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Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys Story of the Sea and its Perils, a fiction by Edward Sylvester Ellis |
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Chapter 24. Three Years |
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_ CHAPTER XXIV. THREE YEARS Three years have passed, and still Captain Bergen, Mate Storms and Inez Hawthorne are upon the lonely Pearl Island in the South Sea. Could they have believed when they left Boston that they would be doomed to such an imprisonment, it may well be doubted whether they would have made the voyage, even if assured of the vast fortune which thereby came into their hands. The three years had been dismally monotonous to them, and their courage had been tried to the utmost, for there had been times when both agreed that they would probably stay there until released by death, and then they fell to speculating as to which would be the last one to survive. According to human logic, it would seem that that lot would fall to Inez, and their hearts sank at the thought of her being left to perish in the lonely spot. When the coat fluttering from the top of the mast was blown away by the gale, Captain Bergen climbed up and nailed another in its place, grimly remarking that it looked as if they were going down with their colors flying. It was surprising what was done by Mate Storms, whose ingenuity was almost incredible. With the material at his command, he kept Inez clothed in a tasteful manner. She wore dresses and shoes which fitted her well, and her hat was renewed with extraordinary skill, from material obtained from the palm-trees. Those three years, although of indescribable weariness at times, were marked by some startling incidents, and by many worthy of record. The great object of Storms was to educate Inez, and he did his utmost in that direction, assisted by the bright intellect of the girl and her own ardent desire to explore the wonders of knowledge. There were few facilities in the way of furniture, considered so indispensable in these later days. He had no pens or ink, and only a Bible in the way of books. He had some blank paper and a single lead pencil, which were utilized to their fullest extent. For a slate or blackboard, he used the beach, as did Archimedes of the olden time. Selecting a place where the water had left it hard and smooth, Storms, with a sharp-pointed stick, made his characters and gave his instruction in the mysteries of mathematics. It would sound incredible were we to say that, during those three years, the dwellers on the lonely atoll had never descried a sail; and such was not a fact, for there are few shores on this globe where a human being can bury himself so long from sight of the white-winged birds of commerce. They had seen many ships, but it looked very much as if they themselves had not been seen, nor had their presence been suspected by any of them. "The idea of our being so nervous lest some one should get here ahead of us," remarked Storms, more than once, "when we might have delayed our coming a dozen years without any danger from that cause." They had discovered the cloud-like picture of the canvas sail as it came up over the horizon, and their hearts swelled as it expanded and came closer. But all hope faded again when it grew less in the distance and finally passed from view altogether. This had happened repeatedly, and more than once Captain Bergen had laboriously made his way up the smooth mast to the very top, where he swung his hat wildly; but it must have been that the little island in the South Seas possessed slight interest in the eyes of the navigators who occasionally drifted in that direction, for had they seen the signal of distress, or caught sight of the man frantically waving his hat from the top, they would have learned what its meaning was. The greatest dejection which took possession of the couple was when they, through the glass, saw the Stars and Stripes fluttering from the mizzen of the ship which came the nearest and then made off again. The sight of that most beautiful banner in the world was like a glimpse of their distant New England home, and they seemed to feel the cool breeze fanning their hot brows as it bore steadily toward them. When it went over the convex sea out of sight, Captain Bergen covered his face with his hands and wept, and when, after awhile, he looked up again, he saw the tears on the cheeks of Abe Storms, who stood motionless and gazing silently off upon the deep, as if he expected the vessel would come back to them. It was a severe blow, and it was a long time before they recovered from it. The exact age of Inez Hawthorne when she became, by an extraordinary turn of the wheel of fortune, the protegee of the two sailors, was, as given by herself, six years, but both the captain and mate were confident that she was fully one, if not two years older. Now, at the termination of the period named, she was a girl as fully developed mentally and physically as one of a dozen years, and she was growing into a woman of striking beauty. She was still a child, with all the innocence and simplicity which distinguished her at the time she was taken from the deck of the steamer _Polynesia_, but in a few years more, should she be spared, she would become a woman. Captain Bergen and Mate Storms were honest, conscientious men, and Christians, and they performed their full duty in that most important respect to Inez Hawthorne. Never passed a day in which Storms did not read, in an impressive voice, from the great Book of all books, and the sublime passages, the wonderful precepts, the divine truths and the sacred instruction from that volume were seed which fell upon good ground and bore its fruit in due season. If ever there was a good, pure, devout Christian, Inez Hawthorne became one, and her greatest desire, as she repeatedly expressed it, was that she might go out in the great world among all people, and do her utmost to carry the glad tidings to them. "The time will come," replied Abe Storms, when he listened to these glowing wishes. "God never intended you should live and die upon this lonely island when there is such need for missionaries like you. I don't see that we are of much account, but I believe He has something for us, too, and we shall be given the opportunity to do it." "Ah," said the skipper, with a sigh, "you have been saying that for three years, and the sails that come go again and care nothing for us. I am beginning to believe we are to stay here for the rest of our lives, and that I am to be the first one to take the long, last sleep that awaits us all." _ |
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