ut as I knows there be all o' these creators
in the middle o' the broad ocean,--and mermaids too, I dare say,--then,
ye see, little Will'm, I must disbelieve that ye heard anything more
than the voice of--a man, by--!"

As the sailor terminated his speech with this terrible emphasis, he
started into an upright attitude, and listened with all his ears for
another utterance of that harsh monotone that, borne upon the breeze and
rising above the "sough" of the disturbed water, could easily be
distinguished as the _voice of a man_.

"We're lost, Will'm!" cried he, without waiting for a repetition of the
sound; "we're lost. It's the voice of Le Gros. The big raft is a
bearin' down upon us wi' them bloodthirsty cannibals we thought we'd got
clear o'. It's no use tryin' to escape. Make up your mind to it, lad;
we've got to die! we've got to die!"

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

OTHER WAIFS.

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