And yet what was it he saw? for, sure as eyes were eyes, there was an island outlined upon the retina, so plainly perceptible, that his senses could not be deceiving him!
It was after this conviction became fully established in his mind, that he at length broke silence; and in a voice that woke his slumbering companions with a simultaneous start.
“Land ’o!” vociferated Snowball.
“Land ho!” echoed Ben Brace, springing to his feet, and rubbing the sleep out of his eyes, “Land, you say, Snowy? Impossible! You must be mistaken, nigger.”
“Land?” interrogated little William. “Whereaway, Snowball?”
“Land?” cried the Portuguese girl, comprehending that word of joyful signification, though spoken in a language not her own.
“Whar away?” inquired the sailor, as he scrambled over the planks of the raft, to get on the forward side of the sail, which hindered his field of view.
“Hya!” replied Snowball. “Hya, Massa Brace, jess to la’bord, ober de la’bord bow.”
“It do look like land,” assented the sailor, directing his glance upon something of a strange appearance, low down upon the surface of the sea, and still but dimly discernible through the fog. “Shiver my timbers if it don’t! An island it be,—not a very big ’un, but for all that, it seem a island.”
“My gollies! dar am people on it! D’you see um, Massa Brace? movin’ ’bout all ober it I see ’um plain as de sun in de hebbens! Scores o’ people a’gwine about back’ard an’ forrads. See yonner!”