"Wal, word got round what land it was,--some of the crew had been that way before,--and I tell ye we was a pooty sick-lookin' crew. There warn't a breath o' wind, nor the shadow of a breath; and we kep' on a-driftin', till pooty soon we could see the shore plain, and black savages runnin' up and down, hollerin', and wavin' their arms. They see us, and were all ready for us; and pooty soon we could make out that they was pilin' up logs o' wood, makin' fires--Seth, what in time made you start me in on this yarn? 'Tain't no kind o' thing for this gal to hear." Annie Lizzie's eyes were like brown stars, her cheeks like Old Sir's carmine stock. "Oh, Mr. Rock!" she cried, "if Mis' Tree could bear it, I guess I can. Please go on! I _have_ to hear the rest. And besides," she added, naïvely, "of course I know you wasn't all--" She paused. "No, we wasn't eat," said Salem Rock; "but I tell ye, little gal, we was as near it as a person is anyways desirous to come. We was that near, we see them critters grinnin' their white teeth at us, and heard their devils' screechin' and chatterin'. When it got to that, Cap'n called the crew aft, and told 'em, quiet and easy, how things was. "'If the wind comes up within ten minutes,' he says, 'we are safe; if not, then we've had our time in this world,' he says, 'and behoves us be ready for another. I see no reason, and Mis' Tree sees no reason, why we should go in that beastly fashion yonder,' he says, pointin' to the yellin' savages; 'and therefore I have give my orders, and before we touch that shore the doctor will serve an extry grog, that will take you through sleep to the presence of your Maker, and may He have mercy on your souls and mine!' "'Amen!' says Mis' Tree, clear and crisp; and I see she had a little bottle in her hand, holdin' it tight, and the other hand in Cap'n's. Jerusalem! she had grit! "Wal, there was no words said. 'Twas a good crew, 'most all of 'em Quahaug men; your father was one of 'em, Seth." Seth nodded gravely. "But we got together forrard, and watched the shore, and Cap'n and Mis' Tree stood aft and kep' their eye on the wind. "That shore come nearer; it come nearer than was anyways comfortable. I warn't nothin' but a boy, and I can remember wonderin' whether the folks to home would ever know, and whether Cap'n would write the story and put it in a bottle, same as in books I'd read; and what'd become of the ship, and the little monkey I was tamin' for my sister. And then--then somebody sung out somethin', and I turned round; and there stood Cap'n Tree, with the tears runnin' over his face, and his arm up, p'intin' at the pennon on the masthead. "'Bout ship!' he says; and that same moment come a puff o' wind from the shore; and then pooty soon another; and then the land-breeze set in good and steady.