All this, however, was the work of hours. The boys watched it all as though they were held to the spot by a species of fascination. There seemed to be a spell upon them. They could not tear themselves away. But at last there was nothing left; nothing but floating fragments; or timbers flung by the waves on the shore, with which the waves seemed to play, as they hurled them forward and drew them back; while of the Petrel herself there was no sign--no coherent mass, however battered and beaten, which might serve to be pointed out as the representative of the ship that once bore them all. Of that ship there was nothing left; she was dissolved; she was scattered afar; she was no more. Such was the end of the Petrel. Hours had passed while the boys were watching there. At length they started back to their camp. They walked on in silence. There was a certain sadness over all. This sadness arose in part from the scene which they had just witnessed, and in part out of their anxiety about Arthur and Tom, which now had grown to be serious, since they had seen with their own eyes the power of the waves. When the strong ship had yielded, what chance had that frail boat? And Arthur and Tom knew very little about navigation. Where were they now? With these sad and anxious thoughts, they made their way back, and found Solomon in a state of great excitement because they had kept dinner waiting. They found that it was past three o’clock, and were amazed that it was so late. Dinner was now served, accompanied by lamentations long and loud from Solomon, who protested against such neglect and indifference as they had shown, whereby everything had become spoiled from waiting. “Now dis yer dinna, chilen, am no common dinna,” said he. “I ben makin rangements to hab a rail fust-chop, stylish dinna, and hab cocted a new dish ob succotash. I took some potted corn an biled it wid the beans, an if dat don’t make succotash, I don’ know what do--dat’s all; an dat ar succotash, wid de ham, and oysta chowda, an coffee, an game pie, an tomato, had ought to make a men-jous good dinna; ought so.” The boys said nothing. They were hungry, and they were also sad. For both reasons they felt disinclined to speak. They were anxious about Arthur and Tom; they also felt mournful about the sad fate of the Petrel; they also had dismal forebodings about their own future; but at the same time they were most undeniably hungry, ravenously hungry, in fact; and Bruce, who was most sad and most anxious, was the hungriest of the crowd. So they all sat down to dinner, and, first of all, they devoted themselves to Solomon’s succotash. This was a compound of potted corn and dried beans; and though the real original succotash is a dish compounded from green corn and green beans, yet this was no bad substitute; and they all felt, in spite of their sadness, that it was an idea whose originality did infinite credit to the culinary genius of Solomon.