The man-o'-war's-man kept watch during the long hours of the night.
True to his trust, he attended to the steering-oar: and as the breeze
continued to blow steadily in the same direction, the raft, under the
double propulsion of the wind and the "line current," made considerable
way to the westward.
A sort of filmy fog had arisen over the ocean, which hid the stars from
sight. This might have rendered it impossible for the steersman to keep
his course; but, under the belief that there was no change occurring in
the direction of the wind, Ben guided himself by that, and very
properly, as it afterwards proved.
Just before daybreak, he was relieved by Snowball; who entered upon his
watch, at the same time taking his turn at the steering-oar.
Ben had not aroused the negro for this purpose; and he would have
generously remained at his post until morning, had Snowball desired to
prolong his slumbers.
The act of arousing himself was not altogether voluntary on the part of
the negro; though neither was it the doing of his comrade. It was in
consequence of a physical feeling--a cold shivering caused by the damp
sea-fog--that Snowball had been disturbed from his sleep; and which, on
his awaking, kept him for some minutes oscillating in a sort of ague,
his ivories "dingling" against each other with a continuous rattle that
resembled the clattering of some loose bolt in a piece of machinery out
of repair.
It was some time before Snowball could recover his exact equilibrium;
for, of all sorts of climate, that least endurable to the Coromantee
negro is a cold one.
After repeated flopping his arms over his broad chest, and striking
crosswise, until the tips of his fingers almost met upon the spinal
column of his back, Snowball succeeded in resuscitating the circulation;
and then, perceiving it was full time to take his turn at the helm, he
proposed relieving the sailor.
This proposal was agreed to; Ben, before putting himself in a position
for repose, giving Snowball the necessary directions as to the course in
which the _Catamaran_ was to be kept.
In five minutes after, the sailor was asleep; and the sea-cook was the
only one of the Catamarans who was conscious that the craft that carried
them was only a frail structure drifting in mid-ocean hundreds of miles
from land.
Little William was, perhaps, dreaming of his English, and Lilly Lalee of
her African, home; while the sailor, in all probability, was fancying
himself safely "stowed" in the forecastle of a British frigate, with all
sail rightly set, and a couple of hundred jolly Jacks like himself
stretched out in their "bunks" or swinging in their hammocks around him.
During the first hour of his watch, Snowball did not embarrass his brain
with any other idea than simply to follow the instructions of the
sailor, and keep the _Catamaran_ before the wind.
There had been something said about keeping a look-out, in the hope of
espying a sail; but in the dense fog that surrounded them there would be
no chance of seeing the biggest ship,--even should one be passing at an
ordinary cable's length from the _Catamaran_.
Snowball, therefore, did not trouble himself to scan the sea on either
side of their course; but for all that he kept the look-out enjoined on
him by the sailor,--that is, he _kept it with his ears_!
Though a ship might not be seen, the voices of her crew or other sounds
occurring aboard might be heard; for in this way the presence of a
vessel is often proclaimed in a very dark night or when the sea is
obscured by a fog.
Oftener, however, at such times, two ships will approach and recede from
one another, without either having been conscious of the proximity of
the other,--meeting in mid-ocean and gliding silently past, like two
giant spectres,--each bent on its own noiseless errand.
Daybreak arrived without the black pilot having heard any sound, beyond
that of the breeze rustling against the sail of the _Catamaran_ or the
hollow "sough" of the water as it surged against the empty casks lashed
along their sides.
As the day broke, however, and the upper edge of the sun's disk became
visible above the horizon,--the fog under the influence of his rays
growing gradually but sensibly thinner,--a sight became disclosed to the
eyes of Snowball that caused the blood to course with lightning
quickness through his veins; while his heart, beating delightfully
within his capacious chest, bounded far above the region of his
diaphragm.
At the same instant he sprang to his feet, dropped the steering-oar, as
if it had been a bar of red-hot iron; and, striding forward to the
starboard bow of the _Catamaran_ stood gazing outward upon the ocean!
What could have caused this sudden commotion in both the mind and body
of the Coromantee? What spectacle could have thus startled him?
It was the sight of _land_!