Laboring at the oars, we rowed on and on and on. Stars, by which we now
held our course, grew bright overhead, and after a time we again saw dimly
the shores of the island. We dared not stay at sea in a small open boat
without food or water, and the island was our only refuge.
Presently we heard breakers and saw once more the bluff headlands that we
had seen from the deck of the Island Princess. Remembering that there had
been low shores farther south, we rowed on and on, interminably and at
last, faint and weary, felt the keel of the boat grate on a muddy beach.
At all events we had come safely to land.
CHAPTER XVIII
ADVENTURES ASHORE
As we rested on our oars by the strange island, and smelled the warm odor
of the marsh and the fragrance of unseen flowers, and listened to the
_wheekle_ of a night-hawk that circled above us, we talked of one thing and
another, chiefly of the men aboard the Island Princess and how glad we were
to be done with them forever.
"Ay," said Davie Paine sadly, "never again 'll I have the handle before my
name. But what of that? It's a deal sight jollier in the fo'castle than in
the cabin and I ain't the scholar to be an officer." He sighed heavily.
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