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Updated: June 14, 2025
Our thirst was now extreme, and to appease it being without a dipper to drop into the cask we sank a handkerchief through the bung-hole and wrung it out in the half of a cocoa-nut shell that was in the boat as a baler, and by this means procured a drink, each man. Grateful to God indeed was I that we had fresh water with us.
The steam-engine at the gin panted throughout all the long hot hours, the baler squealed and rasped and groaned, as it bound up the product into marketable compass, but there was no one waking near enough to note how the guest of the mansion was pacing the floor in a stress of nervous excitement, and to comment on the fact. Toward sunset, a sudden commotion roused the slumbrous place.
Meanwhile Tom Jecks sat fast, pressing his feet against the jacket placed over the hole, and kept baling, while Ching took his time from him, and used his baler with enough skill to help get rid of a great deal of water, so that the boat was freed to an extent which set aside all danger of our sinking; but with all their efforts they never got beyond a certain point, for the water oozed in pretty constantly through and round the extempore plug.
As it grew lighter the rain became more heavy, and at last it came down in a perfect deluge, increasing so in violence that before long one of the men was set to work with the baler emptying the water out that collected under the thwarts.
"Yer health, messmets," he said, raising the baler, "and wishing us all out of our difficulties." He took another sip of the muddy fluid, and nodded as he passed the tin to the next man. "Drink hearty, messmet," he said, "and pass it on. This is something like water. Reg'lar strong slab stuff as has got plenty o' victuals in it as well as drink. Reg'lar meaty water, like soup."
His pen was made from an osprey's feather, hundreds of which were strewn about the cliffs, and some of these he had already secured and dried. Placing his tin baler before him, on which he had scratched his notes, he drew a map of the island. "What shall we call it?" said he. Helen paused, and then replied, "Call it 'GODSEND' Island." "So I will," he said, and wrote it down.
Moreover, a short, steep, choppy sea had been raised that proved very trying to us, the boat driving her sharp stem viciously into it, and throwing frequent heavy showers of spray over herself, that not only drenched us all to the skin, but also necessitated the continuous use of the baler.
"Here with the gaff!" cries Peer, and Peter throws it across to him. "What is it, what is it?" shriek the other three. "Steady! don't upset the boat; a catfish." A stroke of the gaff over the side, and a clumsy grey body is heaved into the boat, where it rolls about, hissing and biting at the bottom-boards and baler, the splinters crackling under its teeth.
"Yes," I said; "I'm so thirsty, I must have a drop." He dipped the baler in carefully, and brought it out dripping. "Has anybody else drunk any?" I said. "Oh yes, sir, all on us; and I says to you as I says to them, you shut your eyes, sir, and think you've been eating bloaters, or codfish, or fried sole. Then tip it down quick, and you'll says it's lovely." "Ugh!"
In addition to these, La Salle found one large boat, the broken smaller one, a pair of oars, a pair of rowlocks, a short boat-hook, baler, two lead-lines and leads, two shovels, and two axes. "We are well provided for a week of such weather as this, and have only to fear a sudden change to extreme cold.
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