at is, it swam bottom downwards. It
floated buoyantly, moreover, as if it had been made of cork. He was
prepared for this; for he remembered having listened to a conversation
in the forecastle of the _Pandora_, relating to this very chest, in
which Ben Brace had taken the principal part, and in which the sea-going
qualities of his kit had been freely and proudly commented upon.
William remembered how the _ci-devant_ man-o'-war's-man had boasted of
his _craft_, as he called the kit, proclaiming it "a reg'lar life-buoy
in case o' bein' cast away at sea," and declaring that, "if 't war
emp'y,--as he hoped it never should be,--it would float the whole crew
o' a pinnace or longboat."

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. That one was Lilly Lalee.

CHAPTER FORTY ONE.

A LOOKOUT FROM ALOFT.

After launching the kit, little William did not think of surrendering
himself to inaction. He bethought him that something more should be
done,--that some other _waifs_ should be turned adrift from the
_Catamaran_, which, by getting into the way of the swimmers, might offer
them an additional chance of support.

What next? A plank? No; a cask,--one of the empty water-casks? That
would be the thing,--the thing itself.

No sooner thought of than one was detached. The lashings were cut with
the axe, in default of his finding a knife; and the cask, like the kit,
soon fell into the wake. Not very rapidly it was true; for the
_Catamaran_ now, deprived of her sail, did not drift so fast to leeward
as formerly. Still she went faster than either the kit or the cask,
however; on account of the breeze acting upon her stout mast and some
other objects that stood high upon her deck; and William very reasonably
supposed that to swimmers so much exhausted,--as by that time must be
both Ben and Snowball,--even the difference of a cable's length might be
of vital importance.

It occurred to him also, that the greater the number of waifs sent in
their way, the better would be their chance of seeing and getting hold
of one of them. Instead