With the _Catamaran_ once more under sail, and going on her due course,
her crew might have seemed restored to the situation held by them
previous to their encountering the dead _cachalot_ Unfortunately for
them, this was far from being the case.
A change for the worse had occurred in their circumstances. Then they
were "victualled"--if not to full rations, at least with stores
calculated to last them for some time. They were provided, moreover,
with certain weapons and implements that might be the means of
replenishing their stores in the event of their falling short.
Now it was altogether different. The _Catamaran_ was as true and
seaworthy as ever, her "rig" as of yore, and her sailing qualities not
in the least impaired. But her "fitting out" was far inferior,
especially in the "victualling department"; and this weighed heavily
upon the minds of her crew.
Notwithstanding the depression of their spirits, which soon returned
again, they could not resist an inclination for sleep. It is to be
remembered that they had been deprived of this on the preceding night
through the violence of the gale, and that they had got but very little
on the night before that from being engaged in scorching their
shark-meat.
Exhausted nature called loudly for repose; and so universally, that the
complete crew yielded to the call, not even one of them remaining in
charge of the helm.
It had been agreed upon that the craft should be left to choose its own
track; or rather, that which the wind might select for it.
Guided by the breath of heaven, and by that alone, did the _Catamaran_
continue her course.
How much way she made thus left alone to herself is not written down in
her "log." The time alone is recorded; and we are told that it was the
hour of midnight before any individual of her crew awoke from that
slumber, to which "all hands" had surrendered after setting her sail.
The first of them who awoke was little William. The sailor-lad was not
a heavy sleeper at any time, and on this night in particular his
slumbers had been especially _unsound_. There was trouble on his mind
before going to sleep, an uneasiness of no ordinary kind. It was not
any fear for his own fate. He was a true English tar in miniature, and
could not have been greatly distressed with any apprehensions of a
purely selfish nature. Those that harassed him were caused by his
consideration for another,--for Lilly Lalee.
For days he had been observing a change in the appearance of the child.
He had noticed the gradual paling of her cheek, and rapid attenuation of
her form,--the natural consequence of such a terrible exposure to one
accustomed all her days to a delicate and luxurious mode of existence.
On that day in particular, after the fearful shock they had all
sustained, the young Portuguese girl had appeared,--at least, in the
eyes of little William,--more enfeebled than ever; and the boy-sailor
had gone to sleep under a sad foreboding that she would be the first to
succumb,--and that soon,--to the hardships they were called upon to
encounter.
Little William loved Lilly Lalee with such love as a lad may feel for
one of his own age,--a love perhaps the sweetest in life, if not the
most lasting.
Inspired by this juvenile passion, and by the apprehensions he had for
its object, the boy-sailor did not sleep very soundly.
Fortunate that it was so; else that brilliant flame that near the
mid-hours of night glared athwart the deck of the _Catamaran_ might not
have awakened him; and had it not done so, neither he nor his three
companions might ever again have looked upon human face except their
own, and that only to see one another expire in the agonies of death.
There was a flame far lighting up the sombre surface of the ocean that
shone upon the sleepy Catamarans. Gleaming in the half-closed eye of
the sailor-lad, it awoke him.
Starting up, he beheld an apparition, which caused him surprise, not
unmingled with alarm. It was a ship beyond doubt,--or the semblance of
one,--but such as the sailor-lad had never before seen.
She appeared to be on fire. Vast clouds of smoke were rising up from
her decks, and rolling away over her stern, illuminated by columns of
bright flame that jetted up forward of her foremast, almost to the
height of her lower shrouds. No man unaccustomed to such a sight could
have looked upon that ship without supposing that she was on fire.
Little William should have been able to judge of what he saw.
Unfortunately for himself, the spectacle of a ship on fire was not new
to him. He had witnessed the burning of the bark which had borne him
into the middle of the Atlantic, and left him where he now was, in a
position of extremest peril.
But the memory of that conflagration did not assist him in determining
the character of the spectacle now before his eyes. On the decks of the
_Pandora_ he had seen men endeavouring to escape from the flames, in
every attitude of wild terror. On the ship now in sight he beheld the
very reverse. He saw human beings standing in front of the column of
fire, not only unconcerned at its proximity, but apparently feeding the
flames!
It was a spectacle to startle the most experienced mariner, and call
forth the keenest alarm,--a sight to suggest the double
interrogatory,--"Is it a phantom ship, or a ship on fire?"