Ralph Granger's Fortunes

by William Perry Brown

The pitching of the yawl increased. Finally a larger sea than usual sent nearly a barrel of water over the deck, that streamed down upon his legs. Fear roused him to action once more.

He began bailing frantically with his hat, and soon had the boat dry again. As he remained aft, no more seas were shipped, though the wind was increasing, and by certain signs he felt that rougher weather might be imminent. Clouds were rising, and though he did not like their appearance, it was some relief when they shaded him from the now declining heat of the sun.

As night approached, the wild waste of waters looked terribly stern and forbidding. Occasionally a distant breaking of some white capped wave would send his heart into his mouth, only to sink again despairingly.

Just at sunset the great luminary peered gloriously forth. Torturing as was its power at midday, now it seemed to Ralph as if a friend were bidding him farewell. When the last of its golden surface had vanished, he felt as if that friend had departed, never to return, at least to him.

For hours he sat after that, while a gloom as of death settled over the ocean, broken only by the plash of waves and the constant creaking of the yawl as it rolled and pitched in the trough of the sea.

Once a shower of rain, accompanied by a slight flurry of wind, set him to trembling, as he remembered the fury of the squalls in those latitudes. He felt that his frail shallop would never live through one.

Though in the tropics, he became chilly as the night advanced, while the pain of hunger was but partially eased by the drafts of water of which he still partook from time to time. He finally lay down in the stern and wrapped himself in the sail.

The pitching and rolling soon sent him to sleep, in a merciful relief to the gnawing sense of misery that now never left his mind while awake.

A ship's yawl, being both broad and deep, is one of the safest of small boats in a seaway. Therefore Ralph passed the hours in temporary security while unconscious. Unless a gale should rise, there was little danger of his craft's swamping, nor, except from hunger, was his physical situation any worse than during the day.

The most appalling thing connected with such a position was the feelings which it must necessarily arouse, and until day Ralph was exempted from these.