Our baby,
too, saw little of sun or sea; for, being but a sickly baby, with hardly
vitality enough to live from day to day, it was kept below, smothered in
the finest of linens and the softest of paduasoy.
One morning when the fog lifted, Dickenson's watch for danger was
rewarded. They had lost their way in the night; the fleet was gone, the
dead blue slopes of water rolled up to the horizon on every side and
were met by the dead blue sky, without the break of a single sail or the
flicker of a flying bird. For fifteen days they beat about without any
apparent aim other than to escape the enemies whom they hourly expected
to leap out from behind the sky-line. On the sixteenth day friendly
signs were made to them from shore. "A fire made a great Smoak, and
People beckoned to us to putt on Shoar," but Kirle and Dickenson, seized
with fresh fright, put about and made off as for their lives, until nine
o'clock that night, when, seeing two signal-lights, doubtless from some
of their own convoy, they cried out, "The French! the French!" and
tacked back again as fast as might be. The next day, Kirle being
disabled by a jibbing boom, Dickenson brought his own terrors into
command, and for two or three days whisked the unfortunate barkentine up
and down the coast, afraid of both sea and shore, until finally, one
night, he run her aground on a sand-bar on the Florida reefs.
Pages:
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220