“Without food or water? Have you forgotten our last trip?” cried Mark.
“No, sir, and never shall forget it,” said the man, with a shiver. “You’re right, sir, of course. Water we must have, victuals if we can get any. Nothing like having an officer with you, clever as you may think yourself.”
Five minutes later the men were rowing steadily toward the land, while Mark rejoiced at the only piece of good fortune he had encountered since the previous night when he lay down, and that was in the fact that to get rid of the party who had captured the schooner, the slaver captain had not scrupled to send them adrift in his own boat, one which proved to be light, swift, strong, and admirably adapted for facing the heavy swell that deluged the shore.
Mark’s time was pretty well divided between steering, watching his patients, and keeping a look-out for an inlet into which the boat could be run. So as not to weary the men, he made them row with the tide until they had gone south some miles, and he was hesitating as to whether he ought not to turn back, when there were signs ahead of the mouth of a river whose banks were heavily timbered. These signs proved to be correct, and in half an hour the boat was steered into a narrow canal-like channel among the mangrove growth, made fast to a stem, and the men, feverish—hot and suffering, drank eagerly of the swiftly rushing water, forgetting its muddiness in the delicious coolness it imparted to their burning throats; while Fillot and his young officer busied themselves, as they lay in the shade of the overhanging trees, in bathing the heads of the two sufferers, in each case winning for reward sighs of satisfaction and content.
“Hah!” ejaculated Tom Fillot, when, after holding down his face close to the water, and drinking for some time like a horse, he sat up with a tin baler in his hands, sipping from the full vessel, enjoying himself, and making comments for his comrades to hear.
He had tried to smile, but the effort consequent upon the state of his swollen face was too painful, and he gave that up.
“Yer health, messmets,” he said, raising the baler, “and wishing us all out of our difficulties.”
He took another sip of the muddy fluid, and nodded as he passed the tin to the next man.
“Drink hearty, messmet,” he said, “and pass it on. This is something like water. Reg’lar strong slab stuff as has got plenty o’ victuals in it as well as drink. Reg’lar meaty water, like soup.”
“Why, it’s on’y mud, mate,” said the man who held the tin; “hadn’t we better let it settle?”