reason to the delirious individual,--or, at all events, would have the
effect of restoring tranquillity upon the raft,--soon after to be
disturbed by some scene of like, or perhaps more terrible, activity.

------------------------------------------------------------------------

The reader, unacquainted with the history of this raft and the people
upon it, may require some information concerning them. A few words must
suffice for both.

As already stated, at the beginning of our narrative, a raft was
constructed out of such timbers as could be detached from the slave-bark
_Pandora_,--after that vessel had caught fire, and previous to her
blowing up. Upon this embarkation the slaver's crew had escaped,
leaving her _cargo_ to perish,--some by the explosion, some by drowning,
and not a few by the teeth of sharks. The _Pandora's_ captain, along
with five others,--including the mates and carpenter,--had stolen away
with the gig. As this was the only boat found available in the fearful
crisis of the conflagration, the remainder of the crew had betaken
themselves to the large raft, hurriedly constructed for the occasion.

As already related, Snowball and the Portuguese girl were the only
individuals on board the _Pandora_ who had remained by the wreck, or
rather among its _debris_. There the Coromantee, by great courage and
cunning, had succeeded not only in keeping himself and his _protege_
afloat, but in establishing a chance for sustaining existence,
calculated to last for some days. It is known also that Ben Brace with
_his protege_, having been informed by the captain's parting speech that
there was a barrel of gunpowder aboard the burning bark, apprehensive of
the explosion, had silently constructed a little raft of his own; which,
after being launched from under the bows of the slaver, he had brought
_en rapport_ with the "big raft," and thereto attached it. This
"tender," still carrying the English sailor and the boy, had been
afterwards cut loose from its larger companion in the dead hour of
night, and permitted to fall far into the wake. The reason of this
defection was simply to save little William from being eaten up by the
ex-crew of the _Pandora_, then reduced to a famished condition,--if we
may use the phrase, screwed up to the standard of anthropophagy.

Since the hour in which the two rafts became separated from each other,
the reader is acquainted, in all its minute details, with the history of
t