The Ocean Waifs Part 8

Should he awake his companion and tell him of it? A pity, if it should prove to be nothing, or only the chattering of a sea-gull. His brave protector had need of rest. Ben would not be angry to be awaked; but the sailor would be sure to laugh at him if he were to say he had heard a little girl talking at that time of night in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Perhaps Ben might say it was a mermaid, and mock him in that sort of style?

No: he would not run the risk of being ridiculed, even by his best of friends. Better let the thing pa.s.s, and say nothing about it.

Little William had arrived at this resolution, and had more than half determined to treat the sound he had heard as an _aurical_ delusion. He had even replaced his cheek upon the sail-cloth pillow, when the very same sound again fill upon his ear,--this time more distinctly heard, as if either the utterance had been clearer or the being that made it was nearer!

If it was not the voice of a girl,--a very young girl,--then the boy-sailor had never listened to the prattling of his younger sister, or the conversation of his little female playmates. If it was a young mermaid, then most a.s.suredly could mermaids talk: for the sound was exactly like a string or series of words uttered in conversation!

Ben must be aroused from his slumber. It could not be an illusion.

Either a talking mermaid, or a little girl, was within earshot of the raft.

There was no help for it: Ben must be aroused.

"Ben! Ben!"

"Ho--hah--ow--aw--what's the row?--seven bells, I bean't on the dog-watch. Hi, hi, oh! it's you, little Will'm. What is't, lad?"

"Ben, I hear something."

"Hear somethin'! Well, what o' that, boy? Theer 's allers somethin' to be heerd: even here, in the middle o' the Atlantic. Ah! boy, I was dreamin' a nice dream when ye woke me. I thought I war back on the ole frigate. 'T wa'nt so nice, eyther, for I thought the bos'n war roustin'

me up for my watch on deck. Anyhow, would a been better than this watch here. Heerd something ye say? What d'ye mean, little Will'm?"

"I heard a voice, Ben. I think it was a voice."

"Voice--o' a human, do ye mean?"

"It sounded like that of a little girl."

"Voice o' a little girl! s.h.i.+ver my timbers, lad, you're goin' demented!

Put yer face close to mine. Let me see ye, boy! Are ye in yer senses, Will'm?"

"I am, Ben. I'm sure I heard what I've said. Twice I heard it. The first time I wasn't sure; but just now I heard it again, and if--"

"If there hadn't been gulls, an' b.o.o.bies, an' Mother Carey's chickens, as squeals and chitters just like little childer, I'd a been puzzled at what ye be a tellin' me; but as I knows there be all o' these creators in the middle o' the broad ocean,--and mermaids too, I dare say,--then, ye see, little Will'm, I must disbelieve that ye heard anything more than the voice of--a man, by--!"

As the sailor terminated his speech with this terrible emphasis, he started into an upright att.i.tude, and listened with all his ears for another utterance of that harsh monotone that, borne upon the breeze and rising above the "sough" of the disturbed water, could easily be distinguished as the _voice of a man_.

"We're lost, Will'm!" cried he, without waiting for a repet.i.tion of the sound; "we're lost. It's the voice of Le Gros. The big raft is a bearin' down upon us wi' them bloodthirsty cannibals we thought we'd got clear o'. It's no use tryin' to escape. Make up your mind to it, lad; we've got to die! we've got to die!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

OTHER WAIFS.

Had it been daylight, instead of a very dark night, Ben Brace and his youthful comrade would have been less alarmed by the voices that came up the wind. Daylight would have discovered to them an object, or rather collection of objects, which, instead of repelling, would have attracted them nearer.

It was not the great raft that was drifting to leeward, nor was it the voice of Le Gros or any of his wicked companions, that had been heard; though, in the excitement of their fears, that was the first thought of the two castaways.

Could their eyes have penetrated the deep obscurity that shrouded the sea, they would have beheld a number of objects, like themselves, adrift upon the water, and like them, at the mercy of the winds and waves.

