He had read enough of the perils of the sea to comprehend the terrible possibilities of his situation, and at first his blood chilled and his courage sank. Resolute as he was by nature, there was a deadly difference between the loneliness of his present condition and the solitude of his native mountains.
In the woods he was at home; he knew where to go to find people there—but here! In his weakened condition tears started to his eyes. But he soon dashed them away, and, rising, set about dressing his wound.
He removed his jacket and shirt, and bathed the wound with ocean water, as he knew that salt was good to allay possible inflammation. The bullet had grazed his side just under the shoulder, making a painful though not a dangerous injury.
"Lucky it didn't lodge," he thought, as he tore up his handkerchief and bound up the place by passing the bandage over his opposite shoulder.
A good deal of blood had flowed both down his arm and side. This accounted for his present weakness.
After resuming his clothes, he sat down to consider the situation.
There was a light breeze from the northeast, with a straggling fleece of clouds, expanding like a fan towards the zenith. Ralph knew that the appearance indicated more wind, but he determined not to borrow trouble from the future.
A slow, majestic heaving of the ocean, on which the yawl gently rose and fell was counter crossed by the shorter ripples stirred up by the light wind then blowing. The dead swell evinced the neighborhood of some previous gale.
"I might as well search the lockers," he said to himself. "There might be something eatable in them."
There was nothing to eat aboard; but in the locker at the stern he discovered a small keg filled with water, overlooked probably when the boat was unloaded, for it was the same craft in which the trip up the African river had been made.