rticular night their vigil,--had it been kept,--might have had
a threefold purpose: for it is not to be forgotten that they were still
not so very far from their late pursuers. They too must have been
making way with the wind.

Neither had the Catamarans forgotten it; but even with this thought
before their minds, they were unable to resist the fascinations of
Morpheus; and leaving the craft to take her own course, the ships, if
there were any, to sail silently by, and the big raft, if chance so
directed it, to overtake them, they yielded themselves to unconscious
slumber.

Simultaneously were they awakened, and by a sound that might have
awakened the dead. It was a shriek that came pealing over the surface
of the ocean,--as unearthly in its intonation as if only the ocean
itself could have produced it! It was short, sharp, quick, and clear;
and so loud as to startle even Snowball from his torpidity.

The Coromantee was the first to inquire into its character.

"Wha' de debbil am dat?" he asked, rubbing his ears to make sure that he
was not labouring under a delusion.

"Shiver my timbers if I can tell!" rejoined the sailor, equally puzzled
by what he had heard.

"Dat soun' berry like da voice o' some un go drown,--berry like. Wha'
say you, Massa Brace?"

"It was a good bit like the voice of a man cut in two by a shark.
That's what it minded me of."

"By golly! you speak de troof. It wa jess like that,--jess like the
lass s'riek ob Massa Grow."

"And yet," continued the sailor, after a moment's reflection, "'t warn't
like that neyther. 'T warn't human, nohow: leastwise, I niver heerd
such come out o' a human throat."

"A don't blieb de big raff can be near. We hab been runnin' down de
wind ebba since you knock off dat boat-hook. We got de start o' de
_Pandoras_; an' dar's no mistake but we hab kep de distance. Dat s'riek
no come from dem."

"Look yonder!" cried little William, interrupting the dialogue. "I see
something."

"Whereaway? What like be it?" inquired the sailor.

"Yonder!" answered the lad, pointing over the starboard bow of the
_Catamaran_; "about three cables' length out in the water. It's a black
lump; it looks like a boat."

"A boat! Shiver my timbers if thee bean't right, lad. I see it now.
It do look somethin' as you say. But what ul a boat be doin' here,--out
in the middle o' the Atlantic?"

"Dat am a boat," interposed Snowball. "Fo' sartin it am."

"It must be," sa