CHAPTER IX.
Peter finds his stores low—Sends Youwarkee to the ship—Receives an invitation to Georigetti's court.
FOR the first few days after our company had left us, Youwarkee could not forbear a tear now and then for the loss of her father and sister; but I endeavoured not to see it, lest I should, by persuading her to the contrary, seem to oppose what I really thought was a farther token of the sweetness of her disposition; but it wore off by degrees, and having a clear stage again, it cost us several days to settle ourselves and put our confused affairs in order; and when we had done we blessed ourselves that we could come and go, and converse with the pleasing tenderness we had hitherto always done.
She told me nothing in the world but her concern for so tender a father, and the fear of displeasing me if she disobliged him, should have kept her so long from me; for her life had never been so sweet and serene as with me and her children; and if she was to begin it again, and choose her settlement and company, it should be with me in that arkoe. I told her though I was entirely of her opinion for avoiding a life of hurry, yet I loved a little company, if for nothing else but to advance topics for discourse, to the exercise of our faculties; but I then agreed it was not from mere judgment I spoke, but from fancy. "But, Youwee," says I, "it will be proper for us to see what our friends have left us, that we don't want before the time comes about again." Then she took her part, and I mine; and having finished, we found they would hold out pretty well, and that the first thing to be done was to get the oil of the beast-fish.
When we came to examine the brandy and wine, I found they had suffered greatly; so I told Youwarkee, when she could spare time, she should make another flight to the ship. "And," says I, "pray look at all the small casks of wine or brandy, or be they what they will, if they are not above half-full, or thereabouts, they will swim, and you may send them down." I desired her to send a fire-shovel and tongs, describing them to her: "And there are abundance of good ropes between decks, rolled up, send them," says I, "and anything else you think we want, as plates, bowls, and all the cutlasses and pistols," says I, "that hang in the room by the cabin: for I would, me-thinks, have another cargo, as it may possibly be the last, for the ship can't hold for ever."
Youwarkee, who loved a jaunt to the ship mightily, sat very attentive to what I said, and told me, if I pleased, she would go the next day; to which I agreed.
She stayed on this trip till I began to be uneasy for her, being gone almost four days, and I was in great fear of some accident; but she arrived safe, telling me she had sent all she could any ways pack up; and any one who had seen the arrival of her fleet would had taken it for a good ship's cargo, for it cost me full three weeks to land and draw them up to the grotto; and then we had such a redundancy of things, that we were forced to pile them upon each other to the top of the room.
It began to draw towards long days again, when one morning, in bed, I heard the gripsack. I waked Youvarkee, and told her of it; and-we both got up, and were going to the level, when we met six glumms in the wood, with a gripsack before them, coming to the grotto. The trumpeter, it seems, had been there before; but the others, who seemed to be of a better rank, had not. We saluted them, and they us; and Youwarkee knowing one of them, we desired them to walk to the grotto.