"'It was too late. We went smash upon the rock, with a force that sent us headlong upon the deck, and Strachan staggered to his feet, bleeding profusely at the proboscis.
"Down came the sail rattling about our ears, and over lurched the yacht. I saw there was no time to lose, so I leaped at once upon the rock, and called upon the rest to follow me. They did so, and were lucky to escape with no more disaster than a ruffling of the cuticle on the basalt; for in two minutes more all was over. Some of the timbers had been staved in at the first concussion. She rapidly filled,—and down went, before my eyes, the Caption, the tidiest little craft that ever pitched her broadside into the hull of a Frenchman!"
"Very well told indeed," said I, "only, Anthony, it does strike me that the last paragraph is not quite original. I've heard something like it in my younger days, at the Adelphi. But what became of you afterwards?"
"Faith, we were in a fix, as you may easily conceive. All we could do was to scramble up the rocks,—which, fortunately, were not too precipitous,—until we reached a dry place, where we lay, huddled together, until morning. When light came, we found that we were not on the main land, but on a kind of little stack in the very centre of the channel, without a blade of grass upon it, or the prospect of a sail in sight. This was a nice situation for two members of the Scottish bar! The first thing we did was to inquire into the state of provisions, which we found to consist of a couple of biscuits, that little Jim, the boy, happened to have about him. Of course we followed the example of the earlier navigators, and confiscated these pro bono publico. We had not a drop of alcohol among us, but, very luckily, picked up a small keg of fresh water, which, I believe, was our salvation. Strachan did not behave well. He wanted to keep half-a-dozen cigars to himself; but such monstrous selfishness could not be permitted, and the rest of us took them from him by force. I shall always blame myself for having weakly restored to him a cheroot."
"And what followed?"
"Why, we remained three days upon the rock. Fortunately the weather was moderate, so that we were not absolutely washed away, but for all that it was consumedly cold of nights. The worst thing, however, was the deplorable state of our larder. We finished the biscuits the first day, trusting to be speedily relieved; but the sun set without a vestige of a sail, and we supped sparingly upon tangle. Next morning we were so ravenous that we could have eaten raw squirrels. That day we subsisted entirely upon shell-fish, and smoked out all our cigars. On the third we bolted two old gloves, buttons and all; and, do you know, Fred, I began to be seriously alarmed about the boy Jim, for Strachan kept eyeing him like an ogre, began to mutter some horrid suggestions as to the propriety of casting lots, and execrated his own stupidity in being unprovided with a jar of pickles."
"O Anthony—for shame!"
"Well—I'm sure he was thinking about it, if he did not say so. However, we lunched upon a shoe, and for my own part, whenever I go upon another voyage, I shall take the precaution of providing myself with pliable French boots—your Kilmarnock leather is so very intolerably tough! Towards evening, to our infinite joy, we descried a boat entering the Sound. We shouted, as you may be sure, like demons. The Celtic Samaritans came up, and, thanks to the kindness of Rory M'Gregor the master, we each of us went to sleep that night with at least two gallons of oatmeal porridge comfortably stowed beneath our belts. And that's the whole history."
"And how do you feel after such unexampled privation?"