Three Sailor Boys; or, Adrift in the Pacific

by Verney Lovett Cameron

We did not take long in securing the line to Bill, and then Calla took the other end in his teeth, and the two together disappeared below the surface. I waited and waited for Calla to come back, and the time seemed intensely long before he again was with me with the piece of line.

I anxiously examined the end for Bill’s knot, and when I felt it and learned that he was safely out of the cave, my joy was great, though I was still in a great fright as to what would happen to me. Calla secured the line round, me, so that I could not struggle, and telling me to keep my mouth shut, put me in the pool. I felt myself sinking, and then being dragged along, touching rock sometimes above, sometimes below, and sometimes on either side of me; and I felt as if the drums of my ears would be broken in, and a sense of oppression on my chest which was almost intolerable. I thought that I would be constrained to open my mouth and shout, and I know that if my limbs had been at liberty I should have struck out, and would have added much to the difficulty of the task Calla had set himself; but just when I could have endured no longer, I felt myself emerge from the water, and was dragged to the bank by Bill and Calla.

I blew like a porpoise while my lashing was being undone; and when I had got some breath in my body again, Calla told Bill and me to follow him, and that he would lead us to where Tom was.

We hurried along narrow paths, through tangled woods, and in a very short time arrived at the shores of the bay in which Bristol Bob’s island was. Here we found a canoe, into which we got, and paddled off stealthily to the island, where we found Tom safe and sound, and Bristol Bob’s little craft prepared for sea, and Bos’n with him.

I longed to ask him what had happened since we were parted; but Calla was urgent that we should get to sea at once, and run down to some islands where he said “missionary men” lived. And as we had to keep a good lookout for fear of being pursued, and then all of us were so tired, we agreed to sleep in turns, and when we were all rested to communicate our different adventures.

When we were all rested and awake, the island where we had been prisoners had almost faded out of view, and we were safe from pursuit, and running before a steady trade wind.

“Now, mates,” said Tom, “I think we have all to thank Calla for saving us, as without him we could have done nothing, and I vote he tells us first how he came to help us.”

Calla very shortly told us that we had saved his life, and that he thought it therefore belonged to us; and when his father came to where he was kept prisoner, and provided him with means of escaping, lest he should be killed, he first of all went to Bristol Bob’s island, which, after the explosion we had heard (which was indeed the magazine, and which had killed four men), had been tabu, where he found Tom and Bos’n, and told them to get the boat ready, while he went himself and got Bill and me out of our prison.

When his story was told, Tom insisted on hearing what had happened to Bill and myself; and having been satisfied, he narrated his own adventures.

“You see, mates, I was away in the magazine when you was carried off, and knowing as I could do nothing, I kept low for a bit, and hid behind some bushes, so as to keep a lookout on what happened. After some time I saw some fellows, who had been hunting all over the island, and several times came nigh on finding me, had made out the whereabouts of the magazine, and got some torches to go down into it, and almost directly I heard the place blow up.