Chapter 36 - A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea by Mayne Reid
A Chest at Sea
All conversation had come to an end. Even the few phrases at intervals exchanged between Snowball and the sailor,—the solemn import of which had been zealously kept from the child by their being spoken in French—were no longer heard.
The swimmers, now wellnigh exhausted, had for a long interval preserved this profound silence, partly for the reason of their being exhausted, and partly that no change had occurred in the circumstances surrounding them,—nothing that required a renewal of the conversation. The awe of approaching death,—now so near, that twenty minutes or a quarter of an hour might be regarded as the ultimate moment,—held, as if spellbound, the speech both of Snowball and the sailor.
There were no other sounds to interrupt the silence of that solemn moment,—at least none worthy of being mentioned. The slightest ripple of the water, stirred by a zephyr breeze, as it played against the bodies of the languid swimmers, might have been heard, but was not heeded. No more did the scream of the sea-mew arrest the attention of any of them, or if it did, it was only to add to the awe which reigned above and around them.
In this moment of deep silence and deepest misery, a voice fell upon the ears of the two swimmers that startled both of them, as if it had been a summons from the other world. It sounded sweet as if from the world of eternal joy. There was no mystery in the voice; it was that of the Lilly Lalee.
The child, sustained upon the shoulder of the buoyant black, was in such a position that her eyes were elevated over the surface of the water several inches above those either of him who supported her, or the sailor who swam by her side. In this situation she had a better view than either; and, as a consequence of this advantage, she saw what was visible to neither,—a dark object floating upon the surface of the sea at no great distance from the spot where the exhausted swimmers were feebly struggling to sustain themselves.
It was the announcement of this fact that had fallen with such startling effect upon the ears of the two men, simultaneously rousing both from that torpor of despair which for some time had held possession of them.
“Who you see, Lilly Lally? Who you see?” exclaimed Snowball, who was the first to interrogate the girl. “Look at ’im ’gain,—look, good lilly gal!” continued he, at the same time making an effort to elevate the shoulder which gave support to his protégé.
“Wha be it? I ain’t de raff,—de Catamaran? Eh?”
“No, no,” replied the child. “It isn’t that. It’s a small thing of a square shape. It looks like a box.”
“A box? how come dat? A box! what de debbel!”
“Shiver my timbers if ’tain’t my old sea-kit,” interrupted the sailor, rearing himself aloft in the water like a spaniel in search of wounded waterfowl.
“Sure as my name’s Ben Brace it be that, an’ nothing else!”
“Your sea-chess?” interrogated Snowball, elevating his woolly cranium above the water, so as also to command a view. “Golly! I b’lieve it am. How he come dar? You leff ’im on de raff?”
“I did,” replied the sailor. “The very last thing I had my hands upon, afore I jumped overboard. Sure I bean’t mistaken,—ne’er a bit o’ it. It be the old kit to a sartainty.”
This conversation was carried on in a quick, hurried tone, and long before it ended,—in fact at the moment of its beginning,—the swimmers had once more put themselves in motion, and were striking out in the direction of the object thus unexpectedly presented to their view.