“No body hurt but Dick Lombard, and his arm’ll mend nicely.”
“Have you any idea where we are, Ned?”
“Stuck in a river, somewhere. Wild country all around us, but I guess we can find a way out. Lots o’ provisions and a good climate. We may say as we’re in luck, Sam.”
I shook my head dismally. It did not appear to me that luck had especially favored us. To be sure, we might have gone to the bottom of the Caribbean in the gale; but it struck me we had landed the cargo in an awkward place for the owners as well as for ourselves. Mr. Harlan would have done better had he not taken the long chance of our making the voyage to San Pedro successfully.
“Well, I cannot see that we have failed in our duty, in any way,” I remarked, as cheerfully as I could, “so we may as well make the best of it.”
“This bein’ a tourist, an’ travellin’ fer pleasure,” said Uncle Naboth, “is more fun than a kickin’ mule. Sam’s got to worry, ’cause he’s paid fer it; but we passengers can look on an’ enjoy ourselves. Eh, Mr. Moit?”
“It is a serious situation for me,” replied the inventor. “Think of it, gentlemen! The most wonderful piece of mechanism the world has yet known is stranded in a wilderness, far from civilization.”
“That is your own fault,” remarked Ned, bluntly.
“Not that, sir; it is fate.”
“The machine is all right,” said I. “You will have no trouble to save it.”