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 Snowball 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 principal 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.