Now we saw many junks and small native craft,
which we viewed with uncomfortable suspicion, for though our cannon were
double-charged and though loaded muskets were stacked around the
mizzenmast, we were very, very few to stand off an attack by those yellow
demons who swarmed the Eastern seas in the time of my boyhood and who, for
all I know, swarm them still.
There came at last a day when we went aloft and saw with red eyes that
ached for sleep hills above the horizon and a ship in the offing with all
sails set. A splendid sight she was, for our own flag flew from the ensign
halyards, and less than three weeks before, any man of us would have given
his right hand to see that ship and that flag within hail; but now it was
the sight of land that thrilled us to the heart. Hungry, thirsty, worn out
with fatigue, we joyously stared at those low, distant hills.
"Oh, mah golly, oh, mah golly!" the cook cried, in ecstasy, "jest once Ah
gits mah foots on dry land Ah's gwine be de happies' nigger eveh bo'n. Ah
ain' neveh gwine to sea agin, no sah, not neveh."
"Ay, land's good," Davie Paine muttered, "but the sea holds a man."
Blodgett said naught. What dreams of wealth were stirring in his head, I
never knew.
Pages:
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266