The Pirate Story Megapack. R.M. Ballantyne

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СКАЧАТЬ full of sturrange vycissitudes—from bad to wuss has ben our fate ever sence we sot foot on this here eventfual vyge; an ef thar’s any lesson to be larned from sech doins an car’ns on as this here, why, I ain’t able to see it. An now what am I to do? What’s a goin to become of me? No dry clothes! No fire to dry myself! Rheumatiz before me! lumbago behind me! pleurisy on each side o’ me! such is the te-rific prospect of the blighted bein that now addresses you.”

      The boys paid but little attention to Captain Corbet’s wailings. They had other troubles more serious than these prospective ones. They could not help, however, being struck by the thought that it was a little odd for a man who had just been snatched so narrowly from a terrible death to confine all his attention and all his lamentations to such a very ordinary circumstance as wet clothes. He who had announced so firmly, a short time before, his calm and fixed intention of perishing with the Antelope, now seemed to have forgotten all about her, and thought only of himself and his rheumatiz. Could this be, indeed, Captain Corbet? Strange was the change that had come over him; yet this was not the only singular change that had occurred on this eventful day. They had witnessed others quite as wonderful in Solomon and Pat. These two, however, had now resumed their usual characteristics.

      There they were, in a boat, all of them, but where? That was the question. The masts of the sunken Antelope rose obliquely out of the water, showing that she was resting on her side at the bottom. But what was that bottom, and where? Was it some lonely rock or reef? Was it some sand-bank or shoal like that upon which they had already gone aground, and where the Antelope had received those injuries which had at length wrought her ruin? None of them could answer this.

      And where should they go? In what direction should they turn? This was the question that pressed upon them, and required immediate decision.

      “It’s impossible to even guess where we are,” said Bart. “We’ve been going in the dark all along. We may as well be off Sable Island as anywhere else. And if so, all I can say is, I’ve seen worse places.”

      “Sure an thin it’s as likely to be Anticosti as Sable Island,” said Pat. “We’ve ben a turrunin around ivery way, so we have, an we may have fetched up there, so we may, an if that’s so, we may as well dig our graves an lay ourselves down in thim.”

      “Well, if you’re going so far as that,” said Bruce, “I’d put in a claim for Bermuda. I don’t see why we mayn’t be off Bermuda as well as Anticosti. If so, we may be sure of good accommodations.”

      “Well, while you’re about it,” said Arthur, “why don’t you say Jamaica?”

      “At any rate,” said Bruce, “I shouldn’t wonder if it should turn out to be Newfoundland. This sou’-west wind would take us there.”

      “Yes, but there’s been a calm,” said Arthur, “for some time, and we’ve got into some current. I dare say it’s taken us west, and that this is close by Cape Cod.”

      “Pooh!” said Phil. “If we’ve been drifting with any current, there’s only one current hereabouts. That’s the Gulf Stream. I tell you what it is, boys; we’ve crossed the Atlantic, and this place is off the coast of Owld Ireland; and there ye have it.”

      “Arrah, go way wid yer deludherin talk,” said Pat. “We want a sinsible opinion.”

      “The more I think of it,” said Tom, “the more I’m inclined to be of Bart’s opinion. We’ve been tacking and drifting, and going backward and forward, and it seems to me most likely that this is Sable Island. If so, we may be glad that we came here when the water was so calm.”

      “Wal,” said Captain Corbet, thoughtfully, “I don’t b’lieve that this here air Ireland, nor Iceland, nor Africky, nor Jamaiky, nor any other sech. ’Tain’t unpossible for it to be Sable Island. We drifted there onst, an may heve done it agin. Far be it from me to dispute that thar. But then again it might be Newfoundland. ’Pears to me as ef we’ve got off some land whar thar’s woods, for I got jest now a kine a scent o’ trees, an ’peared to me of spruce an sech. I shouldn’t be s’prised ef the wind was to haul round. It often doos, specially when it’s ben an done its wust, an you don’t care. So now we don’t care what it doos, or which way it blows; an consekently it’s goin to turn an blow away the fog.”

      At this moment, and while the ancient mariner was yet speaking, there came a breath of wind, very gentle, yet quite perceptible, and there was in it an unmistakable odor of forest trees—balmy, delicious, most fragrant, bringing with it hope, and joy, and delight.

      “The land must be close by,” cried Bart. “Hurrah!”

      “Don’t hurrah too soon,” said Tom. “It may be Anticosti.”

      “Pooh! Anticosti could never send out such a smell of spruce and pine.”

      “Well, it may be Newfoundland, and that won’t help us much.”

      “The wind’s going to change,” said Arthur. “I think the fog isn’t so thick as it was.”

      “Come, boys, this bottom shoals in some direction. Let’s sound, and row on in the direction where it shoals. That’ll bring us to the shore.”

      This suggestion, which came from Bruce, was at once acted on. Bart and Tom took the oars. Bruce took a hatchet which had been flung into the boat, and tying a line to it, used this as a sounding lead.

      “Row gently,” said he.

      The boys did so, following Bruce’s direction, while, holding his sounding-line, he tested the bottom. After a little while he had satisfied himself.

      “It shoals in this direction,” said he. “Row straight on a dozen strokes.”

      They did so.

      Bruce sounded again.

      “All right,” said he. “Row on.”

      They rowed farther.

      Bruce sounded again. The bottom was much shallower.

      They rowed farther.

      But now no sounding was any longer necessary, for there, straight before them, looming through the now lessening fog, they all descried the welcome sight of land.

      CHAPTER XXIV.

      At the sight of land a cry of joy burst forth from all in the boat, and Bart and Tom bent to their oars with all their force. As they drew nearer, they saw, to their intense delight, that this strange land was no wilderness, no desolate shore, but an inhabited place, with cultivated fields, and pasture land, and groves. One by one, new features in the landscape revealed themselves. There was a long beach, with a grand sweep that curved itself away on either side, till it joined steep or precipitous shores. Behind this were fields, all green with verdure, and a scattered settlement, whose white houses, of simple, yet neat construction, looked most invitingly to these shipwrecked wanderers. At one end of the winding beach rose the fabric of a large ship in process of construction.

      Nearer they came, and yet nearer. The tide was high on the beach, and the waters almost touched the green fields that fringed the shore with alder bushes. Here a boat was drawn up, and beyond this stood a neat farm-house. On a fence nets were hanging, showing that the occupant of this house united the two callings of farmer and fisher. Beyond the settlement, the land rose into high hills, which were covered with forest trees, and from these had been wafted that aromatic breeze СКАЧАТЬ