The young lad, observing a heavy sea coming up to the stern of the vessel, caught hold of the old man’s arm, crying out—“Won’t that great wave come into us, Ready?”
“No, Master William, it will not: don’t you see how the ship lifts her quarters to it?—and now it has passed underneath us. But it might happen, and then what would become of you, if I did not hold on, and hold you on also? You would be washed overboard.”
“I don’t like the sea much, Ready; I wish we were safe on shore again,” replied the lad. “Don’t the waves look as if they wished to beat the ship all to pieces?”
“Yes, they do; and they roar as if angry because they cannot bury the vessel beneath them: but I am used to them, and with a good ship like this, and a good captain and crew, I don’t care for them.”
“But sometimes ships do sink, and then everybody is drowned.”
“Yes; and very often the very ships sink which those on board think are most safe. We can only do our best, and after that we must submit to the will of Heaven.”
“What little birds are those flying about so close to the water?”
“Those are Mother Carey’s chickens. You seldom see them except in a storm, or when a storm is coming on.”
The birds which William referred to were the stormy petrels.
“Were you ever shipwrecked on a desolate island like Robinson Crusoe?”