They would have seen pieces of timber, black and charred with fire; fragments of broken spars, with sails and cordage attached and trailing after them; here and there a cask or barrel, sunk to the level of the surface by the weight of its contents; pieces of packing-cases, torn asunder as if by some terrible explosion; cabin-chairs, coops, oars, handspikes, and other implements of the mariner's calling,--all bobbing about on the bosom of the blue deep, and carried hither and thither by the arbitrary oscillations of the breeze.

These various objects were not all huddled up together, but scattered unequally over a s.p.a.ce of more than a square mile in extent. Had it been daylight, so that the sailor could have seen them, as they appeared mottling the bright surface of the sea, he would have experienced no difficulty in determining their character. At a glance he would have recognised the _debris_ of the burnt s.h.i.+p, from which he and his companion had so narrowly escaped,--the slave-bark _Pandora_.

He would have looked upon these objects with no very great surprise, but in all likelihood with a feeling of considerable satisfaction: as offering the means for recruiting the strength of his own slight embarkation, which was barely sufficient to sustain the weight of himself and his companion, and certainly not strong enough to withstand the a.s.sault of the most moderate of storms.

In the midst of the "waifs" above enumerated, however, there was one not yet named,--one that differed greatly from all the rest,--and which, had it been seen by them, would have caused extreme surprise both to Ben Brace and little William.

It was a raft, not a great deal larger than their own, but altogether of different construction. A number of planks most of them charred by fire, with a sofa, a bamboo chair, and some other articles of furniture, had been rudely bound together by ropes. These things, of themselves, would have made but a very clumsy craft, no better for navigating the great ocean than that upon which Ben and the boy were themselves embarked. But the buoyancy of the former was secured by a contrivance of which the sailor had not had the opportunity of availing himself.

Around its edge were ranged hogsheads or water-casks, evidently empty.

They were lashed to the plank; and being bunged up against the influx of the water, kept the whole structure afloat, so that it would have carried a ton or two without sinking below the surface.

There was a smaller cask floating alongside, attached to the timbers by a piece of rope that was tightly looped around the swell. But this could not have been designed to increase the buoyancy of the raft: since it was itself almost submerged, evidently by the weight of something it contained.

Such a congeries of objects might have drifted side by side by chance, or the caprice of the currents; but they could not have tied themselves together in such fas.h.i.+on. There was design in the arrangement; and in the midst of the circle of empty hogsheads might have been seen the contriver of this curious craft. He was, of course, a human being, and a man; but such an one as, under any circ.u.mstances, would arrest the attention of the beholder; much more in the singular situation in which he was then met with. He was a black man, in the fullest sense of the word; a true negro, with a skin s.h.i.+ning like ebony; a skull of large size, and slightly square in shape, covered with a thick crop of curling wool, so close and short as to appear _felted_ into the skin. A brace of broad ears stood prominently out from the sides of his head; and extending almost from one to the other, was a wide-gaping mouth, formed by a pair of lips of huge thickness, protruding far forward, so as to give to the countenance those facial outlines characteristic of the chimpanzee or gorilla.

Notwithstanding his somewhat abnormal features, the expression of the negro's face was far from being hideous. It was not even disagreeable.

A double row of white teeth, gleaming between the purplish lips, could be exhibited upon ordinary occasions in a pleasant smile; and the impression derived from looking upon the countenance was, that the owner of it was rather good-natured than otherwise. Just then, as he sat upon the raft, gazing over the bulwark of hogsheads, its expression was one of profound and sombre melancholy. No wonder!

The negro was not alone. Another individual shared with him the occupancy of the raft;--one differing from him in appearance as Hyperion from the Satyr. A few feet from him, and directly before his face, was a little girl, apparently about ten or twelve years of age. She was seated, or rather cowering, among the timbers of the raft, upon a piece of tarpauling that had been spread over them, her eyes bent upon her black companion, though occasionally straying, with listless glance, over the sombre surface of the sea. Although so young, her countenance appeared sad and despondent, as if under the belief that there was little hope of escape from the fearful situation in which she was placed, and as if her little spirit had long ago surrendered to despair.

