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The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea

Chapter Fifty Five.
Snowball sees Land

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!

Chapter Fifty Six.
Is it Land?

A sight so unexpected, and yet so welcome, should have elicited from him a vociferous announcement of the fact.

It did not. On the contrary, he kept silent while stepping forward on the deck, and for some time after, while he stood gazing over the bow.

It was the very unexpectedness of seeing land – combined with the desirability of such a sight – that hindered him from proclaiming it to his companions; and it was some time before he became convinced that his senses were not deceiving him.

Though endowed with only a very limited knowledge of nautical geography, the negro knew a good deal about the lower latitudes of the Atlantic. More than once had he made that dreaded middle passage, – once in fetters, and often afterwards assisting to carry others across in the same unfeeling fashion. He knew of no land anywhere near where they were now supposed to be; had never seen or heard of any, – neither island, rock, nor reef. He knew of the Isle of Ascension, and the lone islet of Saint Paul’s. But neither of these could be near the track on which the Catamaran was holding her course. It could not be either.

And yet what was it he saw? for, sure as eyes were eyes, there was an island outlined upon the retina, so plainly perceptible, that his senses could not be deceiving him!

It was after this conviction became fully established in his mind, that he at length broke silence; and in a voice that woke his slumbering companions with a simultaneous start.

“Land ’o!” vociferated Snowball.

“Land ho!” echoed Ben Brace, springing to his feet, and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “Land, you say, Snowy? Impossible! You must be mistaken, nigger.”

“Land?” interrogated little William. “Whereaway, Snowball?”

“Land?” cried the Portuguese girl, comprehending that word of joyful signification, though spoken in a language not her own.

“Whar away?” inquired the sailor, as he scrambled over the planks of the raft, to get on the forward side of the sail, which hindered his field of view.

“Hya!” replied Snowball. “Hya, Massa Brace, jess to la’bord, ober de la’bord bow.”

“It do look like land,” assented the sailor, directing his glance upon something of a strange appearance, low down upon the surface of the sea, and still but dimly discernible through the fog. “Shiver my timbers if it don’t! An island it be, – not a very big ’un, but for all that, it seem a island.”

“My gollies! dar am people on it! D’you see um, Massa Brace? movin’ ’bout all ober it I see ’um plain as de sun in de hebbens! Scores o’ people a’gwine about back’ard an’ forrads. See yonner!”

“Plain as the sun in the heavens,” was not a very appropriate simile for Snowball to make use of at that moment; for the orb of day was still darkly obscured by the fog; and for the same reason, the outlines of the island, – or whatever they were taking for one, – could be traced only very indistinctly.

Certain it is, however, that Snowball, who had been gazing longer at the supposed land, and had got his eyes more accustomed to the view, did see some scores of figures moving about over it; and Ben Brace, with little William as well, now that their attention was called to them, could perceive the same forms.

“Bless my stars!” exclaimed the sailor, on making out that the figures were in motion, “thear be men on ’t sure enough, – an’ weemen, I should say, – seein’ as there’s some o’ ’em in whitish clothes. Who and what can they be? Shiver my timbers if I can believe it, tho’ I see it right afore my eyes! I never heerd o’ a island in this part of the Atlantic, an’ I don’t believe thear be one, ’ceptin’ it’s sprung up within the last year or two. What do you think, Snowy? Be it a Flyin’ Dutchman, or a rock, as if just showin’ his snout above water, or a reg’lar-built island?”

“Dat ’ere am no Flyin’ Dutchman, – leas’wise a hope um no’ be. No, Massa Brace, dis nigga wa right in de fuss speckelashun. ’Tarn a island, – a bit ob do real terrer firmer, as you soon see when we puts de Cat’maran ’bout an’ gits a leetle nearer to de place.”

This hypothetic suggestion on the part of the Coromantee was also intended as a counsel; and, acting upon it, the sailor scrambled back over the raft, and seizing hold of the steering-oar, turned the Catamaran’s head straight in the direction of the newly-discovered land.

The island, – if such it should prove to be, – was of no very great extent. It appeared to run along the horizon a distance of something like a hundred yards; but estimates formed in this fashion are often deceptive, – more especially when a fog interferes, such as at that moment hung over it.

The land appeared to be elevated several feet above the level of the sea, – at one end having a bold bluff-like termination, at the other shelving off in a gentle slope towards the water.

It was principally upon the more elevated portion that the figures were seen, – here standing in groups of three or four, and there moving about in twos, or singly.

