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Updated: June 3, 2025
They persevered, and at length the captain spoke in a low voice, asking where he was. "You are safe on a rock," answered Emery. "We shall know better when sun rise." Just then a voice was heard at no great distance, shouting. Hixon hailed in return, "Where are you?" "On an island of some sort," was the answer. "Many more saved?" Hixon replied that the captain and ten men had escaped.
"That's wonderful," exclaimed old Hixon, after Peter had explained the truth in several ways to make him understand it. "I can hardly believe it; and yet I suppose if one chap deserved a thrashing from me, and a bigger one said, `Thrash me instead, and I did thrash him, and well too, I could not thrash the little one also." Hixon continued silent for awhile and said nothing.
First one man made his way along it, then another and another, and all were going, with the exception of Emery and Bill, who, with Peter and old Hixon, stayed by the captain. The latter, seeing this, cried out, "Shame, lads; would you desert the captain when he is unable to help himself?"
Simon Hixon was his greatest foe, and frequently as Peter passed gave him a blow with a rope's-end. One day as Peter was quietly reading his Bible in the berth, Hixon swore that if he found him again at it, he would throw the book overboard. "It would be a great shame to do that," answered Peter, "and I hope you won't try. God would, I am sure, not allow you to go unpunished."
"A few drinks ahead," he said to himself, with a sneer, "an' he won't remember who Malviny Hixon was, ef thar is ennything in the old tale which it's more'n apt thar ain't." He began, after the fashion of successful people, to cavil because his success was not more complete. How the time was wasting here in this uncomfortable interlude!
This was all Peter wanted. He read the parable of the "Pharisee and Publican." "Which of them do you like the best?" asked Peter. "Can't say I care for that proud chap who thought himself better than anybody else. I like t'other more, a good deal." "Because he says, `Lord, be merciful to me a sinner'?" asked Peter. "Ay," said Hixon, bending down his head.
"So I should, sir, a few weeks ago, but Peter there, out of his Bible, showed me what a sinner I was, and how I must love Jesus Christ and obey Him, and I know He would not have left any man to perish, and so, sir, as long as you live and I hope we shall escape from this rock I will not leave you." "Thank you, Hixon," said the captain; "I am sure you speak the truth.
But on which side he would find himself, he did not know. At Hixon, they found that deceptive air of serenity which made the history of less than three months ago seem paradoxical and fantastically unreal.
The captain took his post by the companion-hatch, gazing around and considering what orders to issue. Hixon, when he found that all hope of the ship moving off the rock was gone, quitted the helm, and seizing Peter dragged him to the weather bulwarks. The next instant loud shrieks were heard.
Captain Barrow spoke frequently to Peter and old Hixon, and when the ship reached Sydney he invited them to remain on board and return with him. Both Bill and Emery also gladly entered among her crew, while Captain Hauslar took a passage back in her to England.
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