Bruno

The boys, after hesitating for some time, finally concluded at least to get into the boat. They had unfastened the painter, that is, the rope by which the boat was tied, while they had been talking with the sailor, in order to be all ready to cast off. When they found that the sailor would not bring them any oars, they fastened the painter again, so that the boat should not get away, and then climbed down the side of the pier, and got into the boat.

The boat adrift.

Unfortunately, when, after untying the painter, they attempted to make it fast again into the link of the chain, they did not do it securely; and as they moved to and fro about the boat, pushing it one way and another, the rope finally got loose, and the boat floated slowly away from the pier. The boys were engaged very intently at the time in watching some sun-fish which they saw in the water. They were leaning over the side of the boat to look at them, so that they did not see the pier when it began to recede, and thus the tide carried them to a considerable distance from it before they observed that they were adrift.

At length Larry – for that was the name of Antony’s cousin – looking up accidentally, observed that the boat was moving away.

“Antony! Antony!” exclaimed, he, “we’re adrift.”

As he said this, Larry looked very much terrified.

Antony rose from his reclining position, and stood upright in the bottom of the boat. He looked back toward the pier, which he observed was rapidly receding.

Adrift.

“Yes,” said he, “we’re adrift; but who cares?”

When a boy gets into difficulty or danger by doing something wrong, he is generally very much frightened. When, however, he knows that he has not been doing any thing wrong, but has got into difficulty purely by accident, he is much less likely to be afraid.

Antony knew that he had done nothing wrong in getting into the boat. His father was a sea-captain, and he was allowed to get into boats whenever he chose to do so. He was accustomed, too, to be in boats on the water, and now, if he had only had an oar or a paddle, he would not have felt any concern whatever. As it was, he felt very little concern.

His first thought was to call out to the sailor whom they had left on the pier. The boys both called to him long and loud, but he was so busy turning over boxes, and bales, and rolling hogsheads about, that he did not hear.

“What shall we do?” asked Larry, with a very anxious look.

The sail-boat.

“Oh, we shall get ashore again easily enough,” replied Antony. “Here is a large sail-boat coming up. We will hail them, and they will take us aboard.”

“Do you think they will take us on board?” asked Larry.

“Yes, I am sure they will,” said Antony.

Just then the boat which the boys were drifting in came along opposite to a large sail-boat. This boat was sloop-rigged; that is, it had one mast and a fore-and-aft sail. She was standing up the harbor, and was headed toward the pier. The sail was spread, and the sail-boat was gliding along smoothly, but quite swiftly, through the water.

There were two men on board. One was at the helm, steering. The other, who had on a red flannel shirt, came to the side of the boat, and looked over toward the boys. We can just see the head of this man above the gunwale on the starboard side of the boat in the picture.

Antony calls for help. He receives none.

“Hallo! sail-boat!” said Antony.

“Hallo!” said the flannel shirt.

“Take us aboard of your boat,” said Antony; “we have got adrift, and have not got any oar.”

“We can’t take you on board,” said the man; “we have got beyond you already.”

“Throw us a rope,” said Antony.

“We have not got any rope long enough,” said the sailor.

As he said these words, the sail-boat passed entirely by.

“What shall we do?” said Larry, much alarmed.

Larry was much smaller than Antony, and much less accustomed to be in boats on the water, and he was much more easily terrified.

“Don’t be afraid,” said Antony; “we shall get brought up among some of the shipping below. There are plenty of vessels coming up the harbor.”

The boys float down the channel.

So they went on – slowly, but very steadily – wherever they were borne by the course of the ebbing tide. Instead of being brought up, however, as Antony had predicted, by some of the ships, they were kept by the tide in the middle of the channel, while the ships were all, as it happened, on one side or the other, and they did not go within calling distance of any one of them. At last even Antony began to think that they were certainly about to be carried out to sea.

“If the water was not so deep, we could anchor,” said Antony.

“We have not got any anchor,” said Larry.

The grapnel.

“Yes,” replied Antony, “there is a grapnel in the bow of the boat.”

Larry looked in a small cuddy under the bow of the boat, and found there a sort of grapnel that was intended to be used as an anchor.

“Let us heave it over,” said Larry, “and then the boat will stop.”

“No,” replied Antony, “the rope is not long enough to reach the bottom; the water is too deep here. We are in the middle of the channel; but perhaps, by-and-by, the tide will carry us over upon the flats, and then we can anchor.”

“How shall we know when we get to the flats?” asked Larry.

“We can see the bottom then,” said Antony, “by looking over the side of the boat.”

“I mean to watch,” said Larry; and he began forthwith to look over the side of the boat.

They see the bottom.

It was not long before Antony’s expectations were fulfilled. The tide carried the boat over a place where the water was shallow, the bottom being formed there of broad and level tracts of sand and mud, called flats.

“I see the bottom,” said Larry, joyfully.

Antony looked over the side of the boat, and there, down several feet beneath the surface of the water, he could clearly distinguish the bottom. It was a smooth expanse of mud and water, and it seemed to be slowly gliding away from beneath them. The real motion was in the boat, but this motion was imperceptible to the boys, except by the apparent motion of the bottom, which was produced by it. Such a deceiving of the sight as this is commonly called an optical illusion.

“Yes,” said Antony, “that’s the bottom; now we will anchor.”

Anchoring.

So the two boys went forward, and, after taking care to see that the inner end of the grapnel rope was made fast properly to the bow of the boat, they lifted the heavy iron over the side of the boat, and let it plunge into the water. It sank to the bottom in a moment, drawing out the rope after it. It immediately fastened itself by its prongs in the mud, and when the rope was all out, the bow of the boat was “brought up” by it – that is, was stopped at once. The stern of the boat was swung round by the force of the tide, which still continued to act upon it, and then the boat came to its rest, with the head pointing up the harbor.

“There,” said Antony, “now we are safe.”