They appeared to be of different sizes, and differently dressed: for, even through the film, it could be seen that their garments were of various cuts and colours. Some were stalwart fellows, beside whom were others that in comparison were mere pygmies. These Snowball said were the “pickaninnies,” – the children of the taller ones.

They were in different attitudes too. Some standing erect, apparently carrying long lance-like weapons over their shoulders; others similarly armed, in stooping positions; while not a few appeared to be actively engaged, handling huge pickaxes, with which they repeatedly struck downwards, as if excavating the soil!

It is true that their manoeuvres were seen only indistinctly: and it was not possible for the Catamarans to come to any certain understanding, as to what sort of work was going on upon the island.

It was still very doubtful whether what they saw was in reality an island, or that the figures upon it were those of human beings. Snowball believed them to be so, and emphatically asserted his belief; but Ben was slightly incredulous and undecided, notwithstanding that he had several times “shivered his timbers” in confirmation of the fact.

It was not the possibility of the existence of an island that the sailor disputed. That was possible and probable enough. At the time of which we speak, new islands were constantly turning up in the ocean, where no land was supposed to exist; and even at the present hour, when one might suppose that every inch of the sea has been sailed over, the discovery of rocks, shoals, and even unknown islands, is far from unfrequent.

It was not the island, therefore, that now puzzled the ex-man-o’-war’s-man, but the number of people appearing upon it.

Had there been only a score, or a score and a half, he could have explained the circumstance of its being inhabited; though the explanation would not have been productive of pleasure either to himself or his companions. In that case he would have believed the moving forms to be the shipwrecked crew of the Pandora who on this ocean islet had found a temporary resting-place; while the pickaxes, which were being freely employed, would have indicated the sinking of wells in search after fresh water.

The number of people on the island, however, with other circumstances observed, at once contradicted the idea that it could be the crew of the shipwrecked slaver; and the certainty that it was not these ruffians whom they saw emboldened the Catamarans in their approach.

In spite of appearances, still was the sailor disposed to doubt the existence of an island; or, at least, that the forms moving to and fro over its surface were those of human beings.

Nor could he be cured of his incredulity until the Catamaran, approaching still nearer to the shore of the doubtful islet, enabled him to see and distinguish beyond the possibility of doubt a flag floating from the top of its staff, which rose tall and tapering from the very highest point of land which the place afforded!

The flag was of crimson cloth, – apparently a piece of bunting. It floated freely upon the breeze; which the filmy mist, though half disclosing, could not altogether conceal. The deep red colour was too scarce upon the ocean to be mistaken for the livery of any of its denizens. It could not be the tail-feathers of the tropic bird so prized by the chiefs of Polynesia; nor yet the scarlet pouch of the sea-hawk.

It could be nothing else than a “bit o’ buntin’.”

So, at length, believed Ben Brace, and his belief, expressed in his own peculiar patois, produced conviction in the minds of all, that the object extending along a hundred fathoms of the horizon, “must be eyther a rock, a reef, or a island; and the creeturs movin’ over it must be men, weemen, an’ childer!”

Chapter Fifty Seven.
The King of the Cannibal Islands

The emphatic declaration of the sailor, – that the dark disc before them must be an island, and that the upright forms upon it were those of human beings, – dispelled all doubts upon the subject; and produced a feeling of wild excitement in the minds of all three of his companions.

So strong was this feeling, that they could no longer control themselves; but gave vent to their emotions in a simultaneous shout of joy.

Acting prudently, they would have restrained that mirthful exhibition, for although, for reasons already stated, the people appearing upon the island could not be the wicked castaways who had composed the crew of the Pandora, still might they be a tribe of savages equally wicked and murderous.

Who could tell that it was not a community of Cannibals. No one aboard the Catamaran.

It may seem singular that such a thought should have entered the mind of any of the individuals who occupied the raft. But it did occur to some of them; and to one of the four in particular. This was Ben Brace himself.

The sailor’s experience, so far from destroying the credences of boyhood, – which included the existence of whole tribes of cannibals, – had only strengthened his belief in such anthropophagi.

More than strengthened it: for it had been confirmed in every particular.

