"
That was a good idea--to sing! He clasped his hands nonchalantly behind
his head, and began the first thing that came to his mind:
"Roses in the moonlight
To-night all thine,
Pale in the shade--"
But he did not finish. For the wind's voice was stronger, and the waves
drowned the little tune, so lonely there in the midst of the empty
water. Kirk cried himself to sleep, after all.
He could not even tell when the night gave way to cold day-break, for
the fog cloaked everything from the sun's waking warmth. It might have
been a week or a month that he had drifted on in the _Flying
Dutchman_--it certainly seemed as long as a month. But he had eaten only
two biscuits and was not yet starved, so he knew that it could not be
even so much as a week. But he did not try to sing now. He was too cold,
and he was very thirsty. He crouched under the tarpaulin, and presently
he ate another hardtack biscuit. He could not hear the lighthouse
fog-signal at all, now, and the waves were much bigger under the boat.
They lifted her up, swung her motionless for a moment, and then let her
slide giddily into the trough of another sea. "Even if I reached a
desert island," Kirk thought mournfully, "I don't know what I'd do.
People catch turkles and shoot at parrots and things, but they can see
what they're doing."
The boat rolled on, and Kirk began to feel quite wretchedly sick, and
thirstier than ever. He lay flat under the tarpaulin and tried to count
minutes.
Pages:
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122