“Yes, sah, a labyrim, an’ if you fin’ de p’int ob de startin’, an foller to de end, den you open um.”
This was indeed the whole secret of the ball, and after it had been explained to Breeze he too could trace the delicate line from its beginning, which was plainly to be seen, to its end above the hidden spring. There was no distinguishing mark to indicate this point, and it was almost impossible to locate it, even after one had found it many times, without first tracing out the labyrinth. The accident by which Breeze had hit upon it and opened the ball while asleep was so unlikely to occur that, knowing the secret, he now wondered more than ever that it had happened. Nimbus had learned the secret of similar puzzles upon one of his many voyages to East Indian ports, and was made proud and happy by this opportunity of displaying his skill.
“Now,” he said, with a smile that exhibited two glistening rows of ivory, “we got a compass, we go fur Saple Islan’. Ole Nim row like steam-ingin’.”
And he did row like a steam-driven machine, with long, powerful strokes, hour after hour, all through the day--never faltering, never stopping, and never seeming to tire. To Breeze, who watched him with ever-increasing astonishment, he was a marvel of endurance. Breeze also rowed with the second pair of oars the greater part of the day; but he was several times obliged to stop and rest. With such unflagging energy was the dory urged forward that when night came he did not doubt they had made fifty miles since morning. He really began to hope that they might possibly reach Sable Island, though he still admitted that the chances were largely against their doing so.
They had decided to eat but two biscuit apiece each day, and thus make their scanty store last them three days; after which they looked forward to two days of starving before they could hope to sight the island. Even when they should have covered the required distance, they knew how little chance there was of their finding the long, low sand-bank, which is all that Sable Island is. The probabilities were that currents or winds might carry them so far either to the north or south that they would miss it entirely. They anticipated great suffering, and nerved themselves to bear it; but, happily, they were not to be called upon to undergo it.
Night had fallen, and as they could no longer see their compass, and the sky still remained overcast, they had ceased to row. Breeze, tired out with his day’s hard work, had fallen into a doze, while Nimbus sat silently gazing into the darkness. Breeze had slept for about an hour when he was awakened by a touch, and the voice of the black man saying, “Young cap’n, dere’s a light!”
The boy sprang up and gazed eagerly in the direction indicated. For a while he could see nothing; then he caught a momentary glimpse of it, the red side-light of some vessel sailing past them far to the southward. Nimbus had already taken to the oars, and was pulling like a madman in that direction. Watching the light closely, Breeze soon saw that it was moving too fast for them either to intercept or overtake it.
“It’s no use, Nimbus,” he said finally, “you are only wasting your strength. We can never catch that fellow. Oh for a match, though! If we could only make some kind of a flare!”
“Match!” cried Nimbus. “Yes, sah; dreckly, sah!”
With this he began to fumble again in his thatch of wool, which seemed almost as well supplied with articles required by shipwrecked sailors as was the famous bag in “The Swiss Family Robinson;” and in a moment he drew a brimstone match from it.