As if to confirm the sailor’s last assertion, the shriek was repeated, precisely as it had been uttered before; though now, entering ears that were awake, it produced a somewhat different impression.
The voice was evidently that of a man. Even under the circumstances, it could be nothing else, but of a man who had taken leave of his senses. It was the wild cry of a maniac!
The crew of the Catamaran might have continued in doubt as to this had they been treated only to a repetition of the shriek; but this was followed by a series of speeches,—incoherent, it is true, but spoken in an intelligible tongue, and ending in a peal of laughter such as might be heard echoing along the corridors of a lunatic asylum!
One and all of them stood looking and listening.
It was a moonless night, and had been a dark one; but it was now close upon morning. Already had the aurora tinged the horizon with roseate hues. The grey light of dawn was beginning to scatter its soft rays over the surface of the ocean; and objects—had there been any—could be distinguished at a considerable distance.
Certainly there was an object,—a thing of boat-shape, with a human form standing near its middle. It was a boat, a man in it; and, from the exclamation and laughter to which they had listened, there could be no doubt about the man being mad.
Mad or sane, why should they shun him? There were two strong men on the raft, who need not fear to encounter a lunatic under any circumstances,—even in the midst of the ocean. Nor did they fear it; for as soon as they became fully convinced that they saw a boat with a man in it, they “ported” the helm of the Catamaran, and stood directly towards it.
Less than ten minutes’ sailing in the altered course brought them within fair view of the object that had caused them to deviate; and, after scrutinising it, less than ten seconds enabled them to satisfy their minds as to the strange craft and its yet stranger occupant.
They saw before them the “gig” of the slaver; and, standing “midships” in the boat,—just half-way between stem and stern,—they saw the captain of that ill-starred, ill-fated vessel!