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

He knew that if he should succeed in destroying his adversary, – so long as the act was not witnessed by their associates, – so long as there should be only circumstantial evidence against him, – he would not have much to fear from such judges as they. It was simply a question as to whether the deed could be done silently and in the darkness; and that question was soon to receive an answer.

The trick of killing the unfortunate man with his own knife, – and making it appear that he had committed self-destruction, – would have been too shallow to have been successful under any other circumstances; but Le Gros felt confident that there would be no very strict investigation; and that the inquest likely to be held on the murdered man would be a very informal affair.

In any case, the risk to him would be less than that he might expect on the consummation of the combat, – the finale of which would in all probability, be the losing of his life.

He was no longer undecided about doing the foul deed. He had quite determined upon it; and the attempt now being made by his confederate to steal the knife was the first stop towards its perpetration.

The theft was too successfully accomplished. The wretch on getting up to the rum-cask, was seen to sit down silently by its side; and, after a few moments passed in this position he again rose erect, and moved back towards the mast. Dark as was the night, Le Gros could perceive something glittering in the hand of his accomplice, which he knew must be the coveted weapon.

It was so. The sleeper had been surreptitiously disarmed.

For a moment the two men might have been seen standing in juxtaposition; and while thus together the knife was furtively transferred from the hand of the accomplice into that of the true assassin.

Then both, assuming a careless attitude, for a while remained near the mast, apparently engaged in some ordinary conversation. An occasional shifting of their position, however, took place, – though so slight that, even under a good light, it would scarce have been observed. A series of these movements, made at short intervals, ended in bringing the conspirators close up to the empty hogshead; and then one of them sat down by it. The other, going round it, after a short lapse of time, imitated the example of his companion by seating himself on the opposite side.

Thus far there was nothing in the behaviour of the two men to have attracted the attention of their associates on the raft, – even had the latter been awake. Even so, the obscurity that surrounded their movements would have hindered them from being very clearly comprehended.

There was no eye watching the assassins, as they sat down by the side of their sleeping victim; none fixed upon them as both simultaneously leant over him with outstretched arms, – one holding what appeared a piece of blanket over his face, as if to stifle his breath, – the other striking down upon his breast with a glittering blade, as if stabbing him to the heart.

The double action occupied scarce a second of time. In the darkness, no one appeared to perceive it, except they were its perpetrators. No one seemed to hear that choking, gurgling cry that accompanied it; or if they did, it was only to shape a half conjecture, that some one of their companions was indulging in a troubled dream!

The assassins, horror-stricken at what they had done, skulked tremblingly back to their former position by the mast.

Their victim, stretched on his back, remained motionless upon the spot where they had visited him; and anyone standing over him, as he lay, might have supposed that he was still slumbering!

Alas! it was the slumber of death!

Chapter Seventy Nine.

Dousing the Glim

We left the crew of the Catamaran in full occupation, – “smoking” shark-flesh on the back of a cachalot whale.

To make sure of a sufficient stock, – enough to last them with light rations for a voyage, if need be, to the other side of the Atlantic, – they had continued at the work all day long, and several hours into the night. They had kept the fire ablaze by pouring fresh spermaceti into the furnace of flesh which they had constructed, or rather excavated, in the back of the leviathan; and so far as that kind of fuel was concerned, they might have gone on roasting shark-steaks for a twelvemonth. But they had proved that the spermaceti would not burn to any purpose without a wick; and as their spare ropes were too precious to be all picked into oakum, they saw the necessity of economising their stock of the latter article. But for this deficiency, they might have permitted the furnace-lamp to burn on during the whole night, or until it should go out by the exhaustion of the wick.

As they were not yet quite satisfied with the supply of broiled shark-meat, they had resolved to take a fresh spell at roasting on the morrow; and in order that the wick should not be idly wasted, they had “doused the glim” before retiring to rest.

They had extinguished the flame in a somewhat original fashion, – by pouring upon it a portion of the liquid spermaceti taken out of the case. The light, after giving a final flash, had gone out, leaving them in utter darkness.

But they had no difficulty in finding their way back to the deck, of their craft, where they designed passing the remainder of the night. During the preceding days they had so often made the passage from Catamaran to cachalot, and vice versa, that they could have gone either up or down blindfolded; and indeed they might as well have been blindfolded on this their last transit for the night, so dense was the darkness that had descended over the dead whale.

After groping their way over the slippery shoulders of the leviathan, and letting themselves down by the rope they had attached to his huge pectoral fin, they made their supper upon a portion of the hot roast they had brought along with them; and, washing it down with a little diluted “canary,” they consigned themselves to rest.

