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 Snowball,--even the difference of a cable's length might be
of vital importance.
It occurred to him also, that the greater the number of waifs sent in
their way, the better would be their chance of seeing and getting hold
of one of them. Instead of desisting therefore, as soon as he had
detached the first cask, he commenced cutting loose a second, and
committing it to the sea in like manner.
Having freed a second, he continued on to a third, and then a fourth,
and was actually about to sever the lashings of a fifth one, with the
intention to leave only the sixth one--that which contained the stock of
precious water--attached to the _Catamaran_. He knew that the raft
would still float, without any of the casks to buoy it up; and it was
not any fear on that score that caused him to desist, when about to give
the cut to the cords that confined cask Number 5. It was an observation
which he had made of an entirely different nature; and this was, that
the third cask when set loose, and more especially the fourth, instead
of falling into the wake of the _Catamaran_, kept close by her side, as
if loath to part company with a craft to which they had been so
intimately attached.
William wondered at this, but only for a short moment. He was not slow
in comprehending the cause of the unexpected phenomenon. The raft, no
longer buoyed up, had sunk almost to the level of the surface; and the
breeze now failed to impel it any faster than the casks themselves: so
that both casks and _Catamaran_ were making leeway at a like rate of
speed, or rather with equal slowness.
Though the sailor-lad was dissatisfied on first perceiving this, after a
moment's reflection, he saw that it was a favourable circumstance. Of
course, it was not that the casks were making _more_ way to leeward, but
that the _Catamaran_ was making _less_; and, therefore, if there was a
chance of the swimmers coming up with the former, there was an equal
probability of their overtaking the latter,--which would be better in
every way. Indeed, the raft was now going at such a rate, that the
slowest swimmer might easily overtake her, provided the distance between
them was not too great.
It was this last thought that now occupied the mind of little William,
and rendered him anxious. Had the swimmers fallen too far into the
wake? Or would they still be able to swim on to the raft?
Where were they at that moment? He looked aft, towards the point from
which he supposed himself to have been drifting. He was not sure of the
direction; for the rude construction on which he stood had kept
constantly whirling in the water,--now the stem, now the quarters, anon
the bows, or beam-ends turned towards the breeze. He looked, but saw
nothing. Only the sea-kit that by this time had got several hundred
fathoms to windward, cask Number 1 a little nearer, and Number 2 still
nearer. These, however, strung out in a line, enabled him to conjecture
the direction in which the swimmers, if still above water, should be
found.
Indeed, it was something more definite than a conjecture. Rather was it
a certainty. He knew that the raft could not have made way otherwise
than _down the wind_; and that those who belonged to it could not be
elsewhere than to windward.
Guided, therefore, by the breeze, he gazed in this direction,--sweeping
with his eye an arc of the horizon sufficiently large to allow for any
deviation which the swimmers might have made from the true track.
He gazed in vain. The kit, the casks, a gull or two, soaring on snowy
wings, were all the objects that broke the monotony of the blue water to
windward.
He glided across the low-lying planks of the raft, and up to the empty
cask still attached, which offered the highest point for observation.
He balanced himself on its top, and once more scanned the sea to
windward.
Nothing in sight, save kit, casks, and gulls lazily plying their long
scimitar-shaped wings with easy unconcern, as if the limitless ocean
was,--what in reality it was,--their habitat and home.
Suffering the torture of disappointment,--each moment increasing in
agony,--little William leaped down from the cask; and, rushing
amidships, commenced mounting the mast.
In a few seconds he had swarmed to its top: and, there clinging, once
more directed his glance over the water. He gazed long without
discovering any trace of his missing companions,--so long that his
sinews were tried to the utmost; and the muscles both of his arms and
limbs becoming relaxed, he was compelled to let go, and slide down
despairingly upon the planks forming the deck of the _Catamaran_.
He stayed below only long enough to recover strength; and then a second
time went swarming up the stick. If kit and casks should serve no
better purpose, they at least guided him as to the direction; and
looking over both, he scanned the sea beyond.
The gulls guided him still better; for both--there was a brace of them--
had now descended near to the surface of the sea; and, wheeling in short
flights, seemed to occupy themselves with some object in the water
below. Though they were at a great distance off, he could hear an
occasional scream proceeding from their throats: as if the object
attracting them excited either their curiosity or some passion of a more
turbulent character.
Their evolutions,--constantly returning towards a centre,--guided the
eye of the observer until it rested on an object just visible above the
sheen of the water. The colour of this object rendered it the more easy
of being distinguished amidst the blue water that surrounded it; for it
was blacker than anything which the sea produces,--unless it were the
bone of the giant _Mysticetus_. Its shape, too--almost a perfect
sphere--had something to do in its identification: for William was able
to identify it, and by a process of negative reasoning. It was not the
black albatross, the frigate-bird, nor the booby. Though of like
colour, there was no bird of such form as that. There was neither beast
nor fish belonging to the sea that could show such a shape above its
surface. That sable globe, rounded like a sea-hedgehog, or a
Turk's-head clew, and black as a tarred tackle-block, could be nothing
else than the woolly pate of Snowball, the sea-cook!
A little beyond were two other objects of dark colour and founded shape;
but neither so dark nor so round as that already identified. They must
be the heads of the English sailor and Lilly Lalee. They appeared to be
equally objects of attraction to the gulls, that alternately flew from
one to the other, or kept hovering above them,--and continuously
uttering their shrill, wild screams,--now more distinctly heard by
little William, clinging high up on the mast of the _Catamaran_.