The man who had so unexpectedly interrupted the deadly duello, while
giving utterance to his strange speech, kept one of his arms extended
towards the ocean,--as if pointing to something he had descried above
the horizon.
The eyes of all were suddenly turned in the direction thus indicated.
The magic words, "We are saved!" had an immediate effect,--not only upon
the spectators of the tragedy thus intruded upon, but upon its actors.
Even rancour became appeased by the sweet sound; and that of the
Irishman, as with most of his countrymen, being born "as the flint bears
fire," subsided on the instant.
He permitted his upraised arm to be held in restraint; it became
relaxed, as did also his grasp on the wrist of his antagonist; while the
latter, finding himself free, was allowed to retire from the contest.
O'Gorman, among the rest, had faced round; and stood looking in the
direction where somebody had seen something that promised salvation of
all.
"What is it?" inquired several voices in the same breath,--"the land?"
No: it could not be that. There was not one of them such a nautical
ignoramus as to believe himself within sigh of land.
"A sail?--a ship?"
That was more likely: though, at the first glance, neither tail nor ship
appeared upon the horizon, "What is it?" was the interrogatory
reiterated by a dozen voices.
"A light! Don't you see it?" asked the lynx-eyed individual, whose
interference in the combat had caused this sudden departure from the
programme. "Look!" he continued; "just where the sun's gone down
yonder. It's only a speck; but I can see it plain enough. It must be
the light from a ship's binnacle!"
"_Carrajo_!" exclaimed a Spaniard; "it's only a spark the sun's left
behind him. It's the _ignis fatuus_ you've seen, _amigo_!"
"Bah!" added another; "supposing it is a binnacle-lamp, as you say, what
would be the use, except to tantalise us. If it be in the binnacle, in
course the ship as carries it must be stern towards us. What chance
would there be of our overhaulin' her?"
"_Par Dieu_! there be von light!" cried a sharp-eyed little Frenchman.
"Pe Gar! I him see. Ver true, vraiment! An--pe dam!--zat same est no
lamp in ze binnacle!"
"I see it too!" cried another.
"And I!" added a third.
"_Io tambien_!" (I also) echoed a fourth, whose tongue proclaimed him
of Spanish nativity.
"_Ich sehe_!" drawled out a native of the German Confederacy; and then
followed a volley of voices,--each saying something to confirm the
belief that a light was really gleaming over the ocean.
This was a fact that nobody--not even the first objectors--any longer
doubted.
It is true that the light seen appeared only a mere sparkle, feebly
glimmering against the sky, and might have been mistaken for a star.
But it was just in that part of the heavens where a star could not at
that time have been seen,--on the western horizon, still slightly
reddened by the rays of the declining sun.
The men who speculated upon its appearance,--rude as they were in a
moral sense,--were not so intellectually stupid as to mistake for a star
that speck of yellowish hue, struggling to reveal itself against the
almost kindred colour of the occidental sky.
"It isn't a star,--that's certain," confidently declared one of their
number; "and if it be a light aboard ship, it's no binnacle-lamp, I say.
Bah! who'd call that a binnacle glim, or a lamp of any kind? If't be a
ship's light at all, it's the glare o' the galley-fire,--where the
cook's makin' coffee for all hands."
The superb picture of comfort thus called forth was too much for the
temper of the starving men, to whom the idea was addressed; and a wild
cry of exultation responded to the speech.
A galley; a galley-fire; a cook; coffee for all hands; lobscouse;
plum-duff; sea-pies; even the much-despised pea-soup and salt junk, had
been long looked upon as things belonging to another world,--pleasures
of the past, never more to be indulged in!
Now that the gleam of a galley-fire--as they believed the light to be--
rose up before their eyes, the spirits of all became suddenly
electrified by the wildest imaginings; and the contest so lately carried
on,--as well as the combatants engaged in it,--was instantaneously
forgotten; while the thoughts, and eager glances, of every individual on
the raft were now directed towards that all-absorbing speck,--still
gleaming but obscurely against the reddish background of the sun-stained
horizon.
As they continued to gaze, the tiny spark seemed to increase, not only
in size, but intensity; and, before many minutes had elapsed, it
proclaimed itself no longer a mere spark, but a blaze of light, with its
own luminous halo around it. The gradual chastening of colour in the
western sky, along with the increased darkness of the atmosphere around
it, would account for this change in the appearance of the light. So
reasoned the spectators,--now more than ever convinced that what they
saw was the glare of a galley-fire.