The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
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The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
I found no effect from all I could do, but plainly perceived my
closet to be moved along; and in the space of an hour, or better,
that side of the box where the staples were, and had no windows,
struck against something that was hard. I apprehended it to be a
rock, and found myself tossed more than ever. I plainly heard a
noise upon the cover of my closet, like that of a cable, and the
grating of it as it passed through the ring. I then found myself
hoisted up by degrees, at least three feet higher than I was
before. Whereupon I again thrust up my stick and handkerchief,
calling for help till I was almost hoarse. In return to which I
heard a great shout repeated three times, giving me such
transports of joy as are not to be conceived but by those who
feel them. I now heard a trampling over my head, and somebody
calling through the hole with a loud voice, in the English tongue,
If there be anybody below, let them speak. I answered, I was an
Englishman, drawn by ill fortune into the greatest calamity that
ever any creature underwent, and begged, by all that was moving,
to be delivered out of the dungeon I was in. The voice replied, I
was safe, for my box was fastened to their ship; and the carpenter
should immediately come and saw a hole in the cover, large enough
to pull me out. I answered that was needless, and would take up
too much time; for there was no more to be done, but let one of
the crew put his finger into the ring, and take the box out of the
sea into the ship, and so into the captain's cabin. Some of them,
upon hearing me talk so wildly, thought I was mad; others laughed;
for indeed it never came into my head, that I was now got among
people of my own stature and strength. The carpenter came, and in
a few minutes sawed a passage about four feet square, then let
down a small ladder, upon which I mounted, and thence was taken
into the ship in a very weak condition.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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