They spent a terrible time. The sun was so hot that the pitch between the planks of the quarter-deck boiled and stuck to the shoes. There were plenty of provisions, but the mutinous mate and crew had taken most of the water and all the rum away in the boats. The remainder of the water went bad, and both Peggy and Willie began to pine. Oh, it was pitiful to see them, and even to hear the poor, faithful blood-hound appealing in his own canine fashion for the water that was not forthcoming. To make matters worse, the captain found he was far out of the track of ships, far away from any of the ocean’s great highways.
“But,” pleaded poor Peggy, hopefully, “a ship may come. God may send a ship.”
Alas! God seemed to have forgotten them, if that indeed were possible.
One night, the sky bright with heaven’s jewels, sheet-lightning playing behind the low, rocky clouds on the horizon, that seemed to forebode a storm, and a phosphorescent light upon the waves, something happened. There was a rasping noise coming from beneath the keel, and all motion suddenly ceased.
The Vulture had grounded on a reef! No one slept two consecutive hours, and everyone was astir before the sun leapt out of his ocean bed. But it was not an ocean bed this morning, for in the east, and but a short distance off, lo and behold! a green and beautiful island, with a beach of coral sand, and strange round huts built under tall and stately poplar trees. A cry of joy burst from every lip. They were saved!
Yes, saved from the sea!
But on those sands spear-armed savages danced and yelled, brandishing their weapons and waving their naked arms as if to keep them off.
What now would be the fate of the Wandering Minstrels?
CHAPTER III.
When the Worst Comes to the Worst.
WHAT a welcome sight those cocoa-nut trees were! They only grow in islands where water abounds, and the young cocoa-nut itself, before the kernel is formed, contains at least a quart of the most delicious fluid in the world. No wine is equal to it.