Page:Paine--Lost ships and lonely seas.djvu/296

256 caught when the food had all been eaten and they lived for three weeks before sighting land again. This was the Isle of St. Anthony, in the Cape Verd group, and the elder boy begged to be allowed to go ashore in the boat and look for water.

He pulled away after sunset and, with the anchor down, Captain Roberts dragged himself into the cabin and was instantly asleep. Rousing out at midnight, there was no sign of the boat and, to his dismay, he discovered that the sloop had drifted almost out of sight of land with a strong night wind. His crew now consisted of the eight-year-old mite of a sailor lad, but they swung on the pump together and tugged at the windlass until the anchor was hove short. They tended the rag of sail, and a kindly breeze slowly wafted them back toward the island until they were able to drop the mud-hook in a sandy bay with a good holding-ground. Captain Roberts was a stalwart man, and hats off to his eight-year-old crew!

The other boy who had rowed ashore was anxiously looking for the vessel, and he appeared aboard with a gang of negroes whom he had hired to work her into the nearest port. They brought food and water with them, and affairs seemed to have taken an auspicious turn, but during the first night out the sail split from top to bottom. There was no other