than to make use of his voice to
guide them through the darkness towards the spot whence it proceeded.
On discovering that it was Snowball who was near, both had turned upon
their own craft, and were now rowing it in the opposite direction to
that in which, but the moment before, they had been so eagerly
propelling it.

As they now pulled to leeward, they had the wind in their favour; and by
the time the negro arrived at the end of his disjointed narrative, they
were within half a cable's length of him, and, through the darkness,
were beginning to distinguish the outlines of the odd embarkation that
carried Snowball and his _protege_.

Just then the lightning blazed across the canopy of heaven, discovering
the two rafts,--each to the other. In ten seconds more they were _en
rapport_, and their respective crews congratulating each other, with as
much joyfulness as if the unexpected encounter had completely delivered
them from death and its dangers!

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

THE RAFTS EN RAPPORT.

Two travellers meeting in the midst of a lone wilderness, even though
strangers to each other, would not be likely to pass without speaking.
If old acquaintances, then would they be certain to make the longest
pause possible, and procrastinate their parting till the last moment
allowed by the circumstances. If these circumstances would permit of
their reaching their respective destinations by the same route, how
sorry would each be to separate, and how happy to enter into a mutual
alliance of co-operation and companionship!

Just like two such travellers, or two parties of travellers, meeting in
the midst of the desert,--a wilderness of land,--so met, in the midst of
the ocean,--the wilderness of water,--the two rafts whose history we
have hitherto chronicled. Their crews were not strangers to each other,
but old acquaintances. If not all friends in the past, the
circumstances that now surrounded them were of a kind to make them
friends for the future. Under the awe inspired by a common danger, the
lion will lie down with the lamb, and the fierce jaguar consorts with
the timid capivara no longer trembling at the perilous proximity.

But there was no particular antipathy between the crews of the two rafts
thus singularly becoming united. It is true that formerly there had
been some hostility displayed by the negro towards Little William, and
but little friendship between the former and Ben Brace. These, however,