At the same time the surface of the sea had been equally lighted up with the vivid gleam; and among the many objects drifting around the raft,—the remnants of the wreck, with which the eyes of the little Lalee had now become familiarised,—she saw, or fancied she saw, one altogether new to her.
It was a human face and figure, in the likeness of a beautiful boy, who appeared to be kneeling on the water, or on some slight structure on a level with the surface of the sea!
The lightning had revealed other objects beside him and over him. A pair of slender sticks, standing some feet apart, and in a perpendicular position, with some white strips suspended between them, in the gleam of the lightning shone clear and conspicuous.
It is not to be wondered at that the little Lalee should feel surprise at an apparition,—so unexpected, in such a place, and under such circumstances. It is not to be wondered at that her first impulse should be to rouse her companion out of his snoring slumbers.
She did so upon the instant, and without waiting for another flash of lightning either to confirm her belief in what she had seen, or convince her that it was only an apparition,—which her fancy, disturbed by the dreams in which she had been indulging, had conjured up on the instant of her awaking.
“Wha’s dat you say?” inquired Snowball, abruptly awakened in the middle of a superb snore; “see something! you say dat, ma pickaninny? How you see anyting such night as dis be? Law, ma lilly Lally, you no see de nose before you own face. De ’ky ’bove am dark as de complexyun ob dis ole nigga; you muss be mistake, lilly gal!—dat you muss!”
“No, indeed, Snowball!” replied Lalee, speaking in gumbo Portuguese, “I am not mistaken. It wasn’t dark when I saw it. There was lightning; and it was as clear as in daylight for a little while. I’m sure I saw some one!”
“What was de some one like?” interrogated Snowball, in an accent that proclaimed incredulity. “Was ’um a man or a woman?”
“Neither.”
“Neider! Den it muss ha’ been,—ha! maybe it war a mermaid!”