While Ben was thus delivering himself, Mr Brand was loading his pistols.  All things being ready, they stepped into the boat and shoved off.  They were immediately lost to sight in the thick darkness which surrounded us.  Their oars had been muffled; but we could hear the gentle lap of the oars in the water for long afterwards, showing to what a distance sound could travel, and that the scene of the outrage we had been listening to might be further off than we supposed.  As Mr Brand had taken the bearings of the _Dove_, and proposed pulling directly to the south-west, whence the sounds came, and directly in the eye of the wind, such as there was, which had shifted to that quarter, we knew that he would have no great difficulty in getting aboard us again.  Still we could not help feeling very anxious about him.  The plan, however, proposed by Ben Yool struck us as likely to prove as effectual as any that could be conceived;--much more so than had the little _Dove_ herself appeared; for, as she did not measure more than twenty tons, she was not calculated by her size to command respect, especially as she had no guns on board, and we had only our rifles.  Scarcely had the boat left the side of the schooner when the shrieks were repeated.  They seemed louder, or at all events more distinct.  We could no longer have any doubt that they were uttered by human beings in distress.  Old Surley thought so too.  He kept running about the deck in a state of great agitation, and then stretched out his neck, and howled in reply to the cry which reached his ears.  We kept slowly gliding on under all sail, keeping as close to the wind as we could, so as to beat up in the direction of the sound.  It had been arranged that we were to go about every quarter of an hour, so that Mr Brand would know our whereabouts and on what tack he was likely to find us on his return.  Our ears were kept open to catch any fresh sound, and our eyes were looking about us in all directions, in case a break in the mist should reveal any object to us; but an hour passed away, and no other cry was heard.  There was a little more wind, and it had shifted a point or so to the westward, and perhaps that prevented sounds reaching us, we thought.  Another hour crept by, but still Mr Brand did not return.  We began to be anxious about him.  We constantly went to the binnacle lamp to look at our watches.  It wanted but a short time to daylight.  The doctor, I saw by his manner, was seriously alarmed about the party, though he said nothing to us.  We fancied that we heard a hail, and then a shout and a cry; but we could not quite agree about it.  We kept pacing the deck anxiously, tacking as we had been directed by Mr Brand; and thus the night wore on, and dawn once more broke over the world of waters.