The Adventurous Four - - Страница 4

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"But I don't want to," said Tom. "I shall be able to keep awake all right."

"Go below, Tom," said Andy,in the kind of voice that had to be obeyed. Tom weitt into the little cabin with the girls. They left the door open, for it was warm. The girls lay on the bunk and Tom curled up on the pile of rugs on the floor. In, two minutes he was asleep. He did not know how tired he was. The wind, rain and sea had taken all his strength out of him for a time.

Andy stayed alone on deck. The sun had gone down in a blaze of gold. The sky had turned pink and the sea had turned pink too. Now it was evening and the first stars were winking in the darkening sky.

The little boat drove on and on. Andy hoped desperately that land would soon come in sight. He remembered so clearly what his father had said. Right past the Little Island, far to the north, lay other islands, desolate now, but once owned by a few farmers, who tried to get a hard living from the rocky soil. If only they could get help there!

Night fell darkly on the waters. The moon sailed into the sky, but clouds kept hiding her light. First the sea was gleaming silver, then ft was black, then it was silver again. Andy wished he could see something besides the sea. But there was nothing.

The boy stayed on deck until midnight. He felt the night wind and wrapped a rug round his shoulders, though he did not feel really cold. After a while he whistled to Tom.

Tom awoke. "Coming," he said sleepily, and went up on deck. He shivered and Andy threw the rug round Jim. "Keep her heading straight," he said. "Give me a call if you see anything."

It was queer up on deck all alone. The old sail flapped and creaked a little. The water went plash-lash-lash against the sides of the boat. The moon sailed in and out of the clouds as if she were a silver boat in the sky.

Then came a thick mass of clouds and the moon disappeared altogether. Tom couldn't see anything at all. He strained his eyes to try and pierce through the darkness but except for the gleaming white top of a near by wave now and then, he could see nothing.

But he could hear something, quite suddenly. It sounded like crashing waves. Tom longed for the moon to come out—and as he wished for it, it came sliding out from a cloud for a second before it disappeared again.

And in that tiny space of time Tom saw something that gave him a shock. The sea was breaking over big rocks just ahead!

"Andy! Andy!" yelled Tom, wrenching the tiller round. "Rocks ahead!"

Andy came tumbling up the steps, wide awake at once. He heard the sound of breaking waves and knew at once there were rocks ahead. He took the tiller.

And then there came a grating noise and a long groan from the ship. She was on the recks! She had run straight on to them—and there she lay, groaning, half over, slanting so much that the girls in the little cabin were thrown out of the bunk.

"Hold on, Tom," shouted Andy, clutching at Tom, who seemed about to slide overboard. "Hold on! She's settling!"

The ship did settle. She seemed to be wedged between two rocks that were holding her tightly, all on the slant. Waves splashed over one side of her deck.

For a few minutes the children hardly dared to breathe—and then Andy spoke.

"She's fast," he said. "She may have a hole in her bottom, but she won't sink while she's held like this. We must wait till dawn»

So they waited, clinging uncomfortably to the slanting sides of the ship. Dawn was not far off It silvered the eastern sky as they waited The light grew stronger, and then a gold edge appeared on the horizon. The sun was about to rise.

And in the golden light of the early sun they saw something not far off that made them shout for joy.

"Land ho!" they yelled, and would have danced in delight if only the deck had not been so slanting. And land ho there certainly was!

A sandy shore stretched to a rocky cliff Stunted trees grew further inland, touched with gold by the rising sun. It was an island of some sort, desolate, rocky and lonely—but it was at least land! Somewhere where they could light a fire and boil water to make themselves warm. Somewhere where other people might be to give them a helping hand.

"We'll have to swim for it," said Andy. "It's not very far. Once we're clear of these rocks we'll be all right. In fact, now that the tide has gone down a bit we could almost walk over the rocks, to the shallow water that runs up the shore."

Andy held out his hand to Mary. Tom helped Jill. Half-wading, half-swimming, they made their way over and between the reef of rocks, and paddled to shore. The sun had warmth in it now and warmed their cold bodies. How glad they all were that they had taken Andy's advice and had put on warm clothes!

"Well," said Andy, when they had reached the shore, "we'll climb up these cliffs and see if we can spot anyone's house."

They climbed the rocky cliffs. When they got to the top they looked around. A small stunted wood grew a little way off, on a hillside. Low bushes crouched here and there as if to hide from the strong wind that blew always across the island. Grass crept over the rocky earth, and a few daisies flowered. But there was no sign of any house, or of any human being.

Andy made up his mind quickly.

"If we've got to be stranded here for a time we must get out of our ship everything that's in her," he said. "Thank goodness we've got a certain amount of food and some rugs. The tide is at its lowest now—when it is high it will completely cover the deck of our boat—so we must wade back to her and take off everything of value in her. Come on, Tom. You girls can stand halfway to the boat in that shallow water, and we'll cany things to you over the rocks. Then you can take them back to the shore. It will be better than us all scrambling about on the rocks and dropping everything."

And so they began to empty the ship of all it held-" food, rugs, gramophone, camera, field-glasses, stool, table, tools, crockery, kettle, matches, little stove, everything! It took a long time—but before they had finished the tide had risen and the decks were awash. The cabin was full of water I

"We can't do anything more," said Andy. "Let's go and have a rest—and something to eat. I'm simply starving."

It was a rather solemn set of children who sat down on the shore to eat breakfast. They had been brave during the storm—but now they all felt very tired and rather scared. It was strange to think they might have to stay for quite a long time on the unknown island until they were rescued—and supposing they were right off the route of the ships and steamers that used those seas?

Andy took charge. He was the oldest and wisest, and the others looked up to him. He was old for his fourteen years. He stared out at their wrecked ship, and wrinkled his forehead.

"Well, we're in a nice fix," he said. "But we'll forget it for a minute and enjoy our breakfast. We'd better finish up all the bread, for it will soon be stale. We'll eat all the food that might go bad—there that open jar of potted meat, Tom, that we began last night—and the rest of the butter—and those buns that Mrs. Andrews gave us. And what about something hot to drink? I don't feel really cold, but it would do us good to get something hot inside us. Look—I brought the matches with me, wrapped in this oilskin so that they wouldn't get wet. We can't get the stove going till we get the tin of oil out of the locker in the boat—we forgot that—so we'd better make a fire on the beach."

Tom and Jill collected sticks, and soon there was a fine fire going. Andy went off up the cliff to see if he could find a stream to fill the kettle, which they had taken from the boat. He had to go a good way before he found a spring running down the little hill in the distance. He filled the kettle and went back to the cove.

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