“Where’s that?” inquired Harriet, reaching for the atlas.
“You won’t find it there, sis,—it’s in the bottom of the sea,” replied Jerry. “And, in fact, we did come pretty near going there,” he continued. “Our boat couldn’t stand a rough sea half as well as theirs, and if we hadn’t had two or three first-rate seamen, I don’t believe we’d have lived through it. As it was, we got drenched and almost smothered by the sea. All the bread we had was soaking wet with salt water, and we had nothing else to eat but a little junk and rice, and there was no chance to cook them. But the worst thing that happened to us was the losing of our compass. We lost it the first night out. A heavy sea broke over us, and carried away our rudder and one oar and several other things from the boat, among them the compass. We came very near broaching to and upsetting several times during the night, and although this was the second night we had been without sleep, we couldn’t get a moment’s rest, for it took all of us to manage the boat.
“The next day the sea was a good deal smoother, and we rigged up a mast and hoisted a sail, and steered with an oar toward land. From dawn till night we kept a sharp lookout for the other boat, but we didn’t see any signs of her, or of anything else. We got a little sleep, by turns, that day. The third day we began to feel rather blue. So much of our bread was spoilt that we put ourselves upon short allowance. We were sore and stiff and weak, and the sun beat down upon us hot enough to roast us almost. We kept straining our eyes all day, hoping to discover a sail, but we saw nothing. We didn’t look for land yet, for we knew we must be a great way from the coast.”
“You said you were only about two or three hundred miles from shore when you were wrecked,” remarked Mrs. Preston; “I should think you might have sailed that distance in five or six days.”
“I said we must have been at least two or three hundred miles from shore when we were wrecked,” replied Jerry, “but I didn’t know how much more. The pampero drove us out of our course, and the captain had no chance to take an observation, and find where we were, after the gale commenced. Besides, after we took to the boat, we didn’t make much progress. The first day, the sea ran so high that about all we could do was to keep the boat on the top of the waves. After that, we were so used up that we couldn’t row but little; and as our boat was an old tub of a concern, and we had but one small sail, and the wind was almost in our faces, no wonder we didn’t get along very fast.
“Well, we crept along in this way for about a week, and didn’t see the least sign of a sail until the morning of the eighth day. I shall never forget that day, as long as I live. About the middle of the forenoon, we discovered the least speck of a sail, away off in the east, and we soon found she was steering north. We hoisted a signal of distress, and began to pull toward her with all our might. You never saw fellows work harder than we did. A little while before, we could hardly handle an oar; but now strength seemed to come to us, and we pulled away as though we were as fresh and strong as need be. We kept it up for nearly three hours, but at last we found it was of no use, and gave up the race. The sail gained on us, and by noon she was out of sight.”
“Oh, that was too bad,” said Mrs. Preston. “Don’t you suppose anybody in the vessel saw you?”
“No, I suppose not,” said Jerry. “We didn’t get within four miles of them, and our boat was so small that they couldn’t have seen us unless they happened to turn their glass toward us. But it was a terrible disappointment to us. Some of the fellows raved like madmen, and cursed the vessel and everybody that was in it. Others were so down in the mouth that they couldn’t say a word. As for me, I actually went to crying,—a thing I hadn’t done before since the last time I”——
—“Got licked at school,” Jerry was about to add; but just then bethinking himself of sundry tear-drawing admonitions he had received in his earlier service on board the Susan, he concluded not to finish the sentence.