Page 384 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

ashore for us, out of so little which there was on board.
When I consider your present undertaking, without a com-
petent navigator, and in a leaky vessel, your situation seems
most perilous; therefore I hope God will prove kind to you,
and preserve you from the manifold dangers you may have
to encounter on the stormy ocean.’ Mrs. Vickers also was
pleased to say that I had behaved kindly to her, that she
wished me well, and that when she returned to Hobart Town
she would speak in my favour. They then cheered us on our
departure, wishing we might be prosperous on account of
our humanity in sharing the provisions with them.
‘Having had breakfast, we commenced throwing over-
board the light cargo which was in the hold, which employed
us until dinnertime. After dinner we ran out a small kedge-
anchor with about one hundred fathoms of line, and having
weighed anchor, and the tide being slack, we hauled on the
kedge-line, and succeeded in this manner by kedging along,
and we came to two islands, called the Cap and Bonnet. The
whole of us then commenced heaving the brig short, send-
ing the whale-boat to take her in tow, after we had tripped
the anchor. By this means we got her safe across the Bar.
Scarcely was this done when a light breeze sprang up from
the south-west, and firing a musket to apprize the party we
had left of our safety, we made sail and put out to sea.’
Having read thus far, Sylvia paused in an agony of rec-
ollection. She remembered the firing of the musket, and
that her mother had wept over her. But beyond this all was
uncertainty. Memories slipped across her mind like shad-
ows—she caught at them, and they were gone. Yet the