Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/141

Rh tain Hubbard would not desert him, and his men cheerfully tumbled into the boat after him.

The skipper of the China ship, a half-caste with a crew of Lascars, was a surly customer who seemed anxious to be rid of his visitors. As a friend in need he was a glaring failure. Protesting that he had no fresh water to spare, all that their money could buy of him was a bottle of brandy and twelve musket-cartridges. The Yankee sailors tugged at the oars all day long, but caught never a glimpse of the missing Enterprise. At nightfall they landed on an island and found water fit to drink, but nothing to eat. A large fire was built on the beach in the hope of attracting the attention of their ship, but there was no responsive signal.

It was the land of Conrad's magic fancies, where "the swampy plains open out at the mouth of rivers, with a view of blue peaks beyond the vast forests. In the offing a chain of islands, dark, crumbling shapes, stand out in the everlasting sunlit haze like the remnants of a wall broached by the sea."

The chief mate and his five hardy seamen tightened their leather belts another hole and shoved off again in the small open boat. For six days they sailed the Straits, blown along by one rain squall after another, until they were within sight of the coast of Celebes. Hunger and thirst then com-