“Yes, Massa Walter, we bless Heaven dat de shark not eat us, and dat we find you; and now all go well.”
Both the mate and Nub felt too much fatigued just then to speak more; so having secured the chest and cask, they threw themselves down to rest, as they could not attempt to row against the breeze then blowing, with their strength exhausted as it was.
Alice was scarcely less weary than they were, not so much from exertion as from alarm and anxiety. Her clothes soon dried in the hot sun, and then she too lay down. Walter, who was now apparently quite recovered, sat by her side, watching her till she dropped off to sleep. The wind did not much affect the raft, but it was all the time slowly drifting further and further from the shore. The little girl’s slumbers were disturbed by the terrible scenes she had gone through, and now and then she cried out, “Oh, save him! oh, save him! Where is Walter? where is Walter?”
Walter, on hearing his name pronounced, took her hand. “Here I am, all safe,” he said in a soothing tone. “I am very, very sorry that I caused you so much alarm; but it’s all right now. We shall soon reach the land, I hope; and then we will build a boat, and go in search of our father and the rest.”
Alice, who was still scarcely awake, did not understand what he said. Suddenly she started up. “O Walter, where are we?” she exclaimed, looking wildly about her. “I thought you had gone away again, and were never coming back. You will never leave me, will you?”
“I should be miserable without you,” he answered. “No, I never will leave you, if I can help it, till we find our father—though Mr Shobbrok and Nub take the best care of you they possibly can: had it not been for them, we should both have been lost.”
“Don’t think that it’s we who take care of you, my children,” said the mate, who had been awakened by their voices. “There is One above who alone has the power to do so. We are only the instruments in His hands.”
“But we do what we can, though,” said Nub, sitting up; “and now I tink the wind begin to fall, and we get out de oars.”
“We had better take some food first,” said the mate. “The young people must be hungry, and I am pretty sharp set myself.”
“What you like to have, Mr Shobbrok? Roast beef, boiled mutton, pork pies, or plum pudding?” asked Nub, trying to make Walter and Alice laugh, for he observed how sad they both looked. “Well, if we can’t have dem, we have whale blubber; it bery good for dem dat like it. Take a lilly bit, Missie Alice.”