he lesser: how it joined issue with the embarkation that carried the
ex-cook and his _protege_; how the union with the latter produced a
cross between the two,--afterwards yclept the _Catamaran_; with all the
particulars of the _Catamaran's_ voyage, up to the time when she became
moored alongside the carcass of the _cachalot_; and for several days
after.

During this time, the "big raft" carrying the crew of tin burnt bark,--
being out of sight, may also have escaped from the reader's mind. Both
it and its occupants were still in existence. Not all of them, it is
true, but the greater number; and among these, the most prominent in
strength of body, energy of mind; and wickedness of disposition.

It is scarce necessary to say, that the raft now introduced as lying
upon the ocean some twenty miles from the dead _cachalot_ was that which
some days before had parted from the _Pandora_, or that the fiendish
forms that occupied it were the remnant of the _Pandora's_ crew.

These were not all there: nearly a score of them were absent. The
absence of the captain, with five others who had accompanied him in his
gig, has been explained. The ex-cook, the English sailor and
sailor-boy, with the cabin passenger, Lilly Lalee, have also been
accounted for; but there were several others aboard the big raft, on its
first starting "to sea," that were no longer to be seen amidst the crowd
still occupying this ungainly embarkation. Half a dozen,--perhaps
more,--seemed to be missing. Their absence might have appeared
mysterious, to anyone who had not been kept "posted" up in the
particulars of the ill-directed cruise through which the raft had been
passing; though the skeleton above described, and the dissevered _tibia_
scattered around, might have given a clew to their disappearance,--at
least, to anyone initiated into the shifts and extremities of
starvation.

To those of less experience,--or less quick comprehension,--it may be
necessary to repeat the conversation which was being carried on upon the
raft,--at the moment when it is thus reintroduced to the notice of the
reader. A correct report of this will satisfactorily explain why its
original crew had been reduced, from over thirty, to the number of
six-and-twenty, exclusive of the skeleton!

CHAPTER SIXTY SEVEN.

A CREW OF CANNIBALS.

"_Allons_!" cried a black-bearded man, in whose emaciated frame it was
not easy to recognise the once corpulent bully of the slave-s