replied the boy. “Yes, Ben; I’m sure I did, not loud, but muttered like. But I don’t know whether if was Le Gros. O, if it was!”
“Thee have good reason to know his ugly croak, the parleyvooin’ scoundrel! That thee have, Will’m! Let’s hope we are both mistaken: for if we’re to come across them ruffins on the big raft, we needn’t expect mercy at their hands. By this time they’ll be all as hungry as the sharks and as ravenin’ too.”
“Oh!” exclaimed William, in accents of renewed fear, “I hope it’s not them!”
“Speak low, lad!” said the sailor, interrupting him, “only in whispers. If they be near, the best thing for us are to keep quiet. They can’t see us no more than we can them; anyhow, till it come mornin’. If we could hear the sound again so as to make out the direction. I didn’t notice that.”
“I did,” interrupted William. “Both the voices I heard were out this way.”
The boy pointed to leeward.
“To leuart, you think they wur?”
“I’m sure they came from that quarter.”
“That be curious, hows’ever,” said the sailor. “If’t be them on the big raft they must a passed us, or else the wind must a veered round, for we’ve been to leuart o’ them ever since partin’ wi’ ’em. Could the wind a gone round I wonder? Like enough. It be queer, – and it’s blowing from the west in this part o’ the Atlantic! ’Tan’t possible to say what point it be in, hows’ever, – not without a compass. There bean’t even the glimmer o’ a star in the sky; and if there wur we couldn’t make much o’ it; since the north star bean’t seen down in these latitudes. Thee be sure the sound come from leuart?”
“O, I am quite sure of it, Ben; the voices came up the wind.”
“Then we’d best go the same way and gie ’em as wide a berth as possible. Look alive, lad! Let’s down wi’ them flitches o’ the shark-meat: for it’s them that’s driftin’ us along. We’ll take a spell at the oars, and afore daylight we may get out o’ hearin’ o’ the voices, and out of sight o’ them as has been utterin’ o’ them.”
Both rose simultaneously to their feet, and commenced taking down the slices of half-dried shark-flesh, and placing them upon the sail-cloth, – with the intention, as the sailor had counselled it, to unship the oars that had been doing duty as masts, and make use of them in their proper manner.
While engaged in this operation both remained silent, – at intervals stopping in their work to listen.
They had got so far as to clear away the suspended flitches, and were about unfastening the cords where they were looped around the upright oars, when another cord, attached to one of the latter, caught their attention. It was the piece of rope which closed the mouth of their tarpauling water-bag, and held the latter in such a position as to keep the “cask” from leaking.
Fortunately they were doing things in a deliberate manner. If they had been acting otherwise, and had rashly “unstepped” the mast to which that piece of rope was attached, their stock of fresh water would have been rapidly diminished, – perhaps altogether spilled into the salt sea, before they should have become aware of the disaster. As it was, they perceived the danger in good time; and, instead of taking down the oar, at once desisted from their intention.
It now became a question as to whether they should proceed any further in the design of rowing the raft to windward. With a single oar they could make but little way; and the other was already occupied in doing a duty from which it could not possibly be spared.
It is true there were still left the fragments of the hand spike that had been ground between the teeth of the surviving shark, and afterwards picked up as they drifted past it. This might serve instead of the oar to support the mouth of the water-bag; and as soon as this idea occurred to them they set about carrying it into execution.
It took but a few minutes of time to substitute one stick for the other; and then, both oars being free, they seated themselves on opposite sides of the raft, and commenced propelling it against the wind, – in a direction contrary to that in which the mysterious voices had been heard.
Chapter Twenty Two.
Ship Ahoy!
They had not made over a dozen strokes of their oars, – which they handled cautiously and in silence, all the while listening intently, – when their ears were again saluted by sounds similar to those first heard by little William, and which he had conjectured to be the voice of a young girl. As before, the utterance was very low, – murmured, as if repeating a series of words, – in fact, as if the speaker was engaged in a quiet conversation.
“Shiver my timbers!” exclaimed the sailor, as soon as the voice again ceased to be heard. “If that bean’t the palaver o’ a little girl, my name wur never Ben Brace on a ship’s book. A smalley wee thing she seem to be; not bigger than a marlinspike. It sound like as if she wur talkin’ to some un. What the Ole Scratch can it mean, Will’m?”
“I don’t know. Could it be a mermaid?”
“Could it? In course it could.”
“But are there mermaids, Ben?”
“Maremaids! Be theer maremaids? That what you say? Who denies there ain’t? Nobody but disbelevin land-lubbers as never seed nothin’ curious, ’ceptin’ two-headed calves and four-legged chickens. In coorse there be maremaids. I’ve seed some myself; but I’ve sailed with a shipmate as has been to a part o’ the Indyan Ocean, where there be whole schools o’ ’em, wi’ long hair hangin’ about their ears an’ over their shoulders, just like reg’lar schools o’ young girls goin’ out for a walk in the outskirts o’ Portsmouth or Gravesend. Hush! theer be her voice again!”
As the sailor ceased speaking, a tiny treble, such as might proceed from the tongue of a child, – a girl of some eight or ten years old, – came trembling over the waves, in tones that betokened a conversation.
A moment or two elapsed; and then, as if in reply to the words spoken by the child, was heard another voice, – evidently that of a man!
“If the one be a maremaid,” whispered Ben to his companion, “the other must be a mareman. Shiver my timbers, if it ain’t a curious confab! Moonrakers and skyscrapers! what can it mean?”
“I don’t know,” mechanically answered the boy.
“Anyhow,” continued the sailor, apparently relieved by the reflection, “It ain’t the big raft. There’s no voice like that little ’un among its crew o’ ruffins; and that man, whosomever he be, don’t speak like Le Gros. I only thought so at first, bein’ half asleep.
“If it be a school o’ maremaids,” pursued he, “theer an’t no danger, even wi’ theer men along wi’ ’em. Leastwise, I never heerd say there wur from maremaids more’n any other weemen; an’ not so much, I dare ay. Sartin it bean’t the Frenchman, nor any o’ that scoundrel crew. Lord o’ mercy! It might be a ship as is passing near us!”
As this thought occurred to the speaker, he raised himself into an erect attitude, as if to get a better view.
“I’ll hail, Will’m,” he muttered; “I’ll hail ’em. Keep your ears open, lad; and listen for the answer. Ship ahoy!”
The hail
