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Updated: June 25, 2025
"I sent for you, Mr Vandean, because I felt that you ought to hear an announcement I have to make to the whole crew of her Majesty's sloop Nautilus." He paused for a moment or two, and whispered to Mr Staples, who was close behind him. Then he nodded, and went on: "The two schooners so gallantly taken, lost, and retaken by the brave little prize crew I sent on board, have been condemned and sold.
Oh, yes, by the way, I cannot allow you young gentlemen to have pets of that class on board my ship. You are not schoolboys now. Why, you will be wanting white mice and guinea-pigs next!" "Shall I have the animal thrown overboard?" said Mr Staples. "Hump! Well er not till Mr Vandean is better. You'd like to keep it a little longer, eh?" said the captain, turning to the young invalid.
"I'm only an ignorant man, but I've heerd say that you were a parson's son, sir, and know what's right to do at such a time. Mr Vandean, sir, you must."
Hunger at first a sharp, grinding sensation of hunger attacked Mark Vandean; but as the sun rose higher this was forgotten in the intense thirst. For the heat rapidly grew scorching, and then, as Mark thought, burning, and saving the flag in the stern-sheets there was not a scrap of anything that could be used for an awning.
The words sounded incongruous ridiculous but the voice influenced the black, who turned and swam slowly toward them, trying to support his charge. "Can you see, Vandean?" said Mr Russell, who had crept to the bulwarks and stood beside the midshipman. "Yes, but how slow the boat is." "They are keeping afloat, then swimming?" "I think one of them is," said Mark in a whisper.
Then, so faintly as to be hardly heard, but with a strength in them which electrified the listeners, Mark Vandean, midshipman and mere boy, said to the stout men around him, "It's dark as pitch now, lads, so couldn't we steal aboard and serve them the same?"
He looked shoreward to faintly discern the tops of some palms, but all below these was shut in by haze which rose from the mouth of the river. "Doesn't look a healthy place, and this can't be a healthy ship, Vandean, but we must make the best of it, and be off to sea at the first chance."
"No, sir, there has been no joking," said Mark. "It has been too serious for that." "So I should suppose, my lad. Hah, Whitney, here's work for you. Poor Russell again. Been insensible for days." "And this lad burned?" said the doctor, sharply. "Why, Mr Vandean! why, my dear boy, what a state you're in! Get him under an awning at once. I'll dress your face soon."
Steady; we don't want to pass him." There was a few minutes' silence. "See him now, Mr Vandean?" said the lieutenant again, and Mark was silent for a few moments, as he scanned the surface round from beneath his hand. "No, sir, no sign of him." "Oh, don't say that, my lad. Look, look. We mustn't miss the poor fellow. Strikes me that we're going to pick up the whole cargo this way.
Might be a deal worse off, mates. Drink away; the mud won't hurt us. We're in the shade and got plenty o' water. Different to being right out at sea in a calm, eh, Mr Vandean, sir?" "Don't talk about it, my lad," said Mark. "But look, Joe Dance is getting up. Pray don't let him break loose again." For the coxswain suddenly sat up and stared about him wildly. Then calming down, he cried,
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