hing" along the edge of
the raft, instead of rousing them acted rather as a lullaby to their
rest. The boy awoke first. He had been longer asleep; and his nervous
system, refreshed and restored to its normal condition, had become more
keenly sensitive to outward impressions. Some big, cold rain-drops
falling upon his face had recalled him to wakefulness.

Was it spray tossed up by the spars ploughing through the water?

No. It was rain from the clouds. The canopy overhead was black as ink;
but while the lad was scrutinising it, a gleam of lightning suddenly
illumined both sea and sky, and then all was dark as before.

Little William would have restored his cheek to its sail-cloth pillow
and gone to sleep again. He was not dismayed by the silent lightning,--
for it was that sort that had flickered over the sky. No more did he
mind the threatening rainclouds. His shirt had been soaked too often,
by showers from the sky and spray from the sea, for him to have any
dread of a ducking.

It was not that,--neither the presence of the lightning nor the prospect
of the rain,--that kept him awake; but something he had heard,--or
fancied he had heard,--something that not only restrained him from
returning to repose, but inspired him with a fear that robbed him of an
inclination to go to sleep again.

What was it he had heard or fancied? A noise,--a _voice_!

Was it the scream of the sea-mew, the shriek of the frigate-bird, or the
hoarse note of the nelly?

None of these. The boy-sailor was acquainted with the cries of all
three, and of many other sea-birds besides. It was not the call of a
bird that had fallen so unexpectedly on his ear, but a note of far
different intonation. It more resembled a voice,--a human voice,--the
voice of a child! Not of a very young child,--an infant,--but more like
that of a girl of eight or ten years of age!

Nor was it a cry of distress, though uttered in a melancholy tone. It
seemed to the ear of the lad--freshly awakened from his sleep--like
words spoken in conversation.

But it could not be what he had taken it for! Improbable,--impossible!
He had been deluded by a fancy; or it might be the mutterings of some
ocean bird with whose note he was unacquainted.

Should he awake his companion and tell him of it? A pity, if it should
prove to be nothing, or only the chattering of a sea-gull. His brave
protector had need of rest. Ben would not be angry to be awaked; but
the s