"I've a chaw of baccy, sir," said Mike; "it's me last, but it's at yir
sarvice."
Poor Ashurst uttered an expression of disgust. Just then Owen
thankfully recollected that he had put a couple of small limes, some of
which he had been eating late on the previous evening, into his pocket.
He immediately skinned one of the refreshing fruit, and handed it in
small pieces to Ashurst.
"This from you, Hartley?" he said, as he swallowed it eagerly.
"I have another which will be at your service when you want it," said
Owen, not noticing the remark, and feeling intense pleasure at thus
being able to help his suffering messmate. Every thought of the
ill-treatment he had received vanished from his mind. Langton and Owen
now examined Ashurst's hurts. They found that his left arm had either
been dislocated or broken, and that a splinter had torn his side and
severely wounded him.
"He is in a bad way," whispered Langton to Owen; "had one of the
surgeons been with us, he might have been doctored, but as it is, I do
not think he will weather out what we shall have to endure. I ought to
tell him so if he gets worse, but we will do our best for him."
As daylight increased, they saw other masses of wreck floating about,
while a portion of the shattered upper works of the frigate appeared
above the water with several men clinging to them. A current, however,
was running from the wreck, slowly drifting the raft away. Who the
people were it was impossible to say at that distance.
"Unless a breeze springs up to blow us back we cannot get up to them,"
said Langton; "we will rig our sail, however, in case it should come."
While engaged in setting up the mast, Mike and Nat especially were
keeping an eye on the water around them, in the hopes of picking up
something that might be floating by.
Without giving notice of what he was about to do, Mike suddenly sprang
off the raft and swam out towards an object of which he had just caught
sight.
"This will serve us for mate and drink too," he exclaimed, as he swam
back, pushing before him a couple of melon-like fruit. He handed them
up to Nat, and without getting on the raft, swam off to the other side,
where he saw a small barrel, which proved to contain biscuits. This was
but a small supply of food; but the fact that they had found it made
them hope that more might be obtained. The water remained perfectly
smooth, which was an advantage.
As the sun rose the heat became intense. Poor Ashurst suffered greatly,
even though Owen gave him piece by piece the remainder of the lime, and
then supplied him with small bits of the melon.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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