“’Tis all my fault,” said Anne; “I did prevail on you and Amos to come.”
“We both liked well to come,” answered Amanda stoutly. “Amos should have known better, for he is older. But he likes a risk over well, and now he can play shipwrecked to his heart’s desire.”
“My eyes are heavy with sleep,” said Anne. “Let us say the small prayer that Elder Haven taught us and sleep a little. ’Tis dark and foggy; we can see nothing.”
Amanda reached out her sunburned little hand and clasped Anne’s, and they repeated aloud the prayer, asking for help and protection, which Elder Haven had taught them; then, curling themselves up in the bottom of the boat, they went fast asleep.
But the “Peggy” did not sail far. The wind died away, and the boat drifted with the tide. When the little girls awoke it was bright sunshine, and a big ship was coming slowly down upon them.
“’Tis a Britisher!” Amanda exclaimed; “like as not she’s bound for England and will carry us straight off,” and Amanda began crying bitterly.
Before Anne could answer there came a hail from the ship, and Anne and Amanda called back, “Sloop ‘Peggy’! Sloop ‘Peggy’!” as loudly as they could, as they had heard Province Town captains do in answer to hails from harbor boats.
It was not long before the big vessel was near enough for the sailors to distinguish that there were only two little girls on board the drifting sloop, and a man was ready with a stout boat-hook, which he grappled about the “Peggy’s” mast, and a big man with reddish hair and blue eyes slid down a rope and swung himself on board the sloop.
“Zounds!” exclaimed the sailor, “if ’Tis not the little Province Town maid again! And adrift like this. I’ll have to take you to England and let Betsey and Harriet take care of you!”
Before he had finished both Anne and Amanda had begun to cry. They were sure now that they should never see home again, and William Trull had some trouble in convincing them that he did not mean to take them to England.