"But you are real, aren't you, now?" he would ask, pathetically.
"Of course," said Cora, with a gentle smile.
"And you won't go away and leave me, as the others did?" he begged, but he did not couple Slim Jim with one of those. In fact, he did not pay much attention to the negro, for which Jim, a rather superstitious chap, was very grateful.
"Certainly we won't leave you here," Jack said. "We'll take you wherever you want to go, Ben."
"That's good. Well, as I was saying—" and then he would resume his interrupted narrative.
So, instead of telling his "yarn" in that fashion, I have sought to save your time and interest by condensing it.
Up to the time of the hurricane, which caught the Ramona in rather a bad stretch of water, there was nothing that need be set down. The vessel bearing the mother of Jack and Cora, and the parents of the Robinson twins, had gone on her way, until the sudden bursting of the storm, with unusual tropical fury, had thrown the seas against and over the craft with smashing fury. Boats and parts of the railing and netting, had been carried away, and one or two sailors washed overboard.
Then had come the mutiny, if such it could be called—an uprising of some of the sailors, driven to almost insane anger because of the refusal of the captain to put into a port, the harbor of which could not be made in such a sea as was running, nor in the teeth of such furious wind. The only thing to do was to scud before the gale, with the engines and crew doing what they could.
There had been an incipient panic, and a rush for the boats quelled hardly in time, for some had been lowered, and swamped and others had gotten away.
There was an exchange of shots between the captain and some of the mutineers, and, as our friends knew, one sailor, at least, was wounded, though whether by the captain or by the mutineers was uncertain.