Bruno

“But how are we going to get back to the shore?” inquired Larry.

The boys wait for the tide.

“Why, by-and-by the tide will turn,” said Antony, “and flow in, and then we shall get up our anchor, and let it carry us home again.”

“And how long shall we have to wait?” asked Larry.

“Oh, about three or four hours,” said Antony.

“My mother will be very much frightened,” said Larry. “How sorry I am that we got into the boat!”

“So am I,” said Antony; “or, rather, I should be, if I thought it would do any good to be sorry.”

Captain Van Tromp misses them.

In the mean time, while the boys had thus been making their involuntary voyage down the harbor, Captain Van Tromp, on board his ship, had been employed very busily with his accounts in his cabin. It was now nearly noon, and he concluded, accordingly, that it was time for him to go home to dinner. So he called one of the sailors to him, and directed him to look about on the pier and try to find the boys, and tell them that he was going home to dinner.

In a few minutes the sailor came back, and told the captain that he could not find the boys; and that Jack, who was at work outside on the pier, said that they had not been seen about there for more than an hour, and that the boat was missing too; and he was afraid that they had got into it, and had gone adrift.

“Send Jack to me,” said the captain.

When Jack came into the cabin, the captain was at work, as usual, on his accounts. Jack stood by his side a moment, with his cap in his hand, waiting for the captain to be at leisure to speak to him. At length the captain looked up.

“Jack,” said he, “do you say that the boys have gone off with the boat?”

“I don’t know, sir,” said Jack. “The boat is gone, and the boys are gone, but whether the boat has gone off with the boys, or the boys with the boat, I couldn’t say.”

The captain paused a moment, with a thoughtful expression upon his countenance, and then said,

“Tell Nelson to take the glass, and go aloft, and look around to see if he can see any thing of them.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” said Jack.

The captain then resumed his work as if nothing particular had happened.

Mr. Nelson discovers them by means of his spy-glass.

Nelson was the mate of the ship. The mate is the second in command under the captain.

When Nelson received the captain’s order, he took the spy-glass, and went up the shrouds to the mast-head. In about ten minutes he came down again, and gave Jack a message for the captain. Jack came down again into the cabin. He found the captain, as before, busy at his work. The captain had been exposed to too many great and terrible dangers at sea to be much alarmed at the idea of two boys being adrift, in a strong boat and in a crowded harbor.

“Mr. Nelson says, sir,” said Jack, “that he sees our boat, with two boys in it, about a mile and a half down the harbor. She is lying a little to the eastward of the red buoy.”

A buoy is a floating beam of wood, or other light substance, anchored on the point of a shoal, or over a ledge of rocks, to warn the seamen that they must not sail there. The different buoys are painted of different colors, so that they may be easily distinguished one from another.

The captain paused a moment on hearing Jack’s report, and looked undecided. In fact, his attention was so much occupied by his accounts, that only half his thoughts seemed to be given to the case of the boys. At length he asked if there was any wind.

“Not a capful,” said the sailor.

“Tell Nelson, then,” said the captain, “to send down the gig with four men, and bring the boys back.”

The gig.

The gig, as the captain called it, was a light boat belonging to the ship, being intended for rowing swiftly in smooth water.

Nelson fits out an expedition to relieve the boys.

So Nelson called out four men, and directed them to get ready with the gig. The men accordingly lowered the gig down from the side of the ship into the water, and then, with the oars in their hands, they climbed down into it. In a few minutes they were rowing swiftly down the harbor, in the direction of the red buoy, while Captain Van Tromp went home to dinner. On his way home he left word, at the house where Larry lived, that the boys had gone down the harbor, and would not be home under an hour.

The boys watch the progress of the tide.

While these occurrences had been taking place on the pier, the boys had been sitting very patiently in their boat, waiting for the tide to turn, or for some one to come to their assistance. They could see how it was with the tide by the motion of the water, as it glided past them. The current, in fact, when they first anchored, made quite a ripple at the bows of the boat. They had a fine view of the harbor, as they looked back toward the town from their boat, though the view was so distant that they could not make out which was the pier where Captain Van Tromp’s vessel was lying.

Of course, as the tide went out more and more, the surface of the water was continually falling, and the depth growing less and less all the time. The boys could easily perceive the increasing shallowness of the water, as they looked over the side of the boat, and watched the appearance of the bottom.

A new danger. A discussion.

“Now here’s another trouble,” said Antony. “If we don’t look out, we shall get left aground. I’ve a great mind to pull up the anchor, and let the boat drift on a little way, till we come to deeper water.”

“Oh no,” said Larry, “don’t let us go out to sea any farther.”

“Why, if we stay here,” said Antony, “until the tide falls so as to leave us aground, we may have to stay some hours after the tide turns before we get afloat again.”

“Well,” said Larry, “no matter. Besides, if you go adrift again, the water may deepen suddenly.”

“Yes,” said Antony, “and then we should lose hold of the bottom altogether. We had better not move.”

“Unless,” added Antony, after a moment’s thought, “we can contrive to warp the boat up a little.”

Warping the boat.

So saying, Antony went forward to examine into the feasibility of this plan. He found, on looking over the bow of the boat, that the water was very shallow, and nearly still; for the tide, being nearly out, flowed now with a very gentle and almost imperceptible current. Of course, as the water was shallow, and the rope that was attached to the anchor was pretty long, the anchor itself was at a considerable distance from the boat. The boys could see the rope passing obliquely along under the water, but could not see the anchor.

Antony took hold of the rope, and began to draw it in. The effect of this operation was to draw the boat up the harbor toward the anchor. When, at length, the rope was all in, Antony pulled up the grapnel, which was small and easily raised, and then swinging it to and fro several times to give it an impetus, he threw it with all his force forward. It fell into the water nearly ten feet from where it had lain before, and there sinking immediately, it laid hold of the bottom again. Antony now, by pulling upon the rope, as he had done at first, drew the boat up to the anchor at its new holding. He repeated this operation a number of times, watching the water from time to time over the bows of the boat, to see whether it was getting deeper or not. While Antony was thus engaged, the attention of Larry was suddenly attracted to the sound of oars. He looked in the direction from which the sound proceeded, and saw, at a considerable distance, a boat coming toward them.

“Here comes the gig!”

“Here comes a boat,” said Larry.

Antony looked where Larry pointed.

“Yes,” said he, “and she is headed directly toward us.”

“So she is,” said Larry.

“I verily believe it is our gig,” said Antony.

“It is,” he added, after looking a moment longer, “and there is Jack on board of her. They are coming for us.”