Picked up Adrift / Illustrated

by James De Mille

“Pat,” said Arthur, “you’ve been doing the mummy long enough. You’d better untie now, and lie down.”

“Sure an it’s meself that’ll be the proud lad to do that same,” said Pat, “for it’s fairly achin I am all over, so it is.”

With these words Pat tried to unbind himself. But this was not so easy. He had been leaning his whole weight against the ropes, and his hands were quite numb. The other boys had to help him. This was a work of some difficulty, but it was accomplished at last, and poor Pat sank down groaning, and he never ceased to sigh and groan till morning.

Several hours now passed. The sea subsided steadily, until at length its motion was comparatively trifling, not more than enough to cause a perpendicular pitch to the ship of a few feet, and to send a few waves occasionally over the deck. Wearied and worn out, the boys determined to descend to the quarter-deck, so as to lie down. Pat was unable to make the descent; so Bart remained with him, and curled himself up alongside of him on the mizzen-top. The other boys went down, and Solomon also.

Everything there was wet, but as the boys also were saturated, it made but little difference. They flung themselves down anywhere, and soon were fast asleep.

But in the main-top Pat was groaning in his pain. The blood was rushing back into his benumbed limbs, and causing exquisite suffering. Bart tried to soothe him, and rubbed and chafed his arms and hands and feet and legs for hours.

At last Pat grew easier, though still suffering somewhat from pricking sensations in his arms and legs, and Bart was allowed to rest from his labors.

And now, as Bart leaned back, he became aware of a very peculiar sound, which excited all his attention.

It was a droning sound, with a deep, swelling cadence, and not long in duration; but it rose, and pealed forth, and died away, to be followed by other sounds precisely similar—regular, recurrent, and sounding all abroad. It was nothing like the roar of the waves, nor the singing of the wind through the rigging; it was something different from these, yet in this darkness, and to this listener, not less terrible.

Bart knew it. The sound was familiar to his ears. There was only one sound in Nature of that character, nor could it be imitated by any other. It was the long sound of the surf falling upon the shore.