He had been to the Fiji islands, where he had seen their king, Thakombau, – a true descendant of the lineage of “Hokey-Pokey-Winkey-Wum,” – with other dignitaries of this man-eating nation. He had seen their huge caldron for cooking the flesh of men, – their pots and pans for stewing it, – their dishes upon which it was served up, – the knives with which they were accustomed to carve it, – their larders stocked with human flesh, and redolent of human blood! Nay, more; the English sailor had been an eye-witness of one of their grand festivals; where the bodies of men and women, cooked in various styles, – stewed, roasted, and boiled, – had been served out and partaken of by hundreds of Thakombau’s courtiers; the sailor’s own captain, – the captain of a British frigate, – ay, the commodore of a British squadron, – with cannon sufficient to have blown the island of Viti Vau out of the water, – sitting alongside, apparently a tranquil and contented spectator of the horrid ceremonial!

It is difficult to account for the behaviour of this Englishman, the Hon. – by name. The only explanation of his conduct one can arrive at is, to believe that his weak mind was fast confined by the trammels of that absurd, but often too convenient, theory of international non-interference, – the most dangerous kind of red-tape that ever tethered the squeamish conscience of an official imbecile.

How different was the action of Wilkes, – that Yankee commander we are so fond of finding fault with! He, too, paid a visit to the cannibal island of Viti Vau; and while there, taught both its king and its people a lesson by the fire of his forty-pounders that, if not altogether effective in extinguishing this national but unnatural custom, has terrified them in its practice to this very day.

Non-interference, indeed! International delicacy in the treatment of a tribe of cruel savages! A nation of man-eaters, – forsooth, a nation! Why not apply the laws of nationality to every band of brigands who chances to have conquered an independent existence? Bah! The world is full of frivolous pretences, – drunk with the poison-cup of political hypocrisy.

It was not Ben Brace who thus reasoned, but his biographer. Ben’s reflections were of a strictly practical character His belief in cannibalism was complete; and as the craft to which he had so involuntarily attached himself drifted on towards the mysterious islet, he was not without some misgivings as to the character of the people who might inhabit it.

For this reason he would have approached its shores with greater caution; and he was in the act of enforcing this upon his companions, when his intention was entirely frustrated by the joyous huzza uttered by Snowball; echoed by little William; and chorussed by the childish, feminine voice of Lilly Lalee.

The sailor’s caution would have come too late, – even had it been necessary to the safety of the Catamaran’s crew. Fortunately it was not: for that imprudent shout produced an effect which at once changed the current of the thoughts, not only of Ben Brace, but of those who had given utterance to it.

Their united voices, pealing across the tranquil bosom of the deep, caused a sudden change in the appearance of the island; or rather among the people who inhabited it. If human beings, they must be of a strange race, – very strange indeed, – to have been furnished with wings! How otherwise could they have forsaken their footing on terra firma, – if the island was such, – and soared upward into the air, which one and all of them did, on hearing that shout from the Catamaran?

There was not much speculation on this point on the part of the Catamaran’s crew. Whatever doubts may have been engendered as to the nature of the island, there could be no longer any about the character of its inhabitants.

“Dey am birds!” suggested the Coromantee; “nuffin more and nuffin less dan birds!”

“You’re right, Snowy,” assented the sailor. “They be birds; and all the better they be so. Yes; they’re birds, for sartin. I can tell the cut o’ some o’ their jibs. I see frigates, an’ a man-o’-war’s-man, an’ boobies among ’em; and I reckon Old Mother Carey has a brood o’ her chickens there. They be all sizes, as ye see.”

It was no more a matter of conjecture, as to what kind of creatures inhabited the island. The forms that had been mystifying the crew of the Catamaran, though of the biped class, were no longer to be regarded as human beings, or even creatures of the earth. They had declared themselves denizens of the air; and, startled by the shouts that had reached them, – to them, no doubt, sounds strange, and never before heard, – they had sought security in an element into which there was no fear of being followed by their enemies, either of the earth or the water.

Chapter Fifty Eight.
Very like a Whale

Though the birds by their flight had dissolved one half of the speculative theory which the crew of the Catamaran had constructed, the other half still held good. The island was still there, before their eyes; though completely divested of its inhabitants, – whose sudden eviction had cost only a single shout!

The flag was still waving over it; though, to all appearance, there was not a creature on shore that might feel pride in saluting that solitary standard!

There could be no one; else why should the birds have tarried so long undisturbed, to be scared at last by the mere sound of human voices?

Since there was nobody on the island, there was no need to observe further caution in approaching it, – except so far as regarded the conduct of their craft; and in the belief that they were about to set foot upon the shores of a desert isle, the sailor and Snowball, with little William assisting them, now went to work with the oars and hastened their approach to the land.

