“Somethin’” said the sailor, “seem to tell me—jest as if I heerd it in a whisper—that we’ll yet reach land, or come in sight o’ a ship. I doan’ know what puts it in my head; unless it be because we’ve been so many times near going down below, an’ still we’re above water yet, an’ I hope likely to keep so.”
“Ya—ya! Massa Ben. We float yet,—we keep so long ’s we kin,—dat fo’ sartin. We nebba say die,—long ’s de Catamaran hold togedda.”
“I war ’stonished,” continued the sailor, without heeding the odd interpolation of the sea-cook, “wonderful ’stonished when that flyin’-fish chucked itself aboard our bit o’ plankin’, an’ it no bigger than the combin’ o’ a hatchway. What kud ’a conducted it thear,—to that spot above all others o’ the broad ocean? What but the hand o’ that angel as sits up aloft? No, Snowy! ye may talk as ye like ’bout your Duppys and Jumbes, and that other creetur ye call your Fetush; but I tell ye, nigger, thear be somethin’ up above us as is above all them,—an’ that’s the God o’ the Christyun. He be thear; and He sent the flyin’-fish into our wee bit o’ raft, and He sent the shower as saved me and little Will’m from dyin’ o’ thust; and He it war that made you an’ me drift to’rds each other,—so as that we might work thegither to get out o’ this here scrape, as our own foolishness and wickedness ha’ got us into.”
“Dat am de troof, Massa Brace, dat las’ remark,—only not altogedder! ’T want altogedder our own fault dat brought us on board de slabe-ship Pandora,—neider you not maseff. It mite a been our foolishness, dat I do admit; but de wickedness war more de fault ob oder men, dat am wickeder dan eider you or dis unfortunate Coromantee nigga.”
“Never mind, Snowy,” responded the sailor, “I know there be still some good in ye; and maybe there be good in all o’ us, to be favoured and protected as we’ve been in the midst o’ so many dangers. I think after what’s happened this day,—especially our escaping from that sharks an’ the long swim as we had to make after’ards,—we ought to be uncommon thankful, and say somethin’ to show it, too.”
“Say something! say what, Massa Brace?”
“I mean a prayer.”
“Prayer! wha’s dat?”
“Surely, Snowy, you know what a prayer be?”
“Nebba heerd ob de ting,—nebba in all ma life!”