“But there’s not likely to be a line in the locker,” said Poole.
“And if there was,” said Fitz, “you have no bait.”
“’Cept ’bacca,” said the boatswain, “and they wouldn’t take that. And even if they would, we couldn’t afford to waste it on fish as most likely wouldn’t be good to eat. You catches fishes off these coasts as is painted up like parrots—red, and green, and yaller, and blue; but they are about as bad as pison.—Getting warmer, Bob?”
“Bit,” said the man addressed.
“So’m I.—Tell the lads to keep their ears open, Mr Poole, for breakers. There may be shoal water anywhere, and we don’t want to run into them.”
“You think it’s likely, then,” said Fitz, “that we may reach the shore?”
“Oh yes, sir; we might, you know; and if we did I dare say you young gents would find it an uninhabited island where you could play at Robinson Crusoe till a ship come and took us off. What do you say to that?”
“Nothing,” said Fitz. “I want the daylight to come, and a sight of the Silver Teal.”
“Same here, sir. My word, I’m beginning to feel like wishing we had got the Camel here, though he would be no good without the galley and his tools. Not a bad chap to have, though, Mr Poole, if we was to land in a sort of Robinson Crusoe island. There’s worse messmates at a time like that than a chap as can knock up decent wittles out of nothing; make a good pot of soup out of a flannel-shirt and an old shoe, and roast meat out of them knobs and things like cork-blocks as you find growing on trees. Some of them cookie chaps too, like the Camel, are precious keen about the nose, long-headed and knowing. Old Andy is an out-and-out clever chap at picking out things as is good to eat. I had a ramble with him once up country in Trinidad. He was a regular wunner at finding out different kinds of plants. ‘Look ’ere,’ he says, ‘if you pull this up it’s got a root something like a parsnep whose grandfather had been a beet.’ And then he showed me some more things creeping up the trees like them flowers at home in the gardens, wonvuluses, as they call them, only he called them yams, and he poked one out with his stick, and yam it was—a great, big, black, thick, rooty thing, like a big tater as had been stretched. Andy said as no fellow as had brains in his head ought to starve out in a foreign land; and that’s useful to know, Mr Poole and Mr Burnett, sir. Come in handy if we have to do the Robinson Crusoe for a spell.—Keep it up, young gents,” he whispered; “the lads like to hear us talk.—‘That’s all very fine, Andy,’ I says,” he continued, aloud, “‘but what about water? Whether you are aboard your ship or whether you are in a strange land, you must have plenty of water in your casks!’ ‘Find a river,’ he says. ‘But suppose you can’t,’ says I. ‘Open your snickersee,’ says he, ‘and dig a hole right down till you come to it. And if there aren’t none, then use your eyes.’ ‘Why, you can’t drink your eyes,’ I says, ‘and I’d rather have sea-water any day than tears.’ ‘Use them,’ he says; ‘I didn’t say drink ’em. Look about. Why, in these ’ere foreign countries there’s prickly plants with long spikes to them to keep the wild beasts from meddling with them, so as they shall be ready for human beings; and then all you have got to do is to rub or singe the spikes off and they’re chock-full of water—juice, if you like to call it so—only it’s got no taste. Then there’s plahnts with a spunful of water in their jyntes where the leaves come out, and orkard plahnts like young pitchers or sorter shucks with lids to keep the birds off, and a lot of water in the bottom of them, besides fruits and pumpkin things. Oh, a fellow can rub along right enough if he likes to try. I could manage; I know that.’ And I believe he could, gentlemen, and that’s what makes me say as the Camel would be just the right sort of fellow to have with us now, him and old Chips, so long as old Chips had got his basket of traps; not as he would stand still if he hadn’t, for he’s just the fellow, if he has no tools, as would set to and make some.”
And the night gradually wore on, with the men taking their turns at rowing. The boatswain and Bob Jackson both declared themselves to be as dry as a bone, and what with talking and setting despair at defiance, they went on