This boat, then, had survived the gale, and the winds and currents had brought it and the raft together.  What had become of Neb?  He must have rigged the masts, for none were stepped, of course, when the boat was in the chocks.  Masts, and sails, and oars were always kept in the boat, it is true; but the first could not be stepped without hands.  A strange, wild feeling came over me, as a man might be supposed to yield to the appearance of supernatural agencies and, almost without intending it, I shouted “boat ahoy!”

“Yo hoy!” answered Marble;—­“who hails?”

The form of the mate appeared rising in the boat; at the next instant, Neb stood at his side.  The conversation of the previous night had been real, and those whom I had mourned as lost stood within thirty feet of me, hale, hearty, and unharmed.  The boat and raft had approached each other in the darkness; and, as I afterwards learned, the launch having fanned along for several hours of the night, stopped for want of wind nearly where I now saw her, and where the dialogue, part of which I overheard while half asleep, had taken place.  Had the launch continued on its course only ten yards further, it would have hit the fore-top-mast.  That attraction of which I have already spoken, probably kept the boat and raft near each other throughout the night, and quite likely had been slowly drawing them together while we slept.

It would not be easy to say which party was the most astonished at this recognition.  There was Marble, whom I had supposed washed off the raft, safe in the launch; and here was I, whom the other two had thought to have gone down in the ship, safe on the raft!  We appeared to have changed places, without concert and without expectation of ever again meeting.  Though ignorant of the means through which all this had been brought about, I very well know what we did, as soon as each man was certain that he saw the other standing before him in the flesh.  We sat down and wept like three children.  Then Neb, too impatient to wait for Marble’s movements, threw himself into the sea, and swam to the raft.  When he got on the staging, the honest fellow kissed my hands, again and again, blubbering the whole time like a girl of three or four years of age.  This scene was interrupted only by the expostulations and proceedings of the mate.

“What’s this you’re doing, you bloody nigger!” cried Marble.  “Desarting your station, and leaving me here, alone, to manage this heavy launch, by myself.  It might be the means of losing all hands of us again, should a hurricane spring up suddenly, and wreck us over again.”

The truth was, Marble began to be ashamed of the weakness he had betrayed, and was ready to set upon anything, in order to conceal it.  Neb put an end to this sally, however, by plunging again into the water, and swimming back to the boat, as readily as he had come to the raft.