As Sister Leona read the service, I am sure there was not a dry eye in the group abaft the binnacle, while both Teenie and Pandoo sobbed aloud.
But it was over at last.
The men were dismissed to their work, and Johnnie Smart, innocent, unselfish lad, will be seen no more, until that day
“When the sea gives up its dead.”
. . . . . .
Captain Antonio Garcia kept all hands steadily at work now, and even for Teenie he found something to do.
In a few weeks’ time he was pleased to note that although Johnnie never could be forgotten, the men, and even Teenie, talked about him as not dead, but gone before, and in a far happier place now than any on board the seemingly doomed ship Zingara.
CHAPTER XI
“WHERE CAN MEN DIE BETTER THAN IN FACING FEARFUL ODDS?”
Antonio determined to make one more, one last ascent in the balloon; for things were now getting desperate indeed, and once again it appeared as if scurvy was about to break out among his crew.
So the balloon was repaired, almost rebuilt indeed, and finally it ascended. But this time the wise wee captain had provided himself with a parachute, and he wore also a lifebelt.