The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old FavoritesTappan, Eva March
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The Children's Hour, v 5. Stories From Seven Old Favorites
Tappan, Eva March
Children's stories; Literature -- Adaptations
With this design we changed our course, and steered away N.W. by W. in
order to reach some of our English islands, where I hoped for relief;
but our voyage was otherwise determined; for being in the latitude of
12° 18', a second storm came upon us, which carried us away with the
same impetuosity westward, and drove us so out of the very way of all
human commerce that had all our lives been saved as to the sea, we
were rather in danger of being devoured by savages than ever returning
to our own country.
In this distress, the wind still blowing very hard, one of our men
early in the morning cried out, "Land!" and we had no sooner ran out
of the cabin to look out, in hopes of seeing whereabouts in the world
we were, but the ship struck upon a sand, and in a moment, her motion
being so stopped, the sea broke over her in such a manner that we
expected we should all have perished immediately; and we were
immediately driven into our close quarters, to shelter us from the
very foam and spray of the sea.
It is not easy for any one who has not been in the like condition to
describe or conceive the consternation of men in such circumstances.
We knew nothing where we were, or upon what land it was we were
driven, whether an island or the main, whether inhabited or not
inhabited; and as the rage of the wind was still great, though rather
less than at first, we could not so much as hope to have the ship hold
many minutes without breaking in pieces, unless the winds, by a kind
of miracle, should turn immediately about. In a word, we sat looking
one upon another, and expecting death every moment, and every man
acting accordingly, as preparing for another world; for there was
little or nothing more for us to do in this. That which was our
present comfort, and all the comfort we had, was that, contrary to our
expectation, the ship did not break yet, and that the master said the
wind began to abate.
Now, though we thought that the wind did a little abate, yet the ship
having thus struck upon the sand, and sticking too fast for us to
expect her getting off, we were in a dreadful condition indeed, and
had nothing to do but to think of saving our lives as well as we
could. We had a boat at our stern just before the storm, but she was
first staved by dashing against the ship's rudder, and in the next
place she broke away, and either sunk or was driven off to sea, so
there was no hope from her; we had another boat on board, but how to
get her off into the sea was a doubtful thing. However, there was no
room to debate, for we fancied the ship would break in pieces every
minute, and some told us she was actually broken already.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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