William went and pushed Ready on the shoulder. "Ready, have you had
sleep enough?" said William, as the old man sat up.
"Yes, William. I have had a good nap, I expect; and now I will get up,
and see what I can get for breakfast for you all."
"Do," replied William, laughing.
Ready was soon dressed, for he had only taken off his jacket when he
lay down. He put it on, and came out of the tent; when, to his
astonishment, he found the whole party (Mrs. Seagrave having come out
with the children) standing round the breakfast, which was spread on
the ground.
"Good-morning, Ready!" said Mrs. Seagrave, extending her hand. Mr.
Seagrave also shook hands with him.
"You have had a good long sleep, Ready," said Mr. Seagrave, "and I
would not waken you after your fatigue of yesterday."
"I thank you, sir; and I am glad to see that Madam is so well: and I am
not sorry to see that you can do so well without me," continued Ready,
smiling.
"Indeed, but we cannot, I'm afraid," replied Mrs. Seagrave; "had it not
been for you and your kindness, where should we have been now?"
"We can get a breakfast ready without you," said Mr. Seagrave; "but
without you, I think we never should have required another breakfast by
this time. But we will tell Ready all we have done while we eat our
breakfast: now, my dear, if you please." Mrs. Seagrave then read a
chapter from the Bible, and afterwards they all knelt down while Mr.
Seagrave offered up a prayer.
While they were at breakfast, William told Ready how they had gone on
board, and what they had brought on shore, and he also mentioned how
Juno had dipped all the children in the sea.
"But Juno must not do that again," replied Ready, "until I have made
all safe; you know that there are plenty of sharks about these islands,
and it is very dangerous to go into the water."
"Oh, what an escape they have had!" cried Mrs. Seagrave, shuddering.
"It's very true," continued Ready; "but they don't keep so much to the
windward of the islands where we are at present; but still that smooth
cove is a very likely place for them to come into; so it's just as well
not to go in again, Juno, until I have time to make a place for you to
bathe in in safety. As soon as we can get as much as we want from the
ship, we must decide whether we shall stay here or not."
"Stay here or not, Ready! - what do you mean?"
"Why, we have not yet found any water, and that is the first necessary
of life - if there is no water on this side of the island, we must
pitch our tents somewhere else."
"That's very true," replied Mr. Seagrave; "I wish we could find time to
explore a little."
"So we can, sir; but we must not lose this fine weather to get a few
things from the ship. We had better go now. You and William can remain
on board to collect the things, and I will land them on the beach for
Juno to bring up."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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