Better satisfied with their prospects than they had been for some time past, they soon fell asleep; and silence reigned around the dark floating mass that included the forms of cachalot and Catamaran.

At that same moment a less tranquil scene was occurring scarce ten miles from the spot; for it is scarce necessary to say that the light seen by the ruffians on the great raft – and which they had fancifully mistaken for a ship’s galley-fire, – was the furnace fed by spermaceti on the back of the whale.

The extinction of the flame had led to a scene which was reaching its maximum of noisy excitement at about the time that the crew of the Catamaran were munching their roast shark-meat and sipping their canary. This scene had continued long after every individual of the latter had sunk into a sweet oblivion of the dangers that surrounded them.

All four slept soundly throughout the remainder of the night. Strange to say, they felt a sort of security, moored alongside that monstrous mass, which they would not have experienced had their frail tiny craft been by itself alone upon the ocean. It was but a fancied security, it is true: still it had the effect of giving satisfaction to the spirit, and through this, producing an artificial incentive to sleep.

It was daylight before any of them awoke, – or it should have been daylight, by the hour: but there was a thick fog around them, – so thick and dark that the carcass of the cachalot was not visible from the deck of the Catamaran, although only a few feet of water lay between them.

Ben Brace was the first to bestir himself. Snowball had never been an early riser; and if permitted by his duties, or the neglect of them either, he would have kept his couch till midday. Ben, however, knew that there was work to be done, and no time to be wasted in idleness. The captain of the Catamaran had given up all hopes of the return of the whaler; and therefore the sooner they could complete their arrangements for cutting adrift from the carcass, and continuing their interrupted course towards the west, the better would be their chance of ultimately reaching land.

Snowball, sans cérémonie, was shaken out of his slumbers; and the process of restoring him to wakefulness also awoke little William and Lilly Lalee, – so that the whole crew were now up and ready for action.

A hasty déjeuner à la matelot served for the morning repast; after which Snowball and the sailor, accompanied by the boy, climbed once more upon the back of the cachalot to resume the operations which had been suspended for the night; while the girl, as usual, remained in charge of the Catamaran.

Chapter Eighty.

Suspicious Sounds

The ex-cook, in the lead of those who ascended to the summit of the carcass, had some difficulty in finding his kitchen; but, after groping some time over the glutinous epidermis of the animal, he at length laid his claws upon the edge of the cavity.

The others joined him just as he had succeeded in inserting a bit of fresh wick; and soon after a strong flame was established, and a fresh spitful of shark-steaks hung frizzling over it.

Nothing more could be done than wait until the meat should be done. There was no “basting” required, – only an occasional turning of the steaks and a slight transposition of them on the harpoon spit, – so that each should have due exposure to the flame.

These little culinary operations needed only occasional attention on the part of the cook. Snowball, who preferred the sedentary pose, as soon as he saw his “range” in full operation, squatted down beside it. His companions remained standing.

Scarcely five minutes had passed, when the negro was seen to make a start as if some one had given him a kick in the shin. Simultaneously with that start the exclamation “Golly!” escaped from his lips.

“What be the matter, Snowy?” interrogated Brace.

“Hush! Hab ye no hear nuffin’?”

“No,” answered the sailor, – little William chiming in with the negative.

“I hab den, – I hab hear someting.”

“What?”

“Dat I doan know.”

“It’s the frizzlin’ o’ those shark-steaks; or, maybe, some sea-bird squeaking up in the air.”

“No, neyder one nor todder. Hush! Massa Brace, I hab hear some soun’ ’tirely diffrent, – somethin’ like de voice ob human man. You obsarb silence. Maybe we hear im agen.”

Snowball’s companions, though inclined to incredulity, obeyed his injunction. They might have treated it with less regard, had they not known the Coromantee to be gifted with a sense of hearing that was wonderfully acute. His largely-developed ears would have proved this capacity; but they knew that he possessed it, from having witnessed many exhibitions of it previous to that time. For this reason they yielded to his double solicitation, – to remain silent and listen.

At this moment, to the surprise of Ben Brace and William, and not a little to the astonishment of the negro, a tiny voice reached them from below, – which they all easily recognised as that of Lilly Lalee.

“O Snowball,” called out the girl, addressing herself to her especial protector, “I hear people speaking. It’s out upon the water. Do you not hear them?”

“Hush! Lilly Lally,” answered the negro, speaking down to his protégé in a sort of hoarse whisper; “hush, Lilly, pet; doan you ’peak above him Lilly Breff. Keep ’till, dat a good gal.”

The child, restrained by this string of cautionary appeals, offered no further remark; and Snowball, making a sign for his companions to continue silent, once more resumed his listening attitude.