Page 274 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

board, and with them nearly a fifth of their scanty store of
water. In the face of the greater peril, the accident seemed
trifling; and as, drenched and chilled, they gained the open
sea, they could not but admit that fortune had almost mi-
raculously befriended them.
They made tedious way with their rude oars; a light
breeze from the north-west sprang up with the dawn, and,
hoisting the goat-skin sail, they crept along the coast. It was
resolved that the two men should keep watch and watch;
and Frere for the second time enforced his authority by giv-
ing the first watch to Rufus Dawes. ‘I am tired,’ he said, ‘and
shall sleep for a little while.’ Rufus Dawes, who had not slept
for two nights, and who had done all the harder work, said
nothing. He had suffered so much during the last two days
that his senses were dulled to pain.
Frere slept until late in the afternoon, and, when he woke,
found the boat still tossing on the sea, and Sylvia and her
mother both seasick. This seemed strange to him. Sea-sick-
ness appeared to be a malady which belonged exclusively
to civilization. Moodily watching the great green waves
which curled incessantly between him and the horizon, he
marvelled to think how curiously events had come about.
A leaf had, as it were, been torn out of his autobiography. It
seemed a lifetime since he had done anything but moodily
scan the sea or shore. Yet, on the morning of leaving the
settlement, he had counted the notches on a calendar-stick
he carried, and had been astonished to find them but twen-
ty-two in number. Taking out his knife, he cut two nicks
in the wicker gunwale of the coracle. That brought him to