In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster BoyHenty, G. A. (George Alfred)
History
In the Reign of Terror: The Adventures of a Westminster Boy
Henty, G. A. (George Alfred)
France -- History -- Revolution, 1789-1799 -- Fiction; Historical fiction
"We killed one and drank the blood, and ate our first meal raw.
Then we cut up the rest of the flesh and hung it up in the sun to
dry. That very night we saw the clouds banking up, and knew it
was going to rain.
"'Now,' our mate said, 'if we had but a barrel we could catch water
and start in our boat, but without that the water will last only a
day or two; for if we kill all the turtles and fill their shells,
it will evaporate in a day under this hot sun, and it may be weeks
before there is rain again, and we might as well have died at once.
"'For shame,' the woman said. 'You are doubting the good God again,
after he has saved your life and has sent you food and is now going
to send you water. Do you think he has done all this for nothing?
There must be some way out of the difficulty if we could but think
of it.'
"She sat looking at the turtle for two or three minutes, and then
said:
"'It is easy. Why have you not thought of it? See there. Cut off
one of their heads, and then you can get your arm in, if you take
the biggest. Then cut out all the meat and bones piece by piece,
and there is a great bottle which will hold gallons.'
"We shouted for joy, for it was as she had said, though I am sure
none of us would ever have thought of it if God had not given her
the idea. We soon set to work and got the shell ready. The rain
storm came quickly. We had turned the boat over, the oars had been
washed away, but the mast and sail were lashed to the thwarts. We
made a little hollow in the sand and stretched out the sail, and by
the time this was done and the men were ready with the turtle-shell
the rain came. When it rains in those parts it comes down in
bucketfuls, and we soon had enough in the sail to drink our fill
and to fill up the turtle-shell to the top.
"The next morning we got the boat afloat, put the other turtle
in, with our stock of dried flesh and our shell of water, and set
sail. But our luck seemed gone. We lay for days scarce moving
through the water, with the sail hanging idle and the sun blazing
down upon us. We had not been careful enough of the water at first,
making sure that in three or four days we should sight land, and
when after three days we put ourselves on short rations, there was
scarce a gallon of water left.
"It was a week after that before we saw a sail. Two of the men had
jumped overboard raving mad, the rest were lying well-nigh senseless
in the bottom of the boat. Only the woman was sitting up, holding
her child in her arms. She was very weak, too; but she had never
complained, never doubted for a moment. Her eyes went from the
child's face over the sea to look for the help she felt would come,
and back again, and at last she said quite quiet and natural:
"'There is the ship. I knew it must come to-day, for my child could
not live through another night.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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