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<h3>Chapter Seventy Nine.</h3> <h4>Dousing the Glim.</h4> We left the crew of the Catamaran in full occupation,—“smoking” shark-flesh on the back of a cachalot whale. To make sure of a sufficient stock,—enough to last them with light rations for a voyage, if need be, to the other side of the Atlantic,—they had continued at the work all day long, and several hours into the night. They had kept the fire ablaze by pouring fresh spermaceti into the furnace of flesh which they had constructed, or rather excavated, in the back of the leviathan; and so far as that kind of fuel was concerned, they might have gone on roasting shark-steaks for a twelvemonth. But they had proved that the spermaceti would not burn to any purpose without a wick; and as their spare ropes were too precious to be all picked into oakum, they saw the necessity of economising their stock of the latter article. But for this deficiency, they might have permitted the furnace-lamp to burn on during the whole night, or until it should go out by the exhaustion of the wick. As they were not yet quite satisfied with the supply of broiled shark-meat, they had resolved to take a fresh spell at roasting on the morrow; and in order that the wick should not be idly wasted, they had “doused the glim” before retiring to rest. They had extinguished the flame in a somewhat original fashion,—by pouring upon it a portion of the liquid spermaceti taken out of the case. The light, after giving a final flash, had gone out, leaving them in utter darkness. But they had no difficulty in finding their way back to the deck, of their craft, where they designed passing the remainder of the night. 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. After groping their way over the slippery shoulders of the leviathan, and letting themselves down by the rope they had attached to his huge pectoral fin, they made their supper upon a portion of the hot roast they had brought along with them; and, washing it down with a little diluted “canary,” they consigned themselves to rest. Better satisfied with their prospects than they had been for some time past, they soon fell asleep; and silence reigned around the dark floating mass that included the forms of cachalot and Catamaran. At that same moment a less tranquil scene was occurring scarce ten miles from the spot; for it is scarce necessary to say that the light seen by the ruffians on the great raft—and which they had fancifully mistaken for a ship’s galley-fire,—was the furnace fed by spermaceti on the back of the whale. The extinction of the flame had led to a scene which was reaching its maximum of noisy excitement at about the time that the crew of the Catamaran were munching their roast shark-meat and sipping their canary. This scene had continued long after every individual of the latter had sunk into a sweet oblivion of the dangers that surrounded them. All four slept soundly throughout the remainder of the night. Strange to say, they felt a sort of security, moored alongside that monstrous mass, which they would not have experienced had their frail tiny craft been by itself alone upon the ocean. It was but a fancied security, it is true: still it had the effect of giving satisfaction to the spirit, and through this, producing an artificial incentive to sleep. It was daylight before any of them awoke,—or it should have been daylight, by the hour: but there was a thick fog around them,—so thick and dark that the carcass of the cachalot was not visible from the deck of the Catamaran, although only a few feet of water lay between them. Ben Brace was the first to bestir himself. Snowball had never been an early riser; and if permitted by his duties, or the neglect of them either, he would have kept his couch till midday. Ben, however, knew that there was work to be done, and no time to be wasted in idleness. The captain of the Catamaran had given up all hopes of the return of the whaler; and therefore the sooner they could complete their arrangements for cutting adrift from the carcass, and continuing their interrupted course towards the west, the better would be their chance of ultimately reaching land. Snowball, sans cérémonie, was shaken out of his slumbers; and the process of restoring him to wakefulness also awoke little William and Lilly Lalee,—so that the whole crew were now up and ready for action. A hasty déjeuner à la matelot served for the morning repast; after which Snowball and the sailor, accompanied by the boy, climbed once more upon the back of the cachalot to resume the operations which had been suspended for the night; while the girl, as usual, remained in charge of the Catamaran. <hr /></div> <div class="bodytext"> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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