants of the wreck, with which the eyes of the little Lalee had
now become familiarised,--she saw, or fancied she saw, one altogether
new to her.
It was a human face and figure, in the likeness of a beautiful boy, who
appeared to be kneeling on the water, or on some slight structure on a
level with the surface of the sea!
The lightning had revealed other objects beside him and over him. A
pair of slender sticks, standing some feet apart, and in a perpendicular
position, with some white strips suspended between them, in the gleam of
the lightning shone clear and conspicuous.
It is not to be wondered at that the little Lalee should feel surprise
at an apparition,--so unexpected, in such a place, and under such
circumstances. It is not to be wondered at that her first impulse
should be to rouse her companion out of his snoring slumbers.
She did so upon the instant, and without waiting for another flash of
lightning either to confirm her belief in what she had seen, or convince
her that it was only an apparition,--which her fancy, disturbed by the
dreams in which she had been indulging, had conjured up on the instant
of her awaking.
"Wha's dat you say?" inquired Snowball, abruptly awakened in the middle
of a superb snore; "see something! you say dat, ma pickaninny? How you
see anyting such night as dis be? Law, ma lilly Lally, you no see de
nose before you own face. De 'ky 'bove am dark as de complexyun ob dis
ole nigga; you muss be mistake, lilly gal!--dat you muss!"
"No, indeed, Snowball!" replied Lalee, speaking in gumbo Portuguese, "I
am not mistaken. It wasn't dark when I saw it. There was lightning;
and it was as clear as in daylight for a little while. I'm sure I saw
some one!"
"What was de some one like?" interrogated Snowball, in an accent that
proclaimed incredulity. "Was 'um a man or a woman?"
"Neither."
"Neider! Den it muss ha' been,--ha! maybe it war a mermaid!"
"What I saw looked like a boy, Snowball. O, now I think of it, like
that boy."
"What boy you 'peak 'bout?"
"He who was aboard the ship,--the English boy who was one of the
sailors."
"Ah! you mean de little Will'm, I 'pose. I reck'n dat 'ere lad hab gone
to de bott'm ob de sea long afore dis, or else he get off on de big
raff. I know he no go 'long wi' de cappen, 'case I see de little chap
close by de caboose after de gig row 'way. If he hab go by de raff dem
ruffins sure eat him up,--dat be if dey get hungry. Dey sure do dat!
Hark! what's dat I heer? Sure's my name be Snowball, I hear some 'un
'peak out dere to win'ard. D'you hear anything, lilly Lally?"
"Yes, Snowball: I think I did."
"What you tink you?"
"A voice."
"What sort o' voice?"
"Like a boy's voice,--just like _his_."
"Who you mean?"
"The boy-sailor aboard the ship. O, listen! There it is again; and
surely I hear another?"
"Gorramity! little gal, you 'peak de troof. Sure 'nuff dere am a
voice,--two ob dat same. One am like de boy we 'peak 'bout,--odder more
like a man o' full groaf. I wonder who dey can be. Hope 't an't de
ghoses of some o' de _Pandoras_ dat ha' been drowned or eat up by de
sharks. Lissen 'gain, Lally, an' try make dem out."
Having imparted this injunction, the negro raised himself into a
half-erect attitude; and facing to windward with his arms resting upon
one of the empty casks,--which, as already stated, formed a sort of
circular parapet around his raft,--he remained silent and listening.
The little Lalee had also assumed a half-erect attitude; and, by the
side of her sable companion, kept peering out into the darkness,--in the
hope that another flash of lightning might again reveal to her eyes the
features of that beautiful boy, who, alone of all upon that fated ship,
had made upon her mind an impression worthy of being remembered.