“At last the vessel strained so that we all was sure and certain that she was goin to pieces; so we determined to save ourselves; so we got down the long-boat, and managed, one by one, to get into her as she floated to leeward, and then begged the captain and mate to follow. The mate seemed half inclined, but the captain was obstinate. He swore he would stick to the ship, and save her yet. He begged us to come back, and told us she would float till doomsday. But we swore she was break-in up, and told him she couldn’t hang together one day more.
“The worst of it was, all this time we didn’t know where we was. There was fog and heavy-gales, and the captain hadn’t taken no reckonin for weeks. We wanted to git off the wreck before she got onto the rocks. As for the captain and mate, they had the cutter, and a couple of the men staid behind to take off the cutter, and the captain and mate, too, if they should come to their senses, leastways the mate. And what became of them four I hain’t no idee.
“Wal, then we dropped off, and went away in the long-boat. We hadn’t no idee where we was, and couldn’t tell the pints of the compass. We thought the best thing would be to run before the wind, since we didn’t know any better way, and we knew we was somewhere in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and would fetch up at last somewheres. So we let her run, and kept a sharp lookout, or tried to, though ’twan’t no use at night, for what with the darkness and the fog, the nights was that dark you couldn’t see the nose before your face. Well, that’s all. The only thing more that I know is this—that one night I was sound asleep, and was waked up by a tremenjous yell, and found myself in the water. The boat had been thrown on rocks or surf, and had capsized. I struggled, and at last found bottom, and rushed blindly along, I couldn’t see where, till I got to dry ground. And it was this here beach; and afterwards, as I found out how the wind was blowin, and put this an that together, I concluded that this was Anticosti, and now I know it.”
So ended Bailey’s narrative. A long conversation followed. The boys were anxious to know why he felt so sure that it was Anticosti, and Bailey described his theory of the position of the Petrel at the time he left her, and the course which the boat must have taken in such a wind. He also felt sure, from the character of the coast and the country, that it was this place, and no other. Then the boys gave a minute account of their own adventures. Bailey was most struck by the captain’s paper found in the bottle.
“Wal,” said he, “he stood it as long as he could; but I dar say, arter we cleared out, he begun to feel a little shaky. And that thar ship did shake herself up in a way that beat everythin I ever see in all my born days. I was as sure that she was breakin up as I was of my own name. So the captain he thought, no doubt, that it wan’t wuth while to die for the sake of an old timber ship, or p’raps the mate and the sailors pressed him, and so off he goes; or p’raps some passing vessel hove in sight, and took him off. But only think of you youngsters happenin on board, and goin through the same identical fortin that I went through, and then us meetin this way in Anticosti! It doos—beat—my—grandmother! It—doos—railly.”
The question now arose what was best to be done. Of course the fact that this was Anticosti changed the whole state of things.
“You see if this was railly Newfoundland,” said Bailey, “we might sail east, and event’ly git to some settlement; but if we try that now, we’ll have to go all along past the worst coast in the world, and then we’d get to East Pint; and what then? Why, the gulf. So we’ve got to turn about, and go back in the other direction.”
“What? West?”...
“Yes, away west, or sou’-west. I’ve heard tell of some settlement at West Pint, the other end of the island; but I hain’t no idee whether it’s kep up yet or not. At any rate, there’s Gaspé. ‘Tain’t far off. We can crawl along the shore, and then cut across to Gaspé, and get help.”
“But we’ll go back first to where we left the boys.”