Picked up Adrift / Illustrated

by James De Mille

With these words the skipper shook hands with each one of them heartily, and so took his leave.

Early on the following morning the Antelope spread her sails and began once more to traverse the seas, heading towards the north. The wind was fair, and all that day they moved farther and farther away from the Magdalen Islands, until at length towards evening they were lost to view in distance and darkness.

On the next day they were all up early. They saw all around a boundless expanse of water. No land was anywhere visible, and not a sail was in sight. This was a novelty to the boys, for never yet had any of them had this experience in the Antelope. Some of them had been out of sight of land, it is true; but then they were in large ships, or ocean steamers. Being in such a situation in a craft like the Antelope, was a far different thing. Yet none of them felt anything like anxiety, nor had the slurs of the skipper produced any effect upon their affectionate trust in their gallant bark, and in their beloved Captain Corbet.

Certainly on the present occasion there was little enough cause for anxiety about the sea-worthiness of the Antelope. The sea was as smooth as a mirror, and its glassy surface extended far and wide around them. There was not a breath of air stirring. They learned from Wade that the wind had gradually died away between sundown and midnight, until it had ceased altogether. They were now in a dead calm.

None of the party was very well pleased at this. They all wished to be moving. They disliked calms, and would have much preferred a moderate gale of wind. The Antelope, however, was here, and there was no help for it. She was far away from land. She lay gently rising and falling, as the long ocean rollers raised her up and let her down; and her sails flapped idly in the still air, at the motion of the vessel. The boys did the best they could under the circumstances, and tried to pass away the time in various ways. Some of them tried to sleep; others extemporized a checker-board, and played till they were tired; others walked up and down, or lounged about. All of them, however, found their chief employment in one occupation, and that was eating. Ever since they had been on the water their appetites had been sharpened; and now that they had nothing else to do, the occupation of eating became more important and engrossing. To prolong the repast while it was before them as far as possible, and then to anticipate the next, were important aids towards killing the time.

All that day the calm continued: on going to bed that night, the boys confidently looked forward to a change of weather on the following day. The night was calm. The following day came. They were all up betimes. To their deep disappointment they found no change whatever. There was the same calm, the same unruffled sea, the same cloudless sky. Not a sail was visible anywhere, and of course there was no sign of land on any quarter.

The second day the time hung more heavily on their hands. Some of them proposed fishing; but they had no hooks, and moreover no bait. Pat proposed fashioning a spike into a hook; fastening it on a line, and fishing for sharks, and worked all day at a rusty spike for this purpose. Unfortunately, he could not get it sharp enough, and so he had at length to give it up.

Captain Corbet was perhaps the most impatient of all; and this seemed singular to the boys, who thus far had known him only as the most patient and the most enduring of men.

On this occasion, however, his patience seemed to have departed. He fidgeted about incessantly. He kept watching the sea, the sky, and the horizon, and occupied himself for hours in all the various ways common among seamen, who indulge in the superstitious practice of trying to “raise the wind.” One mode consisted in standing in one position motionless for half an hour or more, watching the horizon, and whistling: another was a peculiar snapping of the fingers; another was the | burning of some hairs pulled from his own venerable head. These and other similar acts excited intense interest among the boys, and helped to make the time pass less slowly. Unfortunately, not one of these laudable efforts was successful, and the obstinate wind refused to be “raised.”

That day the boys detected something in their meals which seemed like a decline of skill on the part of Solomon. There was a falling off both in the quantity and in the quality of the eatables. Only four potatoes graced the festive board, and a piece of corned beef that was quite inadequate to their wants. The tea was weak, and there was very little sugar. There was only a small supply of butter, and this butter seemed rather unpleasantly dirty.