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Updated: May 23, 2025
On casting our eyes beyond the surf, we felt much relieved by seeing our shipwrecked friend merrily dancing on the waves at the back of the surf, leaping more than breast-high above the surface, and looking in all directions, first for his paddle, and then for his catamaran.
Slowly, and foot by foot, the catamaran crept up; and at length Dick was convinced that not more than a bare quarter of a mile separated the two craft.
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.
The crew of the Catamaran might have continued in doubt as to this had they been treated only to a repetition of the shriek; but this was followed by a series of speeches, incoherent, it is true, but spoken in an intelligible tongue, and ending in a peal of laughter such as might be heard echoing along the corridors of a lunatic asylum! One and all of them stood looking and listening.
So Dick, with lightning-like rapidity, took a turn with his rope and made it fast to a sort of broad thwart in the centre of the canoe, and then, hauling quickly up alongside again, he regained the deck of the catamaran just as she was paying-off on the right tack. As Leslie took the helm from her, Flora exclaimed "Oh, Dick, what does it mean?
The catamaran having been once more rendered fit for service, Leslie decided to devote a few hours to the examination of "Flora's Cave," as he called it, while its situation and the landmarks in its vicinity were fresh in his memory; he accordingly set off immediately after breakfast on the following morning, telling Flora where he was going, but suggesting that she should remain in camp and take a thorough rest.
But before anything in the nature of an explanation was forthcoming from the occupants of either the boat or the catamaran, a broad beam of white light swept over the crest of the island from north to south. It disappeared, to return more slowly, until it rested on Rat Island, at the extreme northwest of the group.
Hour after hour we sat there on the swaying catamaran, praying fervently that the hideous reptiles might leave us, and let us continue our journey in peace.
It was partly through this reminiscence that the idea of launching the chest had occurred to little William; and, as he saw it receding from the stern of the Catamaran, he had some happiness in the hope, that the confidence of his companion and protector might not be misplaced; but that the vaunted kit might prove the preserver, not only of his life, but of the life of one who to little William was now even dearer than Ben Brace.
There might not be another shower of rain for weeks; and even should it fall, it might be in such rough weather that they could not collect a single quart of it. Her slow-sailing was not the only objection to the Catamaran. Their experience in the gale of the preceding night had taught them, how little they could depend upon her in the event of a real storm.
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