Two Sailor Lads by Gordon Stables

A day of more anxiety or of greater fatigue it would have been difficult to conceive, than that which our heroes endured, in their perilous voyage towards the unknown island. The sun blazed almost perpendicularly down on them at mid-day. Both Fred and Frank had been red before, but now it seemed as though they would soon be burned as black as Quambo or Cassia-bud himself. So fierce was the sun's heat that neither of the lads could partake of the food they had taken with them. Their thirst became almost unbearable at last, and the cocoanut milk, or rather water from the young nuts, which they drank, appeared rather to increase than to assuage their thirst. What would they not have given for a draught of cool spring water from the little rill that trickled from the rock near the igloo at Methlin! Strange that they should have both been thinking about this at the same time, but so it soon turned out.

"I know where I should like to be, Fred, just for five minutes," said Frank, as they paused for a moment's rest.

"Oh, I know! " cried Fred; "at the igloo fountain!"

"Yes, lying under the rocks there, and watching the water trickling through the green grass and the rushes, and laving my brow with it, and filling my hands with the clear water, and drinking from my hands."

"Oh, I shouldn't! I should stick my mouth right into the well at the foot, and I don't think I would ever stop drinking."

It is not to be wondered at that in their dire extremity the boys talked thus; for I have found from experience that the next best thing to eating food or drinking water, when you are very hungry or thirsty, and cannot get any, is to think of it. This is natural, and seems to soothe one. When lying ill of a burning fever on African shores, I remember that in my dreams I used to fancy myself wandering by rippling burns in my far-off home in Scotland.

To-day Cassia-bud was coxswain as usual, but towards afternoon, when thoroughly faint and weary, many a look behind them did the rowers cast.

To make matters worse, they found that when still three miles at least away from the island the current was so strong it began to be a matter of doubt whether they should ever reach it.

The boat's head was kept well up therefore, and all hands redoubled their efforts to send her on. Fred even started a song, but for once in a way this was a failure. There was nothing for it but to struggle on in silence.

At long last they got clear out of the race of the tide, and now it remained to find a landing-place.

The island was a very lovely and romantic-looking one indeed, an island evidently formed at first by volcanic upheaval, but now green-clad, to the summit of its strangely-shaped hills, with a luxuriance of tropical vegetation such as no one in the boat had ever seen surpassed.

It was doubtless the reflected image of this beautiful isle of the sea, that had caused the mirage which lost our heroes their ship.

They now lay on their oars for a time, to rest and think. It seemed evident that the island was uninhabited. Never a canoe was seen anywhere near it, nor were there any signs of hut or habitation by the beach, and never a vestige of smoke.

However, it appeared to be a very large island, and as yet they had seen but a portion of it. They first made the northern end of it; but here all around was a wall of black beetling crags frowning over the sea, the waves dashing up the sides of it and breaking into snow-white foam with a booming noise, that, mingling with the cry of sea-birds, made a wild and weird-like chorus on the still evening air.

There was no time to be lost, for the sun was rapidly declining; so, noticing that the dip of the hills trended to the southward and west, they made haste to row in that direction. The crags got lower and lower, but jutted out to sea at last, forming a cape or rocky promontory. Once past this, they found a coral reef lying all along the tree-shaded shore, about three hundred yards distant from it. On this the breakers were dashing with great force, and tossing their white arms high in air.

They rowed along the edge of this terrible barrier; and just as they were about to despair of finding an opening, beheld in front of them a narrow, very narrow, creek of unbroken water.

"Hard a-port, Kashia! Round with her, boy!"

"Ha'd a-po't it is, sah! " cried Cassia-bud.

Round came the boat like a beauty, and next moment they were carried right into a splendid reef-locked harbour, large enough for the whole British navy to have lain snugly and comfortably in.

"Heaven be praised! " said Fred with a sigh, as he paused to wipe the perspiration from his brow.