“Dat we can’t do, Missie Alice; for, if I try eber so hard, I not pull against such a gale as dis,” answered Nub.
Alice was silent; she saw that Nub’s reason was a true one. Though she had assured him that she was not frightened, she felt very anxious and alarmed about her own fate and his.
The thunder rolled, the lightning flashed, and the seas tumbled the raft so fearfully about, that had it not been put strongly together it would speedily have been broken into fragments, and she and her companion left without any support on which to preserve their lives. The burning ship appeared further and further off, and even should the storm cease it would be almost impossible to get back to her. At length there came a loud roar which sounded above the noise of the thunder. The flames seemed to rise higher than before in the sky; and even at that distance the masts, spars, and rigging could be discerned, broken into fragments, and hanging, as it were, above the fire. Then after a few minutes all became dark!
“Dere goes de ship to de bottom,” exclaimed Nub; “I hope no one on board her. De people had time to get away on a raft if dey got deir senses about dem.”
“Indeed, I hope that Mr Lawrie, and honest Dan Tidy and the others, managed to escape,” cried Alice. “But oh, Nub, do you think papa and Walter can have been on board?”
“No, I tink not, Missie Alice,” answered Nub. “Dey too wise to stay when de ship was burning like dat. Dey knew well enough dat she would go up in de air when de fire reach de magazine, which has just happened. Dey eider not get back, or put off again in time.”
“But they will think that we were blown up, should they not have visited the ship first,” said Alice; “and that will break their hearts.”
“I hope not, Missie Alice. Dey know dat I had got to take care of you, and dat I got head on my shoulders, and would not do so foolish a ting as to stay on board and be blown up if I could get away. Don’t be unhappy, derefore, about dat.”
“I will try not,” said Alice, “though it is very, very terrible.”
“No doubt about dat, Missie Alice,” answered Nub; “but tings might be worse, and if de raft hold together in dis sea it will swim through any we are likely to have. Already de wind down, and it grow calmer. Suppose now we had been close to de ship when she blow up, we much worse off dan we are now. Suppose de people had made me work to put out de fire, den I had not built a raft, and we blown up,—dat much worse dan we are now; or suppose de sea had washed over de raft and carried us away, den also we much worse off dan we are now; or suppose I had not got de biscuits and de water, den we starve, and much worse off dan we are now: so you see, Missie Alice, we bery fortunate, and hab no right to complain.”