“I’se gwine ter let sich low down trash know wha’s ercumin’ to ’em.”
“They’ll know it soon enough without any assistance from you. Just now we’ve something more important to think about, for unless we can make harbor on one of the keys which lie hereabouts before a heavy blow comes on, our chances for living will be pretty slim.”
“Isn’t there any hope we can get our things back?” Nelse asked, ruefully. “The thieves have even taken my watch.”
“I don’t fancy we shall see even the smallest portion of our property again,” the captain replied, with what was very like a sigh. “They will get to fighting among themselves, and wreck the little craft before long, unless, which is not likely, a war vessel happens to overhaul them.”
“Shall we get out the oars?” Mr. Jenkins asked. “We should be near Spanish or Powel Key, and by rowing to the eastward it ought to be possible to run the land down by sunset.”
“You are right, and it’s to be turn and turn about for all hands. Unfortunately only two can work at a time, because we have no more oars, and the tricks shall be an hour for each man.”
From this moment until nearly nightfall but little conversation was indulged in; each occupant of the boat had been robbed of all his effects, and this, in addition to the outrage, was well calculated to make them feel the reverse of cheerful.
The wind, which had so much weight in it at sunrise, died away entirely about ten o’clock, and the heat was most intense. Not even the lightest breath of air came off the glassy water, and one hour was quite as long as the strongest could remain at the oars.
At three o’clock in the afternoon a well-wooded key was seen dead ahead, and two hours later the victims of their own charitable act were on shore.
“We will stay here twenty-four hours,” Captain Mansfield said, as the boat was pulled up into a narrow cove which extended some distance inland, and terminated in a veritable thicket of mangroves. “Then we’ll work our way down the bank in the night, when we sha’n’t be so nearly prostrated by the heat.”