Treasure of the Seas / Illustrated

by James De Mille

“You! and how did you happen to make such a mistake?” cried Bart.

“Sure ye said to fill the kegs with wather, an didn’t say what kind; so I jist tuk the say wather, because it was most convaynient.”

At this amazing blunder the boys were dumb, and stared at Pat in silence. Words were useless. The mistake was a fatal one. The fresh water had gone with the Antelope to the bottom. Where or when could they hope to get any more? Who could tell how long a time, or how great a distance, might now separate them from the land? Bad enough their situation already had been, but this opened up before them the prospect of unknown sufferings.

“O, don’t talk to me about water,” said Captain Corbet, in lugubrious tones, squeezing his hands, as he spoke, over his thighs and shins, so as to force the water out of his clothes. “Don’t you go and talk to me about water. I’ve hed enough, an don’t want ever to see any agin. Why, it kem up as high as my waist if it kem a inch. An now what’s to hender me a fallin a helpuless victim to rheuma-tiz. O, I know it. Don’t tell me. I know what’s a goin to come to this ferrail body. Thar’s rheuma-tiz acute and chronic, an thar’s pleurisy, an thar’s lumbago, an thar’s nooralgy, an thar’s fifty other diseases equally agonizin. An dear, dear, dear, dear! But how dreadful wet it did feel, to be sure! dear, dear, dear, dear! An here am I now, with my tendency to rheumatiz, a settin here in my wet clothes, an not a dry stitch to be had for love or money. Wal, I never knowed anythin like this here, an I’ve lived a life full of sturrange vycissitudes—from bad to wuss has ben our fate ever sence we sot foot on this here eventfual vyge; an ef thar’s any lesson to be larned from sech doins an car’ns on as this here, why, I ain’t able to see it. An now what am I to do? What’s a goin to become of me? No dry clothes! No fire to dry myself! Rheumatiz before me! lumbago behind me! pleurisy on each side o’ me! such is the te-rific prospect of the blighted bein that now addresses you.”

The boys paid but little attention to Captain Corbet’s wailings. They had other troubles more serious than these prospective ones. They could not help, however, being struck by the thought that it was a little odd for a man who had just been snatched so narrowly from a terrible death to confine all his attention and all his lamentations to such a very ordinary circumstance as wet clothes. He who had announced so firmly, a short time before, his calm and fixed intention of perishing with the Antelope, now seemed to have forgotten all about her, and thought only of himself and his rheumatiz. Could this be, indeed, Captain Corbet? Strange was the change that had come over him; yet this was not the only singular change that had occurred on this eventful day. They had witnessed others quite as wonderful in Solomon and Pat. These two, however, had now resumed their usual characteristics.

There they were, in a boat, all of them, but where? That was the question. The masts of the sunken Antelope rose obliquely out of the water, showing that she was resting on her side at the bottom. But what was that bottom, and where? Was it some lonely rock or reef? Was it some sand-bank or shoal like that upon which they had already gone aground, and where the Antelope had received those injuries which had at length wrought her ruin? None of them could answer this.

And where should they go? In what direction should they turn? This was the question that pressed upon them, and required immediate decision.

“It’s impossible to even guess where we are,” said Bart. “We’ve been going in the dark all along. We may as well be off Sable Island as anywhere else. And if so, all I can say is, I’ve seen worse places.”

“Sure an thin it’s as likely to be Anticosti as Sable Island,” said Pat. “We’ve ben a turrunin around ivery way, so we have, an we may have< fetched up there, so we may, an if that’s so, we may as well dig our graves an lay ourselves down in thim.”

“Well, if you’re going so far as that,” said Bruce, “I’d put in a claim for Bermuda. I don’t see why we mayn’t be off Bermuda as well as Anticosti. If so, we may be sure of good accommodations.”