hey had no difficulty in finding their way back to the deck, of
their craft, where they designed passing the remainder of the night.
During the preceding days they had so often made the passage from
_Catamaran_ to _cachalot_, and _vice versa_, that they could have gone
either up or down blindfolded; and indeed they might as well have been
blindfolded on this their last transit for the night, so dense was the
darkness that had descended over the dead whale.

After groping their way over the slippery shoulders of the leviathan,
and letting themselves down by the rope they had attached to his huge
pectoral fin, they made their supper upon a portion of the hot roast
they had brought along with them; and, washing it down with a little
diluted "canary," they consigned themselves to rest.

Better satisfied with their prospects than they had been for some time
past, they soon fell asleep; and silence reigned around the dark
floating mass that included the forms of _cachalot_ and _Catamaran_.

At that same moment a less tranquil scene was occurring scarce ten miles
from the spot; for it is scarce necessary to say that the light seen by
the ruffians on the great raft--and which they had fancifully mistaken
for a ship's galley-fire,--was the furnace fed by spermaceti on the back
of the whale.

The extinction of the flame had led to a scene which was reaching its
maximum of noisy excitement at about the time that the crew of the
_Catamaran_ were munching their roast shark-meat and sipping their
canary. This scene had continued long after every individual of the
latter had sunk into a sweet oblivion of the dangers that surrounded
them.

All four slept soundly throughout the remainder of the night. Strange
to say, they felt a sort of security, moored alongside that monstrous
mass, which they would not have experienced had their frail tiny craft
been by itself alone upon the ocean. It was but a fancied security, it
is true: still it had the effect of giving satisfaction to the spirit,
and through this, producing an artificial incentive to sleep.

It was daylight before any of them awoke,--or it should have been
daylight, by the hour: but there was a thick fog around them,--so thick
and dark that the carcass of the _cachalot_ was not visible from the
deck of the _Catamaran_, although only a few feet of water lay between
them.

Ben Brace was the first to bestir himself. Snowball had never been an
early riser; and if permitte