Though not a negro like her companion, the girl could scarce be called _white_. Her complexion was of that hue known as olive; but her hair, although curling, hung in long locks down over her shoulders; and the crimson hue deeply tinting her cheeks told that in her blood there was more Caucasian than negro.

Any one who had visited the western coast of Africa, on seeing this little girl, would easily have recognised in her features the type of that mixed race which has resulted from long intercourse between the Portuguese "colonists" and the sable indigenes of the soil.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

HOW s...o...b..LL ESCAPED FROM THE SLAVER.

On this curious embarkation, drifting about amid the remains of the wrecked s.h.i.+p, there were only the two human figures,--the negro and the little girl. It is superfluous to say that they were also a portion of the wreck itself,--other castaways who had, so far, succeeded in saving themselves from the fearful doom that had overtaken, no doubt, every one of the wretched beings composing the _cargo_ of the slaver.

The negro upon the raft, though black as the blackest of his unfortunate countrymen, was not among the number of those who had been carried as _freight_. On the contrary, he was one of the crew,--the lord of the caboose, and known upon the slave-bark by the satirical _soubriquet_ of "s...o...b..ll."

Although originally a slave from Africa, and by race a Coromantee, s...o...b..ll had long been in the enjoyment of his liberty; and, as cook or steward, had seen service in scores of s.h.i.+ps, and circ.u.mnavigated the globe in almost every lat.i.tude where circ.u.mnavigation was possible.

Though not naturally of a wicked disposition, he was by no means particular as to the company he kept, or the sort of s.h.i.+p he sailed in,--so long as the wages were good and the store-room well supplied; and as these conditions are usually found on board of a slaver, it was not s...o...b..ll's first voyage in a vessel of the kind. It is true that he had never sailed in company with a more ribald crew than that of the _Pandora_; but it is only justice to say, that, long before the fatal interruption of that voyage, even he had become tired of their companions.h.i.+p, and had been almost as eager to get away from the s.h.i.+p as Ben Brace or little William.

He, too, had been deterred from attempting to escape while upon the African coast, by the knowledge that such an attempt would have been worse than idle. In all likelihood it would have ended in his being captured by his own countrymen,--or, at all events, by people of his own colour,--and sold once more into that very slavery from which he had formerly succeeded in emanc.i.p.ating himself.

Though s...o...b..ll's morality was far from being immaculate, there was one virtue which he was not wanting,--grat.i.tude. But for the possession of this, he might have been alone upon the raft, and, perhaps, less caring in what direction the winds and waves might carry him. As it was, his sole thought and anxiety was about his little companion, whose safety was as dear to him as his own.

It will be asked why s...o...b..ll felt this unselfish solicitude. The child could not be his own? Complexion, features, everything forbade the supposition that there could be anything of kins.h.i.+p between her and her sable protector.

Nor was there the slightest. On the contrary, the little girl was the daughter of one who had once been s...o...b..ll's greatest enemy,--the man who had sold him into slavery; but who had afterwards won the negro's grat.i.tude by restoring to him his freedom. This person had formerly owned a trading fort on the coast of Africa, but of late years had been a resident of Rio in Brazil. His daughter, born in the former country, previous to his leaving it, was crossing the great ocean to rejoin him in his new home in the western world. Hence her presence on board the _Pandora_, where she had been a pa.s.senger under the protection of s...o...b..ll.

And well had the negro performed his duty as protector. When all the others had forsaken the s.h.i.+p, and the flames were fast spreading over her decks, the faithful negro had gone below, and, rousing the girl from her sleep,--for she had been slumbering unconscious of the danger,--had borne her amidst flames and smoke, at the imminent risk of his own life, and pa.s.sing through the cabin windows with his burden in his arms, he had dropped down into the sea under the stern of the burning bark.