“Little Will’m again! He’s cut the ropes wi’ the old axe, an’ it were blunt enough to make a job for him! Huzza for the noble lad!”
“Tay!” cried Snowball, not heeding the enthusiastic outburst of the sailor. “You hold on to de chess, Massa Brace, while I climb up on de cask, and see what I can see. May be I may see de Catamaran herseff now.”
“All right, nigger. You had better do that. Mount the barrel, an’ I’ll keep a tight hold o’ the kit.”
Snowball, releasing his arm from the sennit loop, swam up to the floating cask; and, after some dodging about, succeeded in getting astride of it.
It required a good deal of dexterous manoeuvring to keep the cask from rolling, and pitching him back into the water. But Snowball was just the man to excel in this sort of aquatic gymnastics; and after a time he became balanced in his seat with sufficient steadiness to admit of his taking a fair survey of the ocean around him.
The sailor had watched his movements with a sage yet hopeful eye: for these repeated indications of both the presence and providence of his own protégé had almost convinced him that the latter would not be very distant from the spot. It was nothing more than he had prepared himself to expect, when the Coromantee, almost as soon as he had steadied himself astride of the water-cask, shouted, in a loud voice—
“The Cat’maran!—the Cat’maran!”
“Where?” cried the sailor. “To leuart?”
“Dead in dat same direcshun.”
“How fur, cookey? how fur?”