is _fracas_ 'bout?
Someb'dy shout `Hurrah?'--Ha! you, lilly Willy? you shout dat jess now?
I tink I hear ye in ma 'leep. What for you hurrah? Golly! am dar a
ship in sight? I hope dar am--Wha's Mass' Brace?--wha's de lilly gal?
Augh?"

This string of interrogations was put in such rapid succession as to
give the lad no opportunity of replying to them. But, indeed, a reply
was not needed, as may be deduced from the final ejaculation of the
questioner.

Snowball, having swept the surface of the _Catamaran_ with a quick,
searching glance, and missing from it not only its captain, but--what
was of greater moment--his own _protege_, became equally the victim of
surprise and consternation.

His eye was at once turned towards the water; and, like all men
accustomed to the sea, was intuitively directed sternward. The missing
individuals could not be elsewhere than in the wake of the craft going
under sail.

He was soon satisfied of the correctness of his conjecture. On the
instant of his turning he beheld Ben Brace,--or rather, only the head of
that individual,--just visible above the rippling surface of the sea.
Close by was another head, of smaller size, with dark ringlets floating
on both sides of it, and a tiny arm stretched out and apparently
clinging to the shoulder of the seaman.

Snowball needed no one--not even little William--to interpret what he
saw. At a glance he comprehended what had occurred during his sleep,--
all except the cause. Little did he suspect that the disaster had its
origin in his own negligence. But it did not need that thought to beget
within him a feeling of anxiety,--or, rather, of intense alarm.

This feeling did not arise on the instant. Seeing the girl sustained by
such a strong swimmer as he knew his old shipmate to be, he had but
little fear for the result,--so little that he checked his first
impulse, which was to leap overboard and swim to the assistance of both.

A moment's reflection, however, satisfied him that there was still
danger both for Lalee and her brave rescuer,--a danger which little
William while giving utterance to that joyful "Hurrah!" had not taken
into account. The lad had seen the girl picked up by the strong seaman;
and, having an unlimited faith in the prowess of his own protector, he
had no other thought than that the latter would soon swim back to the
_Catamaran_, bearing his light burden along with him.

In his joy little William had overlooked