Partly impelled by the breeze, and partly by the strength of the rowers, the Catamaran moved, briskly through the water; and, before many minutes had elapsed, the craft was within a few hundred fathoms of the mysterious island, and still gliding nearer to it. This proximity, – along with the fact that the morning mist had meanwhile been gradually becoming dispelled by the rays of the rising sun, – enabled her crew to obtain a clearer view of the object before them; and Ben Brace, suspending his exertions at the oar, once more slewed himself round to have a fresh look at the supposed land.

“Land!” he exclaimed, as soon as his eyes again rested upon it. “A island, indeed! Shiver my timbers if ’t be a island after all! That be no land, – ne’er a bit o’t. It look like a rock, too; but there be something else it look liker; an’ that be a whale. ’Tis wery like a whale!”

“Berry, – berry like a whale!” echoed Snowball, not too well satisfied at discovering the resemblance.

“It be a whale!” pronounced the sailor, in a tone of emphatic confidence, – “a whale, an’ nothin’ else. Ay,” he continued speaking, as if some new light had broken upon him, “I see it all now. It be one o’ the great spermaceti whales. I wonder I didn’t think o’t afore. It’s been killed by some whaling-vessel; and the flag you see on its back’s neyther more nor less than one o’ their whifts. They’ve stuck it there, so as they might be able to find the sparmacety when they come back. Marcy heaven! I hope they will come back.”

As Ben finished this explanatory harangue, he started into an erect attitude, and placed himself on the highest part of the Catamaran’s deck, – his eyes no longer bent upon the whale, but, with greedy glances, sweeping the sea around it.

The object of this renewed reconnoissance may be understood from the words to which he had given utterance, – the hope expressed at the termination of his speech. The whale must have been killed, as he had said. He was looking for the whaler.

For full ten minutes he continued his optical search over the sea, – until not a fathom of the surface had escaped his scrutiny.

At first his glances had expressed almost a confident hope; and, observing them, the others became excited to a high degree of joy.

Gradually, however, the old shadow returned over the sailor’s countenance, and was instantly transferred to the faces of his companions.

The sea, – as far as his eye could command a view of it, – showed neither sail, nor any other object. Its shining surface was absolutely without a speck.

With a disappointed air, the captain of the Catamaran descended from his post of observation; and once more turned his attention to the dead cachalot from which they were now separated by less than a hundred fathoms, – a distance that was constantly decreasing, as the raft, under sail, continued to drift nearer.

The body of the whale did not appear anything like as large as when first seen. The mist was no longer producing its magnifying effect upon the vision of our adventurers; but although the carcass of the cachalot could no more have been mistaken for an island, still was it an object of enormous dimensions; and might easily have passed for a great black rock standing several fathoms above the surface of the sea. It was over twenty yards in length; and, seen sideways from the raft, of course appeared much longer.

In five minutes after, they were close up to the dead whale; and, the sail being lowered, the raft was brought to. Ben threw a rope around one of the pectoral fins; and, after making it fast, the Catamaran lay moored alongside the cachalot, like some diminutive tender attached to a huge ship of war! There were several reasons why Ben Brace should mount up to the summit of that mountain of whalebone and blubber; and, as soon as the raft had been safely secured, he essayed the ascent.

It was not such a trifling feat, – this climbing upon the carcass of the dead whale. Nor was it to be done without danger. The slippery epidermis of the huge leviathan, – lubricated as it was with that unctuous fluid which the skin of the sperm-whale is known to secrete, – rendered footing upon it extremely insecure.

It might be fancied no great matter for a swimmer like Ben Braco to slide off: since a fall of a few feet into the water could not cause him any great bodily hurt. But when the individual forming this fancy has been told that there was something like a score of sharks prowling around the carcass, he will obtain a more definite idea of the danger to which such a fall would have submitted the adventurous seaman.

Ben Brace was the last man to be cowed by a trifling danger, or even one of magnitude; and partly by Snowball’s assistance, and using the pectoral flipper to which the raft was attached as a stirrup, he succeeded in mounting upon the back of the defunct monster of the deep.

As soon as he had steadied himself in his new position, a piece of rope was thrown up to him, – by which Snowball was himself hoisted to the shoulders of the cachalot; and then the two seamen proceeded towards the tail, – or, as the sailor pronounced it, the “starn” of this peculiar craft.

A little aft of “midships” a pyramidal lump of fatty substance projected several feet above the line of the vertebras. It was the spurious or rudimentary dorsal fin, with which the sperm-whale is provided.

On arriving at this protuberance, – which chanced to be the highest point on the carcass where the flag was elevated on its slender shaft, – both came to a halt; and there stood together, gazing around them over the glittering surface of the sunlit sea.