Soothed by its warmth, my drowsiness increased, and I gradually sunk into a slumber.
It was not sound nor natural, only the slumber of exhaustion. I awoke at intervals to a sort of half-consciousness, scarce knowing whether I was sleeping or waking.
Once I was aroused to a clearer comprehension. It was a sound that startled me. It appeared to be a shot, instantly followed by a shriek, like the cry of some one in extreme agony!
I thought there were voices afterward; and I lay for a long while listening, but I could hear only the constant "skirl" of the grasshoppers and tree-toads, with now and then the "glucking" of the great swamp-frog, and the hoot of the horned owl. The shot and the shriek may have been only a fancy—the dream of a disordered brain. I tried to think so, but could not. I had heard the first through my sleep; but the second rung in my awakened ear, as also the voices that succeeded it. I could not bring myself to believe that I had not actually heard them.
I did not think of connecting these sounds with what had occurred to me on the flat. By that time Mr. Black and his boat would be miles away—far out of my hearing. I knew that some hours had passed since I had been pushed overboard. The boat going in the center current would have forged far ahead of me, and my floating log. Besides I had now been some time on the island.
I lay reflecting on what had occurred.
Though unable to account for the conduct of the ruffian, I did not attribute it to any deep design. I had simply crossed him in some whim, and I knew that for even so slight a cause life is often sacrificed on the Mississippi.
What design could he have in killing me? I could not think of any; not even a motive.
Kept awake by the stinging pain of my wound, I continued to reflect. I remembered the strange behavior of the skiffman Jake, and the statement he had made about strange sounds heard upon the island—"de debbil's island," as he called it. There appeared to be some truth at the bottom of what I had ridiculed as a superstition!
I slept no more for the remainder of that night. I was filled with horrid fear; and with joy I hailed the first gray glimmer of the moon, as it came slowly stealing through the festoons of Spanish moss, that curtained my ungrateful couch.