A smart little barque enough, and a kindly skipper; a trader, however, and ordered to make straight for Rio first, then Buenos Ayres, etc.; and, at each town he visited, the Wandering Minstrels were to give their great entertainment.
Nothing succeeds like success, and had Fitzroy elected to stay on with his company even at Rio, he might have made a pile.
But he didn’t. There was a golden future before them all, he told himself, when they should reach the land of the Southern Cross.
They had troublesome times weathering Cape Horn, and the barque leaked badly. Often and often it was all hands to the pump. Pump or drown, Fitzroy phrased it. The children were told nothing about their danger, and the stormier the weather the merrier they were. Why, in two months’ time, somewhat to Fitzroy’s consternation, Willie grew a whole quarter of an inch!
“If he starts growing,” said Fitzroy to the giant, “he’ll ruin himself, and hurt me also.”
“But,” said Gourmand, “I suppose you don’t mind me growing, do you?”
“Goodness sake, Gourmand!” cried Fitzroy; “grow a foot if you want to, or a yard even would be better.”
Somehow, when the ship was stretching up north and west into sunnier seas, she stopped leaking. Seaweed sometimes gets sucked into a leak and stops it. Ah! then it was a happy and a merry time on board!
But another storm arose which drove them far out of their course, which split the sails, and smashed the bulwarks to pieces.
One night the mate came to the skipper’s state-room.