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Updated: May 31, 2025
Now all were moving in a circle, or rather in three circles concentric to one another; the sailor, with his charge, revolving round the centre, Snowball in mid radius, while the shark, flanked by his satellites, went gliding along the outer circumference, his lurid eyes glaring continually inward, as if watching for an opportunity to break the line so carefully guarded by the Coromantee!
Heavy as was the piece of wood, and offering, as it did, a considerable amount of resistance in being dragged through the water, it would not have been sufficient to sustain the huge body of the Coromantee.
It was just as the sailor had given over calling out, and relapsed into sullen silence, that Snowball was seen returning towards him. It was an additional argument for despair this abandonment of the chase on the part of the Coromantee. When such a swimmer had given it up, Ben knew it was hopeless. In a moment after they met face to face.
Snowball's companions, though inclined to incredulity, obeyed his injunction. They might have treated it with less regard, had they not known the Coromantee to be gifted with a sense of hearing that was wonderfully acute. His largely-developed ears would have proved this capacity; but they knew that he possessed it, from having witnessed many exhibitions of it previous to that time.
Perhaps until the lunatic had exhausted his insane strength, and sunk into the sea: since he appeared to have no idea of making an attempt to return to the boat. He never looked round to see how far he was leaving it behind him. On the contrary, he swam straight on, his eyes steadfastly fixed upon the one object that seemed to have possession of his soul, the Coromantee!
Snowball, sea-duck that he was, might have held out a good while; but the sailor, weighted with Lalee, must soon "go under." Even Snowball could not swim forever; and, unless some incident should arise to change the character of this aquatic chase, and arrest the Catamaran in her leeward course, sooner or later must the Coromantee become also the prey of the all-swallowing ocean.
Snowball began to snore almost as soon as he had closed his eyelids, and as if the shutting of his eyes had either occasioned or strengthened the current of breath through his nostrils. And such a sound as the snore of the Coromantee was rarely heard upon the ocean, except in the "spouting" of a whale or the "blowing" of a porpoise. It did not wake the little Lalee.
Whatever doubts may have been engendered as to the nature of the island, there could be no longer any about the character of its inhabitants. "Dey am birds!" suggested the Coromantee; "nuffin more and nuffin less dan birds!" "You're right, Snowy," assented the sailor. "They be birds; and all the better they be so. Yes; they're birds, for sartin. I can tell the cut o' some o' their jibs.
His nature was an African's profoundly modified but hardly transformed by the requirements of European civilization. The wrench from Africa and the subjection to the new discipline while uprooting his ancient language and customs had little more effect upon his temperament than upon his complexion. Ceasing to be Foulah, Coromantee, Ebo or Angola, he became instead the American negro.
It was soon enough, however, to save the suspended Coromantee; whose body, now yielding to the united strength of the two, was drawn up the slippery slope, slowly, but surely, until it rested upon the broad horizontal space around the summit of that mountain of bones and blubber. It was some time before either his breath or the tranquillity of his spirits was restored to the Coromantee.
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