Читать книгу The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea - Reid Mayne - Страница 16

Had it been daylight, instead of a very dark night, Ben Brace and his youthful comrade would have been less alarmed by the voices that came up the wind. Daylight would have discovered to them an object, or rather collection of objects, which, instead of repelling, would have attracted them nearer.

It was not the great raft that was drifting to leeward, nor was it the voice of Le Gros or any of his wicked companions, that had been heard; though, in the excitement of their fears, that was the first thought of the two castaways.

Could their eyes have penetrated the deep obscurity that shrouded the sea, they would have beheld a number of objects, like themselves, adrift upon the water, and like them, at the mercy of the winds and waves. They would have seen pieces of timber, black and charred with fire; fragments of broken spars, with sails and cordage attached and trailing after them; here and there a cask or barrel, sunk to the level of the surface by the weight of its contents; pieces of packing-cases, torn asunder as if by some terrible explosion; cabin-chairs, coops, oars, handspikes, and other implements of the mariner’s calling, – all bobbing about on the bosom of the blue deep, and carried hither and thither by the arbitrary oscillations of the breeze.

These various objects were not all huddled up together, but scattered unequally over a space of more than a square mile in extent. Had it been daylight, so that the sailor could have seen them, as they appeared mottling the bright surface of the sea, he would have experienced no difficulty in determining their character. At a glance he would have recognised the débris of the burnt ship, from which he and his companion had so narrowly escaped, – the slave-bark Pandora.

He would have looked upon these objects with no very great surprise, but in all likelihood with a feeling of considerable satisfaction: as offering the means for recruiting the strength of his own slight embarkation, which was barely sufficient to sustain the weight of himself and his companion, and certainly not strong enough to withstand the assault of the most moderate of storms.

In the midst of the “waifs” above enumerated, however, there was one not yet named, – one that differed greatly from all the rest, – and which, had it been seen by them, would have caused extreme surprise both to Ben Brace and little William.

It was a raft, not a great deal larger than their own, but altogether of different construction. A number of planks most of them charred by fire, with a sofa, a bamboo chair, and some other articles of furniture, had been rudely bound together by ropes. These things, of themselves, would have made but a very clumsy craft, no better for navigating the great ocean than that upon which Ben and the boy were themselves embarked. But the buoyancy of the former was secured by a contrivance of which the sailor had not had the opportunity of availing himself. Around its edge were ranged hogsheads or water-casks, evidently empty. They were lashed to the plank; and being bunged up against the influx of the water, kept the whole structure afloat, so that it would have carried a ton or two without sinking below the surface.

There was a smaller cask floating alongside, attached to the timbers by a piece of rope that was tightly looped around the swell. But this could not have been designed to increase the buoyancy of the raft: since it was itself almost submerged, evidently by the weight of something it contained.

Such a congeries of objects might have drifted side by side by chance, or the caprice of the currents; but they could not have tied themselves together in such fashion. There was design in the arrangement; and in the midst of the circle of empty hogsheads might have been seen the contriver of this curious craft. He was, of course, a human being, and a man; but such an one as, under any circumstances, would arrest the attention of the beholder; much more in the singular situation in which he was then met with. He was a black man, in the fullest sense of the word; a true negro, with a skin shining like ebony; a skull of large size, and slightly square in shape, covered with a thick crop of curling wool, so close and short as to appear felted into the skin. A brace of broad ears stood prominently out from the sides of his head; and extending almost from one to the other, was a wide-gaping mouth, formed by a pair of lips of huge thickness, protruding far forward, so as to give to the countenance those facial outlines characteristic of the chimpanzee or gorilla.

Notwithstanding his somewhat abnormal features, the expression of the negro’s face was far from being hideous. It was not even disagreeable. A double row of white teeth, gleaming between the purplish lips, could be exhibited upon ordinary occasions in a pleasant smile; and the impression derived from looking upon the countenance was, that the owner of it was rather good-natured than otherwise. Just then, as he sat upon the raft, gazing over the bulwark of hogsheads, its expression was one of profound and sombre melancholy. No wonder!

The negro was not alone. Another individual shared with him the occupancy of the raft; – one differing from him in appearance as Hyperion from the Satyr. A few feet from him, and directly before his face, was a little girl, apparently about ten or twelve years of age. She was seated, or rather cowering, among the timbers of the raft, upon a piece of tarpauling that had been spread over them, her eyes bent upon her black companion, though occasionally straying, with listless glance, over the sombre surface of the sea. Although so young, her countenance appeared sad and despondent, as if under the belief that there was little hope of escape from the fearful situation in which she was placed, and as if her little spirit had long ago surrendered to despair.

Though not a negro like her companion, the girl could scarce be called white. Her complexion was of that hue known as olive; but her hair, although curling, hung in long locks down over her shoulders; and the crimson hue deeply tinting her cheeks told that in her blood there was more Caucasian than negro.

Any one who had visited the western coast of Africa, on seeing this little girl, would easily have recognised in her features the type of that mixed race which has resulted from long intercourse between the Portuguese “colonists” and the sable indigenes of the soil.