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Updated: June 21, 2025
It was simply a very large oar, one that had appertained to the longboat of the Pandora, placed fore and aft across the swell of the stern water-cask. It was held in that position by ropes attaching it to the cask, at the same time that they permitted it to play through the water, and perform the office of a rudder.
"Too late!" echoed the voice of Le Gros from the big raft, his white teeth, as they shone through his black beard, imparting to him a ferocity of aspect that was hideous to behold. "Too late, you say, Monsieur Brace. For what, may I ask? Not too late for us to get a drink out of your water-cask. Ha! ha! ha!"
They filled the water-cask with it; they filled the keg that had held the fatal spirit; and all the time they were sucking the wet canvas, and their own clothes, and their very hands and garments on which the life-giving drops kept falling. Then they set their little sail again, and prayed for land to Him who had sent the wind and rain.
Some said ship-fever, some said mutiny; but when they come to look her over and found there wan't a water-cask aboard of her that hadn't s'runk up and gone to pieces, they settled down on the notion that she was a Spanish or a Cubian slaver, or may be a Portagee, got short o' water in the horse-latitudes; cap'n and crew left her in the boats, and the niggers Lord! it makes a body sick to think o' them.
Six days after she had left the port of Rio, a ship, traversing her path, found tokens of a wreck straw bedding such as men lay on deck in hot latitudes, a water-cask, a chest of drawers, and among other things a long boat floating bottom upwards, and bearing on her stern the ominous words "Bella, Liverpool."
We shouted to the cook: "Well done, doctor!" He sat to leeward, propped by the water-cask and yelled back abundantly, but the seas were breaking in thunder just then, and we only caught snatches that sounded like: "Providence" and "born again." He was at his old game of preaching.
"In fact, I feel just the way we all do, pretty much attached to this place where we've had such a jolly good time, after all; but we've got to think of getting home some way. We've got our water-cask ready, and our sail is done, and we've got two or three hundred pounds of fairly good provisions. We'll pull the dory up to the beach here opposite our camp and get her loaded.
Eager to carry out his plan, Johnny tied a long string to his gayest poster, and then fastening it to the pole with which he sometimes fished in the water-cask, held it up to catch the fresh breezes blowing down the court.
I believe he thought I need not have called him so early, and grumbled a little, which was very unreasonable, for the fellow had been sleeping for hours to my knowledge. Rousing our Serbs, we set them about making preparations for breakfast; but when the water was boiled and the tea made, it turned out to be utterly undrinkable. The water-cask had had sour wine in it, and the water was spoiled.
My brother was at the stern, holding on to a small empty water-cask which had been securely lashed under the coop of the counter, and was the only thing on deck that had not been swept overboard when the gale first took us.
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