“I hope, Edward, you didn’t forget them while you were away from me.”
“I never turned in a night without it; but I didn’t have any mother to come and get the light and kiss me when I got through.”
“I hope, my child, you did more than that. I hope, when you were undergoing such misery on that dreadful raft, you prayed to God in your own words, and out of your own heart.”
“No, I didn’t, mother.”
“Not pray, when there seemed nothing but death before you—a child instructed as you have been?”
“No, mother. I suppose you want me to tell you just as it was.”
“Certainly, my child; but didn’t the captain, James Watts, or Arthur Brown?”
“The captain was swearing part of the time, and crying the rest. One minute he’d say he knew some vessel would come along and take us off, and seem quite cheerful; the next minute he would wring his hands, and swear, and cry, and say we should all starve to death on that raft. After the little water and provision the men left us was gone, he took to drinking salt water. It made him crazy, just as Mr. Brown told him it would, for he said he had heard his father say so. Then he ran off on the idea that we were going to kill and eat him. If he saw us talking together, he would say we were plotting to kill him and drink his blood. Mr. Brown said the second mate told him that he passed a crew of men once on a wreck, and wouldn’t take any notice of their signals, though they hoisted a signal of distress, and now he was getting his pay for it. I suppose it was the idea he took in his head, that we would kill and eat him, that made him jump overboard in the night, when we were all asleep.”
“That was awful; but didn’t Arthur Brown or James Watts ever call upon God?”